Jesus Christ Show | Hour 3 - Control [07/14]

You're listening to KFI A six forty on demand talking about controlling. It seemed to be a little bit of a theme today, and I realize that it's part of human nature to want to control and not have things get out of control or get away from you in any way, shape or form. But I want you to look at the model of God and the allowance of God allowing humanity to have free will and to make decisions. And producer Neil often jokes that God saw fit to give humanity free will, and the Church sees

fit to try and take it away. So there's a lot that church becomes a point of control as well. We talked a little bit about controlling as a parent, but the church ultimately is part of the parentship of humanity as well, trying to guide and to point out and to equip and all these things. But it can be misused as well, and I think that there when you try and control too much, it is the equivalent of trying to

be God. We've talked about judgment in many ways, and the word God actually means judge, so that concept, that term of the ultimate judge, the ruler that looks over things, And I think that being in the state of wanting to control things is being a mini God. You're trying to make sure that everything conforms to something that to your comfort level. And the church does that as well, and it's really not the place of the church.

The church's goal is to share the gospel to make sure everybody's heard it. What that person does with the gospel is up to them, it's not the churches. There's so many horror stories that I've heard over the years of people forcing or tricking someone into saying the Sinner's prayer or something like that, and there's not even the Sinner's prayer in scripture anywhere. But it makes somebody feel better if they feel like they've tricked somebody into the kingdom, I suppose.

And that's just not how it's done. The purpose of the Gospel of scripture and sharing these things and so that individuals can hear them and make the best decision about their life or make uh use the best information to make the best decision in their life, but they have the right not to. Does that affect you, Yeah, sure it can affect you. There are people that make bad decisions every day that affect people. There are people that drive drunk.

The question to people that are completely obeying the rules of the road and are driving sober. People doing bad things will affect you. But the Gospel, in Scripture and Christianity, it's not about getting everybody to do good things so that your life is better. So it's just easier so that you don't have to roll your eyes. I know that everybody Republican feels like, wow,

if everybody was a Republican, it would just make things easier. And every liberal feels like if everybody was a Democrat, it would just make things easier. It would just life would be better. And that's not the truth. Now, you could argue if everybody was a Christian and adhere to the laws of Christianity, the world would be better. It's obviously the show is titled that Jesus Christ Show. Of course that's going to be our bent or

bias. But to look at God's example. God's example was to there is punishment, and there is consequence, and there is these things, but there's also that freedom. It wasn't about taking away the freedom. It was out showing why that freedom should be used wisely. But the Church in its current state is about using scripture to conform the masses to do what they want to do, and that doesn't help anybody. As a matter of fact, that's

where perversion grows. Perversion grows from when you repress things, or when you try and keep natural things down, then people find unnatural ways to do them. There's horrible stories of people trying to control their children or trying to keep them on a particular path, and the children outright rebelling, sometimes even killing and taking the life of their own parents. It sounds unfathomable, I realize,

but it takes place. Now. I'm not saying that if you're controlling or if you want good things for your child, it means they're going to harm you in some way, or they're going to rebel to the point of something vulgar like that. That's not my point. The point is it's human nature to want to explore and move forward on their own freely. That's just

what humans will do. That's why I hear different political discussions about things like, you know, undocumented workers and how well we need them for the economy because they'll do menial jobs for small amounts of money, which is just the most horribly racist comment. Because any human, no matter where they come from, are going to want to progress. They're going to want to learn and grow and become the best they can be. Nobody stays in any menial state.

They don't want to A child doesn't want to do it, an adult doesn't want to do it, and people of faith don't want to do it. People of faith want to grow and be curious and explore and learn and know things and being able to touch them and ask questions and be curious, not locked in some box with a cross on it that says this is where

this is where you stay. And I could hear the tone, the tenor in people's voices under the guise of Christianity that don't want any change, that don't want things to happen, and all hell is breaking loose, and God has fallen off his throne. You can't let this happen. And these people shouldn't be here, and this shouldn't happen, and these people shouldn't be allowed to do this, and these people shouldn't be allowed to do that. And I hear that, and I know that it doesn't come from God, and

it doesn't come from places stability and trust and true hope. It's the people that want to control others the most, that I think have the weakest faith, that love God the life least, that trust God the least, because they are sitting there just like Judas and saying, if you're not going to do it the way that I want you to do it, I'm going to do it myself. God. If you're not going to come down and you're not going to smite every single person and turn them into stone, turn them

into a pillar of assault, make it rain for forty days. If You're not going to do these things, then I'm going to do it for you. And a lot of people don't understand a lot of Christians don't even understand the relationship and where it went south with Judas and me, and really where it went south is Judith. Judas rather had expectations of me coming and being a warrior and destroying the political parties and the things that he didn't like,

and I didn't. He betrayed me. And I think that that's happening in the church today. I think the church is looking around and going God's not doing enough. God is not making these people go away. God is not damning them on this earth, and it's making me uncomfortable, and I'm going to go out. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to force people to be Christians by way of laws. I'm going to force them to do the things that it talks about in scripture, because that way it will

be done. And God's not in that at all. And in that you become Judas and you lean in and you kiss me, and you say, not thy will be done God, but My will be done. Michael. Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show, are you Michael? All right? Good morning. Well I kind of have a question about the Old Testament teaches about Methuselah and many of his contemporaries and people of that time living to extraordinarily long

times. I think Mathusa lived over nine hundred years, the steady progression of the lifespan all the way down to I believe it was you that said in the New Testament, but someone did that the life span of a man had been allotted to one hundred and twenty years. Incredible come down from the time of Methuselah. But we don't get one hundred and twenty years in our last four or five years. Ten years are not very comfortable. We are in

incredible pain where incredible grief. It affects those around us, it affects our lives. Why is this how we end up from I mean Mathusla must not have had his first you know, high blood pressure till he was seven or one hundred years of age. He must have been living the life of a thirty year old when he was five hundred. Why are we in the position that we're in now? And as the Bible said, why don't we get our one hundred and twenty years? It's kind of bizarre to think about too,

I mean, just living that long. And when you think about all the things you experience in the years that you're here, whether they be seventy or ninety or one hundred more and more, I think you've noticed that people are hitting that one hundred markt used to be a much more of a special thing, and you'd hear about it, but now you're hearing people that are living to one hundred and four, one hundred and five and things like that.

It's actually right now, strangely going in the other direction, and people are getting older, and that's an attribute to science and modern medicine quite honestly, and knowing more about what they eat and those types of things. However, the theological question is a tough one. There are many different views on what it is. Some will go to the language and say, well, maybe it didn't mean nine hundred years, but there's not a whole lot of

room for that kind of interpretation. Others will look at things that have changed. So is what changed in the Old Testament? And it happens rather rapidly. It's not like it goes from nine hundred or there's different people that lived hundreds of years, not necessarily all nine hundred, but that goes from Genesis, and then quickly it changes quickly, it changes to people living much less. So there are those that talk about certain things that have changed. When

you look at something like that, what would be the drastic change. Genesis one, six and seven talks about the water above the expanse, and there are those that believe that that water broke during the flood, and that that water was something a canopy of sorts that protected the planet and gave perfect everything.

So the temperature was right, the radiation levels were different. You didn't get the radiation because you were protected by this canopy, and that those things changed that so when that was broken for the flood, then that went away

and there is no longer that protection. In addition to that, there's other factors as well that tie in, one of which, if Adam and Eve were created perfect, as scripture says, then you have perfection bringing forth perfection and less genetic anomalies or problems or mutations, and that as the lineage gets further down the line, you bring in sin, you bring in pollution, you bring in all these other factors. Then that goes back down, down, down. Adam, Welcome to the Jesus Christ show. I do this.

Thank you for taking my call. Please have a question as to whether or not it was okay to translate the Bible into modern vernacular and slang. Yes and no in the sense is it a sin. No, absolutely not. Can it be misleading sometimes yes, because slang tends to change, even modern lingo tends to change. So in the in the hands of somebody who understands slang and modern lingo and the vernacular of the day, then it's not going to be a problem. In the hands of someone else, it might

be confusing. So it's one of those things that I think that can be helpful when reading just you know, doing plain reading. You know, maybe for younger folks that enjoy I want to just sit down and read scripture and the other translations are a little daunting. However, when you get into word studies and actually doing you know, heavy studies in scripture, it can be quite difficult to kind of mine meaning out of you know, these kind of

more hip or versions of scripture. But there it's not a sin or it's not a you know, there's many different versions of scripture that are in kind of casual language. Sometimes it softens the meaning a little bit, but it

never should remove the meaning. If it was so lacks that it removed the meaning, and then yes, there'd be a problem, all right, because you know, back in ancient times when they were choosing what to go into the was going to go into the Bible, and they were to changing words around, you know, they were changing the words of the prophets and what God told them to write. And I'm doing that now. It seem to be the same. How So you've seen it's very anecdotal what you're saying,

but it's a pretty heavy claim. Are you saying about the councils? The different councils that took place, or are you having some sort of secret knowledge as to people messing with scripture in its original form. No, no secret knowledge, just like the councils it choosing what scripture was going to go into the Bible and what words because they changed they did change the wording. No, there was no changing of wordings. I know that. That's that's one

of those popular thought that kind of gets perpetuated with no evidence. People say, well, you have twenty five thousand parts and whole manuscripts of the New Testament alone, twenty five thousand more than any other work of antiquity. It is very easy to see what was stated and what was meant in context without any changing. They still exist. So it's not a matter of going, well, the Council of Trent council and I see a Council of Chalcedon said

this, that or the other. Nothing is going to take away from the fact that these manuscripts still exist, not to mention that you could destroy all of the manuscripts for the New Testament and recreate it by speeches and teachings of the early Church fathers. So it's not really it's one of those things that people say and I've even heard teachers make that claim, but without any substance

behind it. There wasn't words changed, there wasn't context change. There are things that are have asterisks in front of them because they're not in all of the manuscripts. There are books that were left out because they weren't consistent in one way or another bibliographically, meaning that the authorship didn't seem to be who it said it was, that the writing style didn't seem to suit the period,

that the statements were somehow contradictory to the rest of scripture. But as far as you know, things like you know, people have said that reincarnation

was taught in the Bible and it was taken out. That's garbage. People have said that there's been you know, things like this that were taught and somehow the early Church cut them out, which really, if you're a church father, a sinner, a human being, you're gonna you're gonna take reincarnation out and leave things that say you can't have premarital sex, you can't eat

what you want when you want, necessarily in that context. Really, the things that were oppressive in scripture are the things that are still in there by human standards. Humans want to do what they want when they want. They're not going to worry about theological things like reincarnation. They're going to worry about, Hey, how come I can't have ten wives? You know, how come I can't have a slave? Or how come I can't have this or

do that. That's what they're going to think about, not trying to theologically, you know, tighten up some sort of belief system around the trinity or something. That's just not how people think they want to preserve their right to

do wrong. And so when you look at scripture and you actually go through Hermoneutics in the study of the harmony of Scripture and how all these books come together, You've got sixty plus books written over a span of fourteen hundred years by forty some odd authors on three different continents, in three different languages, in times of peace and times of war, by peasants and kings alike, and it all points to the same truth that's pretty powerful due to you know,

polishing, because people say, oh, well, you know, you're talking about thousands of years people could have been polishing this up and refining it. And the old concept of telephone playing the game telephone and if someone tells it to someone else and then by the time it gets to the end of the line, it's completely different. It doesn't really work because you can go back to the original manuscripts. You can go back to writings that were within

sixty years of my death and life. And you know, you're saying that to be sixty years removed, that if you removed all videotape options and recordings, that you couldn't tell me who Martin Luther King was because it was sixty years ago. These are pretty These are pretty authentic and verifiable works of history, and they often get poo pooed because to be accountable to them is to

live a life. You know that is not always comfortable for people. But you're talking about a work that is unlike any other work of antiquity, you know, Caesar's Gaelic Wars. I think there's only ten copies in history of the manuscript left currently, So you compare that against ten or twenty five thousand hole in parts of the New Testament, it kind of kind of looks a little weak done it. Yeah, So as far as the two questions kind of pair out, one slang is not a bad thing. There is slang

used in scripture. There was modern slang used in scripture. I mean when it says Stephen got stoned in scripture. Now you read that today and you'll get kids going Stephen got stoned or you know, because it doesn't necessarily translate into what they were thinking. Or there's some that say there will be no bull in my house, and modern day thought of what that would mean could be vulgar. But in that context they're actually talking about a bull, you

know, or an ass or these types of things. So there is a slang used in scripture. Paul uses slang or vernacular that was understood by the people of his day as well. It's just as far as translations go, the meaning can't be mutated, perverted, polluted, or modified in any way. That's going to be the truth of the matter. So if you want to encourage you know, young people or you know folks that want to read scripture in a certain way and this motivates them, fine, I don't.

I'm not pleased with the neutering of Bible. People try and neuter the Bible and make it kishi or they and make it kind of encompass everyone. When that's not the way it was written, and you shouldn't see it as a slight against men or women, because men and women have their place in scripture,

both of great importance, both equal completely and utterly. But people trying try and find some offense in scripture or trying to modify it and do the very thing that they accused the forefathers of doing when the forefathers didn't do it. There are things throughout the Church where the Church had not modified scripture per se, but adopted certain beliefs or certain things that weren't in scripture that became

traditional and could be seen as problematic because of the traditions. But all in all, scripture has remained as it is, even I quote the Old Testament was referred to as the Old Testament in the New Testament, and those types of things. So you can even find in scripture it quoting itself before anything was ever canonized or or there was any counsels or anything like that. So these things help point to the veracity of scripture and the importance of it being

as is. Translations notwithstanding, but making sure that the context is never left out or somehow skewed. David, Welcome to the Jesus Christio close, sir, pleasure speaking, will do? It's my pleasure? How many I help you? I wanted to ask what recommendations for guidance you have for compulsive behaviors and addictions. What kind of addictions are you talking about? True in particular

being gambling and love addictions. Okay, so sex, pornography, yes, and also going from one relationship to another hoping to find true love when in fact that is that does never happen. Okay, Well, they probably stem from the same place. You're searching for something, a high, a feeling, an emotional response to the change or excitement or thrill of something, or

what have you, and you continue to up the game. It's hard to up the game in real life, but through pornography or jumping from one person to the next, you can try and at least feel like you're upping the game a little bit and changing the thrill, when in reality everything finds its normalcy, and that you'll continue to thirst and try and find these things when they will never be satiated. So you have to look as to why you do this, and I think that's the first and foremost thing. So let's

start there. Why do you think you're so compulsive about these things. Well, as far as you love, because I want to, I think it's the person to marry a woman who I would truly love, or so I think, or so I perceive, and it's not really or maybe it's otherwise, something something underneath that I don't I'm not aware of. And then the as far as the gambling goes, I think, consciously I would I'm only trying to win too, to get to get money with wish to shay other

expenses. But subliminally I'm guessing it's more just like every other addiction, trying to get a fixed or a high, momentary high. Yeah, you're trying. You're trying to get that win. You're trying to get to that place and stand there in that. Even love you, you see, is gambling. You're just gonna randomly find someone and it's gonna work. Do you like yourself, David, not really, so it will be difficult for someone else to and dare I say, it be very difficult for them to love you

if you don't. So there's a it's interesting scripture talks about loving your enemy as you love yourself, and people kind of you know, look over that and don't understand that you have to love yourself and know yourself, not be egotistical, not be narcissistic, but you have to you have to love yourself before you can love others. There's a lot of things going on here, more than we can we can tackle. But I would tell you the basic

steps are to reverse the ones that you've taken to get there. So you have to just like you, you know, how do you get home from wherever you are? You go back the way you came or in a similar direction. You need to reverse those steps and it's going to come through therapy and really being accountable. You have to be accountable to somebody, not just yourself, because you're not trustworthy in that sense for your own judgment. You're

looking for the payoff of things, and that's not what life is. Life is absolutely as corny as it sounds, the journey. It's not where you arrive, because the final you know, destination is death, So it's not about the arrival. It is truly about the journey. And then for those of faith, of course, the final place is to be with the maker. But in your case, David, I would say that all these things stem from that desire to just have that win rather than the process of the

win when you earn money. And yes there are professional gamblers, different thing, and there are people that just love the gaming and that's different. But when you are looking for the win to make a difference in your life, like you said, to pay off debts or do, it's a bad place to be and now you end up going down and it becomes a perversion. But I assure you sex, addiction, and gambling come from healthy places. They have a healthy version of those things. Love and passion is the healthy

version. Challenge and exploration and pushing yourself is the healthy point of gambling. So all those things have a healthy brother or sister. You've just taken them to a perversion because you're looking for the payoff rather than the process. So you need to find somebody that can help you walk back through that process and understand it more to start clearing these things away. And it will take some time. It took you a while to get there, it'll take you a

while to get out. Remember these words. I Am with you Always, KFI AM six forty on demand