Ep. 272 - The Big Problems With Psychology

You know there's at least four questions that modern psychology is trying to answer when it's having a conversation with you who are we ? What's wrong with us ? What will help us and how do we get there ? And when you position it like that , you realize how religious , how much presupposition there are . Like , who are we ?

We are image bearers of God who have fallen . What is wrong with us ? It's not circumstances , it's not the authority in our lives . Ultimately , what's wrong with us ? Like the Russian philosopher once said , the line between good and evil goes straight through the heart of every man .

What's wrong with us is that we are fallen creatures , that we have disordered loves . What will help us ? Nothing else but new hearts that we cannot get other than through the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross . How do we get there ? We submit our lives , repent and believe in our Lord and Savior . Psychology is not neutral .

It seeks to answer those questions and those are not the answers that it provides .

I'm talking like you're on the sand . You leave her condo and you're on the sand within five minutes . Just amazing .

But as we were walking the lovely shores of Waikiki Beach , with natural sand and natural palm trees swaying and natural wind blowing and natural waves crashing , I saw a woman who seemed to be naturally lying on her back , talking on her cell phone and petting her robotic dog .

Seriously , oh , wheezy , wheezy made an appearance Like affectionately petting , like guys , okay , you know how , when you're talking and you have your dog there and you're talking , yeah , you're petting him and stuff . This lady was doing that with this robot dog . But like it is a real dog , have fur , no , it's .

It looks like a little robot , that little white dog easy , didn't you know that was a robot woman probably was , but like , but this was what tripped me out . She's petting the dog and the dog is responding . The head is moving , she goes under its chin , its head is up , starts moving around . I'm like what ? Am I in the twilight zone .

I was just about to say hold on a minute here you don't have to feed it . Yeah , but it blew my mind and it made me think what era are we living in ? But she was really giving it affection and the dog was responding and it was walking around on the blanket , it was sitting , it kept getting up , moving around , looking at things .

I'm sure before long they'll have a version with fur and before long they'll look like real dogs . You know , I mean , they have that with the Android things . Well , let's see what evolves . Yeah , would you guys ? Let me ask you this Ah , good , one Ray .

Would you guys trust one of those Android , like people-looking things with AI in your house , like , could you do that ? It could kill you . Imagining it destroying the hole in Ray's bed .

About you , could you do ?

Mike Fabares' eye , mike Fabares oh godly , godly man , pastor of my cousin Nancy and her husband Matt , and I was the keynote at his banquet where they were getting support for his radio industry focal point ?

Thank you for your simple yet profound messages from God's word . It is challenging us to become more like Christ . Love Esther and Jay Lee . Yeah , very encouraging and I love it .

You know , when we meet people in person , I mean we get letters and stuff , but when it's someone who looks you in the eye and says this has impacted our life , it's really encouraging .

And on that note too , another shout out , this is for our good friends Reagan and Tori from Houston , who came by and brought us tomato and jalapeno relish made by one of their moms , and we're very grateful for that . It was great meeting you guys , and Rachel and I are going to be speaking at their marriage retreat out there in 2016 .

No , no , no , Wait , You're going to get time travel there we go 2026 . Oh boy , what is wrong with my brain ?

Count your blessings and stop stressing a book that I had no idea ray wrote until I saw it lying around for ministry . What's wrong with you ? I don't know . I didn't . I didn't even remember writing it I read it with my toes ray . Uh , I really love . I love the title of this book . I I've yet to read it , but I've given it to others .

You read it cover to cover , I'd be filled with heresy . But , ray , it's a really cool cover and a great title . Honestly , I think this one's going to do really well , because stress is just so common . Can you tell us anything about it ?

So yeah , it's very relevant for today's culture .

So don't forget it , friends , and remember the Living Waters mug from which you can chug the Evidence Study Bible which may bring about revival . All that Living Waters mug from which you can chug the Evidence Study Bible which may bring about revival . All that Living Waters .

And look , as we say often , friends , on the podcast , here we don't talk before we get on here , we just jump on here , we talk while we're on here . When we're here , we talk , we talk when we're here , but we pick a topic and then all of us do our prep and we come and we talk .

So I don't even know where all my friends land on this and it's various , you know , on the various topics that are related to it . But we're going to talk and we're going to be candid ,

we're going to be open , we're going to be honest and we're going to share our thoughts , our hearts . We may not even fully have our views formed on this on every front , but it's an important topic to tackle because a lot of people struggle with it and deal with it .

So I think it's good to start with the definition of psychology , and this is a dictionary definition . The word psychology is derived from two Greek words psyche , meaning the mind , soul or spirit , and logos , meaning discourse or to study .

So , yeah , dealing with the soul , dealing with the spirit , dealing with the mind , the inner person , if you would and the functions thereof , and I think it's controversial because of the roots of modern psychology and the philosophies that are connected to it , and so a lot of people are wary of it and , I think , in many cases , rightly so .

But you said , ray , in our last podcast , or one of you said don't throw out the baby with the bath . Yeah , that's it uh are there elements ?

Are there legitimate issues that are organic or that deal with the mind that we can say look , this is a legitimate find and it applies , and so side note , what if you were talking to somebody and they don't really talk to their parents anymore and you're like what happened , man ?

And again , we're going to read some of the different things he said . I have quite a bit from him here and we want to analyze some of that and examine it . Does this line up with Scripture , does this line up with reason ? And we'll go from there . So he said Christian psychology as the term is used today is an oxymoron .

The word psychology no longer speaks of studying the soul . Instead it describes a diverse menagerie of therapies and theories that are fundamentally humanistic . The presuppositions and most of the doctrine of psychology cannot be successfully integrated with Christian truth .

Moreover , the infusion of psychology into the teaching of the church has blurred the line between behavior modification and sanctification .

So I like the fact that Dr MacArthur said Christian psychology as a term is used today , and then he gets into how kind of things have diverged from maybe where it had begun or maybe what was intended in that sense , and I think and I'll follow it up here and I'll let you guys chime in but I think here he kind of gives his perspective on why he believes .

That is , he says , inaccurate assumptions of psychology include . Human nature is basically good . People have the answers to their problems inside them . The key to understanding and correcting a person's attitudes and actions lies somewhere in his past . Individuals' problems are the result of what someone else has done to them .

Human problems can be purely psychological in nature , unrelated to any spiritual or physical condition . Deep-seated problems can be purely psychological in nature , unrelated to any spiritual or physical condition . Deep-seated problems can be solved only by professional counselors using therapy .

Scripture , prayer and the Holy Spirit are inadequate and simplistic resources for solving certain types of problems , and so I think maybe where he's getting at in all this is saying look , the problem is the root , right , these things are coming from a humanistic perspective and we'll talk about Freud and Jung in a minute but they're coming from a humanistic perspective

, and so they're reaching conclusions that conflict with Scripture and , as believers , when that happens in that realm , we need to stop and say wait a minute . We need to , we need to adhere to what God's word says . Oscar , does that ? Does that sound like that explains where he's coming from .

As far as I understand it , psychology started from a basis of ultimate truth , but has progressed in such a way where the DSM , which is , it's like the book for psychology , it's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders .

The DSM essentially , is designed and encourages therapists to help you self-direct your own life and actually therapists will take an oath that they will not allow their own personal morals or religious beliefs to interfere with the goals of the patient .

In other words , even if you go to and I'm using air quotes here Christian psychologist , if they've taken that oath and they're acting in accordance with the DSM , if you go to that person and there's something inside of you that contradicts scripture , the DSM requires them for them to encourage you to pursue that thing and comes to terms with it .

So , prime example you go to them and you say I am attracted to the same sex . The responsibility of the psychologist at that point is to help you come to terms with that inner feeling and then help you communicate that to your friends and family in such a way that they will either accept you or you can walk through the reality of them not accepting you .

And so the standard for the DSM is your own intuition , your own self-direction . And that's , I think , the underlying challenge with modern psychology today . But let me also add that it's not baby with the bathwater , it's not all bad . There's these two extremes .

The first is that modern psychology does not recognize the condition of the human heart the way the scriptures do . Our heart is broken , our heart is full of sin and our heart misdirects us . Our heart is full of deceit . Right , it should not direct the way in which we live . Modern psychology makes everything a biological issue

and ignores the spiritual . On the other hand , there are certain circles , christian circles , that tend to over-spiritualize everything . They tend to look at all forms of anxiety , all forms of mental health it's like well , this must be a lack of faith , a lack of this , a lack of that , and they don't recognize the importance of the biological .

And so let me just give one example of where the biological is really important . I have a good friend who has stage four cancer , and so he's taking medication to help him live , because he should have already died .

He has children and he's trying to live , and one of the side effects to these antibiotics was anxiety , and when he started taking it , he started experiencing extreme forms of anxiety .

If you were to walk up to him and go , oh well , you're just clearly not trusting in God , like it's not that his anxiety wouldn't lead him to sin , but it would be unhelpful to ignore the chemical imbalance that was happening in his body because of the medication that he was taking . So the point here is that we are embodied people .

Embodied means God created us as souls , but also in the physical form and when we need help . We need help in our issues of sin and lack of faith , and sometimes we need help too in our physical bodies .

Sometimes we have imbalances and we need help to deal with those things , and so that's , I think , where we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater .

It's like look , there is a substance like you said , you took that and it affected the chemicals in your brain and so that has a physiological effect . That's exactly right . I mean , sometimes they could examine the brain and see that there are certain chemicals that are missing or the brain isn't producing them and that can have that physiological effect .

Those things are legitimate , that's exactly right . Yeah , so , ray , there's that other side of it , though , right , and I want to see what you think about Colossians 2.8 . Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men , according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ .

So do you see a place where psychology clashes with the philosophy of , or can come from a philosophical angle and then clashes with scripture ?

God says I'll put my blessing on you if you don't listen to that worldly wisdom , because it's a total head-on collision with what the scriptures say . And here's the big head-on collision . Modern psychology says man is a product of his environment . He's not evil . Don't make him feel guilty . And the Bible says the exact opposite . It says man is evil by nature .

That's his big problem . And so what happens is that you get modern prisons . Rather than being a place of punishment , they're a place of rehabilitation for someone who got into crime but it wasn't their fault . The whole thing happened because of their environment and they had to be sympathized with rather than punished . And you can see this .

This is from March 2023 , san Quentin , california . Visiting San Quentin , california's oldest prison , once home to the gas chamber used to execute inmates in the nation's largest death row .

Governor Gavin Newsom it's hard for me to say that on Friday touted a plan to overhaul the facility in favor of rehabilitation rather than punishment , an approach that could become a modern for the world or a modern model for the world . The world or modern model for the world .

San quentin prison has become known for innovative programs where inmates can get a degree , write an award-winning newspaper , study the arts and get a job training in preparation for re-entering society . But that's what happens .

When you take away that premise that man is evil by nature and that he's a product of his environment , he's to be sympathized with rather than punished yeah and that's what's happening to society . So he bears not the sword in vain , the sword's taken out of the hand of the law , there's no punishment , and that encourages crime , and that's what's happened .

There's no punishment for crime because of the essence of modern psychology .

The Bible says there's none that seek after God and he's running from God , as did Adam , because he's an enemy of God and his mind's wicked works . And as Paul reasoned with Felix about the God-shaped vacuum in his heart , felix smiled and then David said or Nathan said to Nathanathaniel you are the man who's got a god-shaped vacuum in his heart .

It's got nothing to do with the issue and that's what's crept into the church , because we've forgotten that premise that man is evil by nature . He drinks a liquid like water , loves darkness , goes astray right from the womb .

It's how this ends up creeping into the church and then suddenly , I mean , ideas have consequences , and look , a lot of this stuff , that's exactly what it is . It's ideas , it's human beings coming up with thoughts and then getting consensus , and then it just becomes like Bible in a sense , to the world , you know .

And so I think it's good to go back to the roots . Look , sigmund Freud is hailed as the father of modern psychology .

But but you know , when you go back and you look at the things they were doing , but but you know , he , he was , you know , and they say like a lot of his theories aren't used anymore , but but they're built on them , they were the premise and the foundation for them . So here's , here's Freud , just a little biochar on him .

Freud is famous for inventing and developing the technique of psychoanalysis , for articulating the psychoanalytic theory of motivation , mental illness and the structure of the subconscious , and for influencing scientific and popular conceptions of human nature human nature that's key to remember by positing that both normal and abnormal thought and behavior are guided by irrational

and largely hidden forces . And so you know , that's kind of where modern psychology was birthed from . And listen to some of Freud's quotes to get an understanding of where he's coming from , because we all have presuppositions , we all have a worldview , and then we end up producing things from that . So this is about him .

It says Freud considered God as a fantasy based on the infantile need for a dominant father figure , with religion as a necessity in the development of early civilization to help restrain our violent impulses that can now be discarded in favor of science and reason .

I'm currently feeling violently impulsive Right , and these are direct quotes from him Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires .

And he says the whole thing of religion is so patently infantile , so foreign to reality , that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life . I mean , he didn't mince any words . A religion is a universal obsessional neurosis .

And then , finally , he says religion is a system of wishful illusions , together with a disavowal of reality such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful , hallucinatory confusion . Religion's 11th commandment is thou shalt not question . Wow , so , yeah . So , coming from that premise

, uh , that's you know , that's you know what we get . And Oscar ideas have consequences .

There's at least four questions that modern psychology is trying to answer when it's having a conversation with you . Who are we ? What's wrong with us ? What will help us and how do we get there ? And when you position it like that , you realize how religious , how much presupposition there are . Like , who are we ? We are image bearers of God who have fallen .

What is wrong with us ? It's not circumstances , it's not the authority in our lives . It's not circumstances , it's not the authority in our lives . Ultimately , what's wrong with us ? Like the Russian philosopher once said , the line between good and evil goes straight through the heart of every man .

What's wrong with us is that we are fallen creatures , that we have disordered loves . What will help us ? Nothing else but new hearts that we cannot get other than through the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross . How do we get there ? We submit our lives , repent and believe in our Lord and Savior . Psychology is not neutral .

It seeks to answer those questions , and those are not the answers that it provides so well put Oscar , I love that .

Of course someone who grew up in an abusive home is going to have certain reactions and feelings and so forth , you know , and our environment and all of that . But I think and answer this for me but I think one of the biggest detriments of modern psychology , built on Freudian and Jungian theories , is that it removes the necessity of the gospel .

It's like , oh here , do this , do that and you'll be better . Or it doesn't trace it to the sin condition and even though sometimes people may have things that have affected them , they're still sin and there's still choices . You have some people that had similar backgrounds . One ends up having their life changed .

They repent and trust in Christ , not that they don't still deal with issues and problems and have to work through it and the other doesn't . And oftentimes it comes down to that repentance and faith and trusting in the gospel .

One thing I find very , very difficult to embrace is the thought and it just seems to be embraced worldwide by so many in the world is that is that if you have depression , you have a mental disease , when that is something that's new .

Years ago they didn't say that If you had depression , you had a problem with depression , something was causing you to be depressed . Now it's become worldwide that if you're depressed you have a mental problem . That is , you are insane and we're telling you you're insane .

And the reason they lean towards that is because that opened the door to pharmaceutical industries , because they changed the diagnosis of what you have and now they can give you medicine to fix your mental problem . And what that does for someone who's depressed is it adds to the depression . You know I'm depressed about life , and so we should be .

Life is incredibly depressing , especially with the fear of death haunting every human being . In fact , I've written a book called the Final Curtain that gives evidence that the problem with depression is a continual haunting of the fear of death , which is spoken to directly by Hebrews 2 , verse 14 and 15 .

Even with so many soldiers coming back home and committing suicide like never before , it comes back to a fear of death . On the battlefield . It was something they just accepted . A fear of death was always there . Come back home you're sitting in bed . You've still got that fear of death that haunts you and drives many to suicide .

So instead of saying you have a mental disease because you're depressed , no , no , it's the exact opposite . You're not mental , you're incredibly sane because you're thinking about life . Life is depressing , with all its sickness , its pain , its suffering , and then there's death on top of it .

You are living in a world without hope , and when you've got no light at the end of the tunnel , it just becomes overwhelming to where suicide becomes an option . But as Christians , we offer light at the end of the tunnel .

He that follows me shall not walk in darkness , but shall have the light of life , and that's why we should address the fear of death when we're witnessing to unsaved people . You fear death . Yes , a little bit . That's what a guy said to me the other day . A little bit . I said a little bit . You mean a big bit . He says a big bit .

I said a horn shoe , doesn't he ? He says yeah , all the time . And then they embraced the gospel because that door opened it . There's this elephant in the room that no one talks about . That's stomping on the whole of humanity . It's got its foot above every human being and that's enough to make anyone who thinks depressed .

They're not mentally unstable , they're very sane . They think about life and it's they've got a right to be depressed until they come to the foot of the cross .

Yeah , and friends , I think at this juncture it's just important to say that , look , we're not here to tell you what you need to do in situations that you're dealing with , Because there may be someone listening right now that's saying but I have dealt with this for so long , I've gotten prayer and I've sought the Lord and I've been in the word and I've , you

know , I've meditated on scripture and I've read books and I've and I'm I'm dealing with some deep stuff that I can't explain .

You know , Maybe there are some circumstances going on , like Oscar alluded to in his example , Maybe there is something organic that is going on , and so you , you need to make decisions with your family , you need to seek the Lord on whether you need to go see a psychologist , a psychiatrist . That's between you and your family .

We're just trying to give you the perspective of that . You need to be careful and discerning as you evaluate those things .

I've got family and friends who have dealt with some pretty bad things and they have gained so much healing and understanding through biblical counseling and through good . There's therapists out there who are educated , who have not taken the oath , who do not work based on the DSM .

They have the right tools and resources , but they are also working from a biblical basis and I would encourage you know if that's where your convictions lie . I would encourage you to seek that . I love the way David Paul Tripp puts it .

He points out he actually he's a you know he's a counselor , and he points out we actually wouldn't need counselors and therapists

if we lived the way the scriptures called us to live 2000 years ago in community , being known and loved by the people around us . But the reality is that the modern experience of what it means to be a human being is incredibly different than what God intended us to experience .

We are plugged into way more of a news cycle , to your point , ray , that induces anxiety and fear and depression . We're living lives . I've said it before . Alan Noble points out we're living in a zookosis . We've built a world around us to make us comfortable , but we are not made for the world we built for ourselves .

He points out how a lion is in the zoo and he says if you look at a lion in the zoo , most zoologists will point out that when you see that lion pacing back and forth in front of the window , back and forth right raised , back and forth right , when they pace back and forth in front of that window , a zoologist would tell you that is not normal behavior .

Lions don't pace , they lay and they rest . The only reason why a lion moves is social dominance to mate or to get food . They don't just expend energy in that way , and so what they see is that that line is actually experiencing a form of anxiety and it needs to work out that anxious feelings through walking around .

Alan Noble points out in his book I don't remember the name of it , maybe we can put it in the show notes In his book he points out that isn't it interesting ? Because the zoo is built for the lion . All the research has been done . They bring in all of the right foliage for it to feel at home , the right rocks , the amount of water shading .

They feed it , the perfect amount of meat for it to live the perfect life . The entire zoo is built for the lion's comfort , and yet there's something in the lion that knows it's not living the life God intended for it to live .

We've got our phones , we've got food delivered to us , we've got the count , we've got everything designed perfectly for our comfort , and yet we've designed a world that we were not meant to live in . We are bred in captivity , and so we have this extra amount of what Charles Taylor would call ambient anxiety .

We're just constantly knowing that this life isn't the way it was meant to be , and , of course , the answer to that is that God created the garden for us to live in , and God is bringing that garden back through the reconciling work of Jesus Christ . That is the answer to the problems that we have .

As I was saying earlier , the answer to the anxious age that we live in is the age that is to come through the cross . That's good .

So there is a little kind of description of him . Carl Jung was a student and contemporary of Freud , so there's that connection there . However , his analytic psychology varies greatly from Freud's psychoanalysis . Jung's theory embraces religion , albeit as a psychological concept , and focuses more on meaning than on biological determination .

Jung believed that people are shaped by their past and future and that people generally move toward greater self-realization and wholeness to ultimately achieve individuation wherein the conscious and unconscious parts of personality are integrated .

Jung embraced the concept of a personal unconscious but viewed it as connected to human history and influenced by the transpersonal , and it goes on and on . But he kind of sort of made it more palatable for religion . But he wasn't really truly concerned about truth .

And so , friends again , to discern , to examine , to look at these things , to say , look , could there be anything that may have validity ? Because this is God's world and he's given man the ability to identify some things ?

Sure , but if they clash with scripture , if they clash with human nature , if they're built on humanism , if they do away with man's need to repent , if they obliterate the sufficiency of scripture for the life of the Christian , you're in dangerous territory . And I love what you referenced too , oscar , about the community of God's people .

There are great counseling ministries out there that are so effective , that deal with believers counseling each other , ministering to each other , using the word as a foundation .

And again , that doesn't negate that sometimes some people may need to examine the brain , because it's an instrument , it's a physical part of our body and , like parts of our bodies , it could be broken in certain ways and it could be helped by certain elements .

But let me just share a few quick quotes here that I think are important to keep in mind as it relates to those unbiblical aspects of anything psychological . This is Hilton Terrell . He said a Trojan horse full of dangerous psycho fantasies has been professionally prepared for us by Christian psychiatrists and psychologists .

At base , such therapies stand upon dogma , not scientific observations , and that's key . It's dogma . It's not because it's scientific and they've truly identified it . It's based on theory and philosophy .

At base , such therapies stand upon dogma , not scientific observations , and the dogma is the odious one of Freud and his followers , who were some of the century's most anti-Christ teachers . No amount of well-intentioned refinement of deadly doctrines will make them clean for us for use by Christians .

Though gems are usually found in coal mines , christians who go fossicking for gems of God's truth in psychoanalytic coal mines will usually emerge empty-handed and filthy . Christians of discernment should avoid the dangerous system completely . That's heavy , you know , but again , it's dealing with those elements that bear that danger .

Dealing with those elements that bear that danger . So , ray , what do you say to someone who says I keep dealing with haunting thoughts from my past , I keep dealing with things from my childhood and I've bottled these up . I haven't talked to anyone about them ?

And so what I do when I get haunted with things that I don't want even if it's a dumb song , I don't want to keep coming back to my mind I create a very , very positive prayer of positive confession , not in that horrible sense , but just something really positive .

Lord , give me wisdom , open doors , let me reach the lost , send revival to this earth , and any time those negative thoughts come , I pray that positive prayer so it turns a negative into a positive . So you keep getting haunted with negative thoughts . You're fighting a spiritual battle . Begin praying positive prayers and those negative thoughts will back off .

Some of us need healing from emotional wounds , and there's opportunities for your pastor and your elders to lay their hands on you and to pray for you . And then I would also say , seek biblical counseling . That is an incredibly helpful resource for those who are suffering , I think the unfortunate reality .

I read a book once and it pointed out like this If somebody walked through your doors of the church and they had a gaping wound on their leg that was , you know , infected , everybody would stop and be like we need to do something about this .

You know , and yet so many of us are walking around with emotional wounds that have deeply affected us , but because we can't see them , nobody does anything about them .

And so let those wounds be seen by friends and family , by your pastor and by biblical counselors , so that they can speak God's truths into your lives , so they can remind you of the beauty and goodness of the gospel , so that you would be healed . Oh , that's really good .

You know , once we have brought out the things that are plaguing us and have gotten counsel because that's scriptural the multitude of counselors is wisdom and safety , and God has given us the community of God's people for that sort of thing there may come a time where , as you've been led through those things , that you do need to put those off .

And once you've talked through them and have gotten input and have interfaced with scripture , there are times when we need to say enough . I'm not going to keep giving that space in my heart and mind , you know .

But I would say also on the other side of things too , that look , if , if there are things that are plaguing you that you sense are just they , they're not normal , um and and , and you know there's this imbalance you're sensing there could be something physiological going on with your brain and there could be something chemical and or organic .

You should see your doctor and you should get that explored . But as you do that , be discerning right , be careful of philosophies and psychological and psychiatric theories that clash with scripture and God , because God knows the human heart and human life best . And a couple of quotes real quick . This is DA Carson .

He says , I suspect , that the one reason why the Bible does not foster self-love and self-esteem in the fashion of several standards of popular psychology is because God , unlike popular psychologists , is infinitely aware of the danger of fueling idolatry . The first temptation was a temptation to de-God God and turn self into God .

Appeals to self-love and self-esteem , even at their best and even when well-intentioned , can never be far from that danger . Far better to seek the powerful remedies of the gospel . And it always goes back to the gospel , friends . It must be rooted and grounded in the gospel .

That is the hope that we have , and I hope that you all infuse that precious gospel into everything that you explore and examine . Well , there you have it , friends . No silliness today . Thank you for joining us . We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast .