Jesus Christ Show | Hour 1 [07/02]

You're listening to KFI on demand, I bet you've heard the phrase there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. This famous phrase, you probably hear it all the time, popped up and became popular in American literature from around the late eighteen hundreds on into the early nineteen hundreds, and it derived its meaning from the special free lunch that was offered with your drink at many saloons

in the US. So, if you can imagine, these so called free lunches would sometimes be they could be kind of rudimentary in style, or they could be very elaborate, and sometimes they were quite elaborate, and we're typically much more expensive than the cost of just one drink. So the saloon keeper was kind of banking on the customer not only buying a second or maybe even a third drink and balancing things out a little bit, but also building return.

Customers, give a little up front and you can get a little later. It builds this kind of goodwill. At least it appeared that way, but ultimately with more drinks and more frequency to the saloon, that really a saloon keeper was making much of the money back. These types of so called free offers still exist today in one form or another. But make no mistake, there's nothing in life that is truly free. Everything, everything worthwhile comes at a price. You may not always be the one paying, but I

assure you someone one is always making the payment. I'll explain how this all ties in fourth July coming up, but I want you to think about maybe that time in your life where where you were growing up and all of a sudden you became of age to where your parents started expecting you to pay for

things. I'll give you a moment to remember such a horrific concept, But there is there's a time where maybe you get to an age where your parents think, well, you can we go out somewhere or something like that, you can pay for your meal, and maybe it's later, or maybe you're

even out of the house at that point. My producer Neil and I were talking about this very, very concept, and he says he remembers quite distinctly that moment when his father looked up at him and said or put his money out for his meal when they were out and expected producer Neil to pay his

part of the tab, And how wonderfully shocking that is in life. But also reminds you that nothing is free, that there's a time and a point where everyone makes a payment on things, or somebody's making payments for things. And unfortunately, and some may say that today it's particularly bad these days, but the importance is to appreciate it and to know that nothing comes without any

price. And the fourth of July, which of course commemorates the Declaration of Independence, the creation, the signing, this moment, this opportunity to be free or to focus on a new ideas, and to enjoy the freedoms therein. It's important to remember that all you have today, everything is because someone was willing to sacrifice or to make a payment for it. It didn't come

cheaply. It certainly did not come free. Over two hundred and thirty years ago, a group of people made huge sacrifices and fought so that the thirteen Colonies could give birth to the United States. That is something that you should never forget. You should always have that in the front of your mind,

that the things that you enjoy today came at a price. Like everything, that idea of no free lunch points back to that points back more to like marketing schemes or the idea of somebody trying to lure you in, but really it's if done properly, it's a balance of things. We want to show you that we are a place to enjoy, or that you can come and eat and drink or do what have you play games. Often you you'll hear about Las Vegas or casinos offering you know, cheaper rooms, free rooms,

things like that. It's not just a marketing ploy. I want to get you in knowing that you'll experience more. But in life it's much when when you say free lunch, it's much more than just those types of marketing ploys. It's about it's about understanding that the way the system works, the entire system, the entire planet works, is that good things come from hard work, from dedication, perseverance, righteousness, and honesty, and that those are

the tools of payment. It's not always just money, but the tools of payment that make everything run. And I'm sure you're doing things in life that helps others as well. So the things that you're focused on, you may think, well, I'm just doing X, Y and z, and how is this helping? But someone else is benefiting from your work, from your efforts, from all that you do. If you forget the fact that someone made a payment, the payment many payments in your life, you'll forget it's

importance and its value. As you celebrate the fourth of July holiday, and you celebrate this day commemorating the Declaration of Independence, if you just get lost in all of the fanfare or the fun of it all, or the time

off, you'll lose sight of its value. The blood that was shed for you in battles, the time spent to even construct the Declaration of Independence, the risk that people put their life on the line could be they could be killed for treason, for their beliefs, and for what they were doing at the time. And if you forget all of those things, all those parts of the very freedom that you enjoy today, it stops having preciousness, it stops having value. Now it's just well, it's the way it is.

This is you know, like the child who if the child thinks, well, food on the tables free, my clothes are free. All these things that I have in my life, the cable bill, the lights and electricity, the phone bill, the cell phones, the gadgetry, all these things in life are free. You just put stuff out in the front yard and

it gets picked up by the garbage man for free. If all these ideas and things that you experience in life, if you have the mind of a child and think they're all free, then you'll grow up to a very very stark reality one day. So as an adult, now you two should be looking at all the things that you enjoy, everything you experience, knowing that, regardless of what it is in your life or the things that you're experiencing, or the freedoms you have, that everything everything you see, touch,

or come in contact with has been paid for. And if not by you, trust me, it's been paid for by someone. Jeff, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. What a blessing to have you in my life. How interesting you're talking about imitating you. And I'm part of a men's group that we're looking at how men can imitate you. And well, one of the books we're looking at a Song of Solomon, and a lot like old school kind of commentators talk about it as a relationship between you and mankind,

and then others talk about it as being between actually men and women. And maybe you could help help help me out with that, Sure, I would say, off the bat Jeff that that it doesn't have to be a dilemma. It doesn't have to be either, or it can be both hand, meaning that it can help you understand how you should be with a woman and help you understand how you should be with God. The entirety of Scripture,

I would say, lends itself to that as well. There are truths that can be learned that can be applied to any relationship because the basic tenets of a relationship, whether it's male and female or whether it's person and God,

they do go hand in hand. I will say that the controversy in quotes that that you might see with scholars throughout the years is whether this is fictional, whether it's some sort of allegory or those types of things, Because in Scripture there are times where you'll come across an allegorical use of marriage or relationships, right, dealing with the church and the church being the bride and so on. Right, But those are specifically pointed out, are they not?

They are pointed to and and kind of highlighted as, hey, this isn't This is an illustration that we're using to help you understand based on things that you experience on earth, things that you will future in the future experience in heaven. Well, that doesn't happen here. As you go through song Solomon, there's nothing that says this is an allegory or this is an illustration.

So the easiest way to understand it is that it's exactly what it is, a poem from Solomon to a beloved, and that in that you can find the truths of any relationship or the importance of treating one another with respect and understanding one another, just like you know, just like Solomon did here. So I think it could be used for both. I think the first premise is probably a good way to understand the Son of Solomon. First to let it be a guide to how you are to treat your beloved. It's really

quite beautiful and very intense the relationship that's going on here. And then also to understand the the principles that are used in everyday relationships are also principles that can be used in your bonding or growing with God and how you interact with

God. So, although there's you know, scholastic or kind of in the house academic debates going back and forth whether it's you know, historical, whether it's allegorical, or whether it's fictional, the factory, that the truth that are taught in there can be applied to both your intimate relationship with your spouse or the intimate relationship with your God. We only had a couple of minutes to talk with Jeff about the Song of Solomon, or what is referred to

as the Song of Songs as well. But the beauty of this if you haven't read it in some time, and the intensity of it is so impassioned and powerful that it's my hope that couples that are married take the time to read this every now and then together, or if they read it apart, if you choose to do so, that you use it to remind you of

the importance of passion and the pursuit of your beloved. There's there's something in culture that makes that kind of tells you that you pursue someone and then you get married, and that marriage is kind of the finality of that pursuit. And that's a shame because it's not the truth. Courting is not just that which takes place prior to marriage, but it's a lifetime and that the words in the Song Solomon that talk about that passion and that that yearning for someone.

Chapter one, verse four, it says, draw me after you and let us run together. How beautiful is that? It's a this, this adult game, and not like the game that you hear about being played in clubs of America where people are trying to manipulate or twist each other into being with them. But the playfulness, the childlikeness of I like you, you like me, and let's run together, make me want to chase you is

such a beautiful thought. And I'm saddened sometimes by the reality that often that marriage marker seems to be the finish line and not the starting line that it's designed to be. That it's as if you use all of your energy to run towards that. And this pertains to you if you're not in a relationship, and it pertains to you if you are in a relationship, and it pertains to you if you're married. But marriage is not the finish line.

It's not that point where you see the immediate drop in desire and propulsion like you do with a racer. Maybe you're watching the Olympics and the marathon and the track stars running well, sometimes when they hit that finish line, you see them immediately drop their speed, their arms fall to their side. That look, that desire, that passionate intensity that propels them to the finish line

gone because they're done with that race. When it comes to your relationship with your spouse, I don't want you to get to that place where you tire. It's almost as if a couple that gets married looks at one another and says, Okay, we did it. You caught me, I caught you. We're all done, and I'll be in the dead. Well, okay, I'll be by the TV. And when you read the Song of Solomon and the passion of intensity and the sheer desire to pursue, it's a great

reminder. It's a great reminder that that is to be a part of your everyday interaction, to pursue one another, to be reminded of how wonderful it is to be somebody and that they are your beloved, and that you're you're tied to them emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually. And as you read through the Song of Solomon and you hear the words of that passion and intensity,

that nothing, nothing on the planet could quench that fire. I want it to remind you of the first steps in your relationship, the dating, the sweaty palms, the nervousness, the excitement of being wanted and wanting somebody, those are amazing things. Passion is wonderful. You see, for everything that is good, for everything that is God breathed, God given, there is a version, a perversion of it that the world uses. The world lands on lust. But I'm not talking about lust. I'm talking about deep,

intense and pure passion. And that doesn't have to leave that that doesn't have to be absent from any marriage, young or old. Things will change, sure, and as you build a family or you bring children into the equation and you know, multiple jobs and everything else. I realize that things

do change, But the love shouldn't. You should still look upon your bride men as the most wonderful creature that you have the pleasure to be in the company of, and women, you should look towards your man the same way, and in that, in that balance, in that bond, you will only be strengthened. It's too often that that gattitude of finality or doneness at the point of marriage or any level of commitment becomes kind of like oh boy, wow, I guess we're done. Men are hunters and continue to to

fight after you until you're considered I suppose. But really that's just the beginning. Me say, I do the adventure should begin. What saddens me sometimes is, and this is something that falls definitely upon the man. The man tends to make the woman the adventure. Women aren't the adventure. Women should be your partners in the adventure, not the adventure itself. Sometimes when you set your eyes on that and the woman becomes the adventure, then the man

stops at the point of marriage because now the adventures over. But that's not the case. It begins with the coupling and the partnership, and now you have someone to share those things with. The Song of Solomon has often been joked about as being just a very intense book because it does deal with sex and the intensity of passion and love and that yearning in a way that unfortunately

the Church doesn't doesn't talk about too much. You don't get a whole lot taught from the Song of Solomon. I think the church prefers to be, you know, focusing on the things that seem much more academic. But I'm telling you, the entirety of Scripture is about relationships, how you are to treat one another, and how you are to treat your God. And the Song of Solomon. I'm so glad that Jeff brought it up today because the

importance of it is vast. It is about relationships. It is about learning to love one another in the most intense way, and also to understand your God. Your God loves you so much that he created passion, that he created love, that he created opportunities for you to share with one another of

those things. And I bring it to you this morning to look at to look at it just a little differently, the relationship you have, and if you're not in one, the blessing that is as you prepare, as you are readied for a good one, a healthy one, and if you live inside those walls of marriage. Today, I want you to think about the ways that you can reignite those passions, and that to spend time reading the

Song of Solomon. It's a quick read and a good one to remotivate and help you see the importance of that relationship, the importance of coming together, the importance of having intimacy. Brenda, Welcome to the Jesus Christ saw good morning. Hither my question is does God speak through to his people only through his word or does he still speak to people through visions and dreams and prophecy. Well, all those things can take place. There's nothing that says that

they've stopped taking place. And in scripture you'll read that, yes, people received information from God in prayer, during times of prayer, during times of sleep, being seeing in a dream or being awoken, that prophets can speak, a mouth breathed the words of God. So it's not just scripture.

However, scripture will be the standard from which you judge those things because most of those things are very subjective, so you have to test them against scripture to know if it is of God or if it's just that you ate too late before you went to bed or whatever. So you have to the subject of an objective truth. It's important to know the difference that it's never about a feeling or an experience, because experiences can be all kinds of different things.

It's about putting those experiences against the backdrop of scripture to see if they hold water or they withstand the scrutiny of scripture. They can't contradict or change scripture. In any way. They can't tell you to do something that scripture has already told you not to do those types of things. That makes sense, Okay, is there Did you have a personal experience or are you just curious academically? Well, um, personal experience uh, and curious academically.

Um. I UM was at church and when there was a discussion about that, and it was an intense discussion because UM, some of the people during the Bible study had a real problem as myself. I had a problem with accepting that God didn't speak to people through dreams and visions anymore. And UM we were told that, Um, God did that in the Old Testament only because there was no Bible available to those people. And I could understand that.

But um, after after Jesus came UM. In the Book of Acts, Uh, Antonius had a dream, Paul had absolutely and UM in the Book of Revelations, John has several, um, you know, visions and dreams. Well, the entirety of the book is just that visions. Yea. And it just kind of made me feel bad because I mean, in the past, I've had some personal experiences and they describe people like myself as probably kind of mixed up in the mind. And it just made me not

doubt myself, because you can't doubt certain things. Certain things there's just no one, you know. But there's health in questioning them. Scripture says, test all things, hold fast to that which is true, not hold fast to everything. So it's a matter of testing these things. Your teachers is partially right. There are differences in the way things were taught in what is referred to as the Old Testament because of the difference in necessity that there wasn't

written word, but I accepted. But that doesn't mean that there's never a use for it, or that it didn't take place. And obviously we cited some this morning that are in the New Testament. And I thought about the scripture in the Book of Joel. I think it's Joe where it says your old men will dream dreams, and you know I can't. I'm not I

know I'm not quoting it correctly. Your young men will see visions. And you know, it's just that so much in the church is taught from the Old Testament, like tiding and things like that, and when someone says, well it doesn't count anymore, it's just brought some confusion. Yeah, that's not fair. Ever, there are some things that are different. Um, after my death on the cross and my resurrection, there are some things that

definitely change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Definitely. But as I said in scripture, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. So anybody who says, oh, yeah, that's the Old Testament, that's that's a cop out. Um, there isn't absolute importance, and it shows you from where you came and the importance of what took place

prior. There are some different and there are some things that have changed in the way, you know, just the structure of the church and everything else, because you're dealing with Judaism versus Christianity in the New Testament. But it's uh. And I say that as far as the growth of Christianity from Judaism, but they need to be understood in light of one another. And everything that experientially that you come in contact with has to be interpreted via scripture.

So is it used the same way and all over the place. No, it's not. The necessity is different. He's right, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. That doesn't make sense at all. Kfi Ami on demand