Father, thank you for the privilege of what we get to do today. Adam and I come to you as brothers, as sons, and we thank you for the daughters that will be listening as well. And we pray for them. We pray for everyone. We're mindful that there are people that will have empty chairs around the Christmas dinner table this year. And we're mindful of them. We pray for them. Pray that you bring the prodigals home. And Father, we honor you as we roll this podcast out. What a
privilege it is to do this together. and to enjoy this amazing season. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I was singing it this morning. Brother, it sticks in your head. It does, it does. That's why it's called a hook. Yes, like biscuits and gravy sticks to your ribs. Like mold or fungus grace. Never mind, never mind. So we're in the Bridge Church studios right now. They're doing a lot of construction. Oh my gosh, there's contractors all over the
place. Yeah, I was in here yesterday recording some Christmas and New Year's greetings with the staff. We were all kind of high, I think. I think I'm there right now. What do they do? Is that varnish? It's varnish. They did all the doors, baseboards, trim in the Life Center, which is connected to this building, and it's literally down the hall, the entryway. So all that toxic smell is filling this place. It took me right back to when I was, I think, maybe nine years
old. We were on vacation, and it was raining, and so I was in my room. and my parents had bought me model airplanes to have something to do. And I built nine, no, five model airplanes in one day with the door and windows closed. And I'm like, mom, I don't feel so good. Like, oh Lord. That glue was dangerous. So many cool things when we were kids were dangerous. You know, toys, stamped metal, gash, eight stitches, you know, just for playing with a toy truck. Oh, this is
so perfect. What a perfect lead in. So on Monday I have my Sabbath because you and I both work on Sunday and you had Sabbath as well. I did. Man, when you really get to do it, when you really, really, and there's like no social media, the phone only if someone texts me, I won't even open it up unless, if it's a text group, ignore it. Right. And so what I try to do on these Sabbaths, I try to read like think pieces, longer things, you know, just to kind of get out of the cycle
that I always seem to be stuck in. And I get, I'm going to get to the things we had as a kid in a minute, because I found, someone actually emailed me because I will check my email, not for show things or anything like that. And someone sent me one article by a Dr. Roger McFillen. who has been a clinical psychologist for 20 years. And at some point, while I dove deeper into things he has written, at some point I realized he's
a believer, which kind of blew me away. And I'm just thinking, you know, my prayer always, when I talk about daily bread, Lord, give me guidance and provision. And I never think of provision as money or, you know, anything like that. It's resources. Give me the guidance of what you want me to do and give me the resources to do it. That's why I've become so much more laid back about prepping for my shows, because I just pray.
I said, God, just show me. And of course, my job is to recognize when he's literally throwing something in my face, like this, this, this. So this came from such a roundabout way. I'm like, that's interesting. So I started to read this. And this is where I get into as a kid. When I was a kid, I had a lot of knives. Did you have a knife? Do you have knives? Oh, yes. I had Swiss Army knives. That was kind of the, you know, that was the ultimate, and that's what
I asked for Christmas. I want a Swiss Army knife. Buck knives. Buck knives. Buck was a big deal. Yeah, I had hunting knives. I had, like, bayonets. Crazy when you think about it, you know. Right. Well, but is it really? And as I'm thinking about this, of course, you know, the Swiss Army knife in particular had a saw, it had two different blades, it had scissors. Mine also had tweezers
and a toothpick. Exactly. You know, I think I don't know if I had the magnifying glass, but you know, because you can get them, they were like that thing. It wouldn't fit in your pocket if you did that. But of course, you know, it was a great tool to do things with. I was thinking about it. I've cut myself or hurt myself with a knife many times. Everybody can agree. Scar there, still there. Scar here, still there. I did that with a guitar string. I cut myself.
Guitar strings are lethal, by the way. When they go, they go. So I'm thinking, yeah, a Swiss Army knife. That was the tool that we had. Great tool, could do a lot of good things. I mean, I literally at one point, this is how dumb I was. It was winter and someone had crashed into a light pole and it had broken and fallen over and right there exposed with all these cool electronics. I'm like, I want that. Now, luckily it was cold. So I had my gloves on. I'm like, I want this
unit. And so I start with the Swiss army knife sawing on it. And all of a sudden, huge arc and the blade was literally melted. I can't believe I'm still alive after so many things I've done. But if you look at it today, we have a great tool called the phone. And you can also get cut by this great tool. This is the analogy I was making. If you or I back in the day, if we touched our knife or used it 5 ,000 times a day, the likelihood we hurt ourselves at least twice a
day is pretty high. And that is the average amount of time a Western person touches their phone on a daily, daily basis. 5 ,000 times you're touching your phone. Spine -binding. Touching your phone. Mind -binding. No wonder I've got tendonitis right here. You know what I mean? I probably have screened tendonitis on my elbow.
So kind of the... Wow. If you carry this analogy of how the phone is a knife and it's cutting you, something happened this week which we don't have to get into, but we had breaking, breaking, the terrorists were going to blow up five buildings in Los Angeles, breaking, breaking, breaking, breaking. At first I'm like, okay, I know what this is. And I was kind of right because you look at the affidavit and they had confidential human source. They had an undercover officer.
They've been following in them for multiple weeks. They finally get out to the desert and they start trying to put together pipe bombs by making their own. These are like nut jobs. These are ideological nut jobs, not sophisticated bomb builders. So they're They're, you know, they're using, you know, they're grinding up gunpowder, you know, grinding up fertilizer and all kinds of different stuff. They had PVC pipe, not very effective. I mean, it will blow, but it, you know, it's
not going to, and they had no caps. So they arrested them on a technicality of not registering explosives or something like that. Now that's okay. And, and they should be doing that. I think they could have. knocked on their door earlier and said, yo, son, what are you doing? What's going on? How do we stop this? So instead, they they spy on them everything until they've done something they can catch them on. The thing that bothers
me, though, is that we look what we did. We did this because what it really did is made us all afraid. It just scared us all of. You know, and of course, it fits into all these narratives, the Red Green Alliance, ISIS, you know, 9 -11 style attacks, Islam, all of this stuff. Whereas I honestly, as a citizen, at this point would rather prefer, do your job. Thank you very much.
You don't need to do a press conference about what they were doing because you are literally scaring people, which of course is what is used continuously to program our minds. And that's where Dr. McFillen comes in. McFillen? Yes, McFillen. Yeah, McFillen. And he, over 20 years of being a clinical psychologist, he noticed that people have certain scripts. Some are, were born with their natural scripts, such as, you know, flight
based upon fear. And, you know, our natural state from the early days is, I think there's a tiger there. Should I run away or stay? Well, you're always going to choose run away because there's really no penalty for running away if it wasn't true. But if it was true, you didn't run away. You get eaten and you're dead. That's that's way down at the brainstem level of very primal. So he wrote these articles and it was kind of based upon a book which I'm familiar with. And
this is how the Lord works, man. He brings stuff to me. And I'm going to be looking at my screen a lot, Jimmy, because I tried to. break down a whole Sabbath day into a short podcast. And the book is by a guy named Napoleon Hill, and he wrote an interview with the devil, outwitting the devil. Have you ever heard of this book? I've heard of Napoleon Hill. Well, Napoleon Hill was famous because he wrote Think and Grow Rich. Right, yeah. Now, do you know when he wrote that
book? 1939. But in 1938, he wrote this book, which did not get published until 73 years later. Now, at the time, this is newspapers, radio, movies, no television yet, no internet, obviously. So his wife refused to let him publish it. She said it was too dangerous. And I have read this book. It's a three hour audio book. You can get on YouTube. It's well worth it. So he didn't publish it. When he died in 1970, the manuscript, of course, she had the manuscript. She said,
no, we're not going to publish it. When she died in 84, her nephew, who was the president of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, he was like, OK, we should publish that. And it came out in 2011.
but the words are still valid today. And because there's an audiobook, and this is what's interesting, MoFax, when I had MoFax with Adam Curry, we did 100 episodes, he had actually pulled some clips from this audiobook, and of course I'd forgotten about it, but then I'm like, wow, all right, Lord, so you've already clipped it for me, I can just bring this into the studio, this is
good. So again, 2011. this is when this came out not it sounds like a good time to bring it out because smartphones were ubiquitous social media is exploding the architecture of capture was well in place and this is kind of where this took me today so we can understand how we are being manipulated what is happening and of course you and i know that there is truly only one manipulator behind the scenes and that's the enemy that's the devil so i'm going to play a couple of these
clips and then we'll go into the articles now The premise behind this is that just like God, when asked, the devil can't lie. He can say, you really don't want me to answer that question, but he can't lie, which is an interesting… And by the way, this guy, remember, all believers in this, but it wasn't apparent to me initially because I wasn't a believer, so I didn't see all this stuff. And he has to address him as Your Majesty. That was the only… the only rule
the devil had. So here's a little introduction what the devil says he is. I consist of negative energy, and I live in the minds of people who fear me. So you have the universe divided up with God. Is that your claim? Not my claim, but the actual fact. Before this interview is finished, you will understand why my claim is true. You will also understand why it has to be true. Or there could be no world such as yours, no earthbound creatures such as you. I am no beast with a forked
tongue and a spiked tail. But you do control the minds of 98 out of every 100 people you said so yourself Who causes all the misery in this
98 %? Devil controlled world if you do not I have not said that I do not cause all the misery of the world on the other hand I boast of it It is my business to represent the negative side of everything including the thoughts of you earthbound people How else could I control people my opposition controls positive thought I control negative thought How do you gain control of the minds of people? Oh, that is easy. I merely move in and occupy the unused space of the human brain.
I sow the seeds of negative thought in the minds of people so I can occupy and control the space. Sound accurate to you, Pascal. Wow. I love the voice. Yeah, it's very dramatic. It's very good. Yeah. Excellent. So, you know, 98 % sounds right. I mean, probably not 98 % all the time. But when you think about it, man, it's pretty deep. So now the crux here, what tricks and devices does the devil use to control our thoughts? Because
it's all about this, ultimately. And of course, I did some work, we'll talk about it later on, on finding scripture that relates to all of these things. Yeah, oh, I got to bring it back, brother. I'm a newbie. But I'm working on it. I'm really, I'm seeing the scripture appear before my face as I heard this interview. And as these seeds germinate and grow, through use I control the space they occupy. The six most effective fears are the fear of poverty, criticism, ill health,
loss of love, old age, and death. Which of these six fears serves you most often, Your Majesty? The first and the last, poverty and death. At one time or another during life I tighten my grip on all people through one or both of these. I plant these fears in the minds of people so deftly that they believe them to be their own creation. I accomplish this end by making people believe I am standing just beyond the entrance gate of the next life, waiting to claim them
after death for eternal punishment. Of course, I cannot punish anyone, except in that person's own mind, through some form of fear. But fear of the thing which does not exist is just as useful to me as fear of that which does exist. All forms of fear extend the space I occupy in the human mind. This kind of made me think. This
is really good. Yes. Go ahead. Two things. Well, I've got scripture, but you probably already pulled this scripture, so I'm going to let you do your scripture first, but I want to show you something. Sometimes in my downtime, I love, I'm fascinated with neuroscience and its alignment with scripture. So much of what neuroscience is beginning to discover. Wow, you can go right
back to the word. Mm -hmm So listen to this from neuroscience reveals that complaint or negativity is the devil just said are your majesty easy to be called Neuroscience reveals that complaint rewires your brain like trauma, dude You are you already jumped three steps ahead. That's perfect. Just read this yesterday. I was riveted to this because As a pastor, I deal with positives and negatives. All the time. And I'm constantly trying to tell people, live up in a down world.
So look what it says. I love it. It says, just 60 seconds of negative talk floods your body with cortisol, shrinks the hippocampus and strengthens fear pathways. Let's uncover why venting isn't harmless. It's disguised brain damage. Wow. Okay. Before we move on, because that's coming right after this next clip and then I'll dive into some of the neuroscience of it. Now Satan talks about the two principles that he uses to control
people. My greatest weapon over human beings consists of two secret principles by which I gain control of their minds. I will speak first of the principle of habit. through which I silently enter the minds of people. By operating through this principle, I establish, I wish I could avoid using this word, the habit of drifting. When a person begins to drift on any subject, he is headed straight toward the gates of what you earthbound call hell. Describe all the ways in
which you induce people to drift. Define the word and tell us exactly what you mean by it. I can best define the word drift by saying that people who think for themselves never drift, while those who do little or know thinking for themselves are drifters. A drifter is one who permits himself to be influenced and controlled by circumstances outside of his own mind. He would rather let me occupy his mind and do his thinking than go to the trouble of thinking for
himself. A drifter is one who accepts whatever life throws in his way without making a protest or putting up a fight. He doesn't know what he wants from life and spends all of his time getting just that. A drifter has lots of opinions, but they are not his own. Most of them are supplied by me. A drifter is one who is too lazy mentally to use his own brain. That is the reason I can take control of people's thinking and plant my
own ideas in their minds. So I'm not even going to go down the chat GPT route on that one, but you know, you understand that concept. Absolutely. The doctor in his articles wrote about this drifting, and that's kind of how I, even though he didn't write much about the book, that's why I went back like, oh, drifting is actually in that book. Interesting, okay. And he calls it the agentic state. And the agentic state concept is based
upon the Milgram experiments. The Milgram experiments, you might have seen this somewhere old YouTube video. where you have someone, a volunteer off the street, answered an ad in the paper. They sit down behind a console with levers. And on the other side of a darkened window, there apparently is someone connected to electrodes. And there's a guy in a lab coat, and he says, OK, zap him with 100 volts. And although the volunteer cannot see, the other person, they can hear him crying
out of pain or as the voltage increases. And obviously, it's a setup. There's no current being sent to this guy. But what they discovered is that if there's a person in a lab coat, 90 % of the people will actually administer something that said deadly voltage because the person in the lab coat at a laboratory said to do it. Wow. The minute you turn the guy in the lab coat into a guy in a sweater, only 10 % do it. The minute you take it out of a laboratory and do it in
a strip mall, only 10%. So, the default state, or the agentic state, is a psychological condition when an individual surrenders autonomy to perceived legitimate authority. Now, they replicated these experiments many times over the years. In 2009, they did it. results were virtually identical to the 1960s. In 2010, another Milgram study was done, and 81 % of compliance came when the authority was a TV host. Wow. Now think about
COVID. Think about people being isolated, so you no longer have a group, you no longer have a social network next to you that you can actually communicate with. So the modern application of control works with authority, influencers, these of course are the new TV hosts, and these mechanisms enable complete control. And of course, you're basing it all on fear. And so when 9 -11 happened, everybody was like, yeah, we want the Patriot Act, without even knowing that it was the most
unpatriotic thing in the world. So our good doctor here talks about how our brain works. And he says, you have the neocortex. It's the newest part of our brain. I'll just say evolution, although I don't mean evolution, but that's the part that's been trained the most through inputs, responsible for language and logic. This is very ineffective for influence. The limbic system, emotion and memory, but the brain stem, that's the ancient command center. And that's where we have these
scripts. And when I say script, it's like a computer script. or almost like a prompt. You can see it as a chat GPT prompt for context for people. When you write a script, you program something, the computer does something based upon that script. So built into our system, and I'm glad God did it because otherwise we'd be eaten, is your fight, flight, or freeze. But then we have life scripts. And these life scripts are things that are programmed. So by the way, the core scripts, you can't change
those. Right. Those are unchangeable. So neuroplasticity, that's going to be for these things that you're about to talk about. Things that can be changed or altered. Well, and you literally write these scripts in your brain. You suppress anger to avoid punishment. That's a childhood script. Overperform to earn love. Yep. major childhood script avoiding conflict to prevent abandonment. Now these scripts don't update automatically over time, but they are updatable or at least
you can control when they're triggered. So when we use our phones, these things, yeah, they're tracking what we're doing. What they're really doing is they're measuring when these brain stem scripts are triggered and they do that just by watching what you pause on, on a scroll, of course what you play, what you interact with. They don't really even care who you are. They care about
triggering these scripts. And that, and as I, you know, I'm not going to show all my research here, but there are real brain scientists behind algorithms. And it's not just we want to give you an ad. It is literally we want to trigger these scripts. But governments do this, corporations do this. The science of propaganda, the science of marketing, all of that. Exactly. Every single thing that we touch in life is some, and that's
back to the FBI. And it may be even unwitting on their behalf, but not on the enemy's behalf. He's doing this. He's like, yeah, go out, do a big press conference, make everybody afraid. And of course, in comes haughtiness and pride of, you know, I'm proud of our FBI, our men and women. Why don't you just do your job and not tell anybody? They don't do that. So these, if you realize what these scripts are doing, then you can, with scripture, you can start to think
about them and combat them. So this is where I spent the most of my time. So the mechanism, algorithms feed apocalyptic content to generate terror. But here's the thing, fear is not just an emotion, it's a creative force. When you obsess over these things, you are actually, just like you said before we got into those clips, you
are actually creating more of it. for yourself, for others, so when you're reposting, you're sharing the chem trail picture, you're talking about the elites, the Davos, you're actually helping this negative energy build in your own mind and in the minds of others. So, Job 325, what I always feared has happened to me, what I dreaded has come true. Wow, that's exactly exactly it exactly so that manifesting it This
is again. It's and I think that with social media People who are driven by negative evil forces They have they figured out that it's better to just show everybody what I'm doing Because then everybody will be talking about it and it can literally manifest it the great reset You'll own nothing and you will be happy. How many times you and I not repeated that? Exactly. We're actually kind of helping their agenda by doing that. Proverbs 27 19. So I'm sorry. So this is the feedback
loop. You know, what you damn damns you back. Fascination with the enemy's plan creates a reality tunnel to where your brain seeks evidence. to confirm this is all happening. That's what they call confirmation bias. Proverbs 27, 19, as a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person. Proverbs 4, 23, guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Man when I another translation says for out of it flow the well springs of life.
Yeah. Yeah Garbagey garbage garbage out you go So when terror hijacks the nervous systems, this is where we willingly trade freedom for safety Wow, and that's that's happened Throughout history every single time over and over Hebrews 2 15 and set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying which is exactly what Satan was talking about in that interview. And aren't those the two most powerful in today's society? I'm going to be poor or I'm going to
die. And I was lucky in 1990, I got rid of the poor part without my knowledge of God doing that for me. and then the fear of death. Well, now I know where I'm going. I mean, that's the easiest for believers. Poverty still is there. Galatians 5 .1. So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. This goes right back to all the inputs that we're getting. And man, it's amazing how with the 15 minute city,
all of this stuff is happening. We are, we are siopping ourselves. The enemy is so smart. Mental health, you know, the therapy culture, telling people that, you know, you're broken or you're chemically in balance. It really takes away your divine creative authority to heal yourself, to have the Lord Jesus to heal yourself. It pathologizes spiritual emergence to keep consciousness locked in low frequency. Timothy 1, 7, for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of
power, love, and self -discipline. This is the one that hits me the most. Like, we don't have to be afraid of this stuff. He has given us this
power. Romans 12, 2. One of my favorites don't copy this is NLT don't copy the behavior and customs of this world But let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think So the solution is of course the creative energy of love which above all is the number one most important one 1 John 4 18 such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear Matthew 5 14 You are the light of the world, like a city
on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. So when I put all this together, it's obvious what we have to do. We have to guard our hearts. We have to guard our minds. We have to zig where everyone's doing a zag. And the big, I think one fear that was not known at that time is the fear of missing out. That's a real fear. People feel like they're disconnected from the conversation. Whereas as believers, we can just have conversations about the Word and God and, you know, and Jesus and
all. We can have conversations, but the fear of missing out is just a huge one. So, 2 Corinthians 6 17 has some advice for us. Therefore, Come out from among unbelievers and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Do not touch their filthy things." So now my phone feels pretty dirty right now. 1 Thessalonians 4 11, make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your
own business and working with your hands. Now, this is not easy for everybody, but for young people listening, there's going to be so many more opportunities in this world for you to work with your hands. Which America, historically, we've been farmers, we've been ranchers, we've been physical builders of things. There are going to be millions of jobs for people who have trained to do things with their hands. Apprenticeships .gov, there's a million apprenticeships being
created. It doesn't seem to me that college is a great way to go at the moment. It seems like you're not really going to go down a path of anything except poverty, which, well, there it is. You're locked in. You can't even go bankrupt and get rid of that loan. And your spiritual bankruptcy. Moral bankruptcy. So now I'm looking at prayer as technology. It is literal programming. You can write computer scripts for yourself. Prayer as technology. aligns with the source,
bypassing the algorithms and the experts. Matthew 18 .20, this is an important one, for where two or three gather together as my followers, I am among them, being with other people. Like you and I, when we have these catch -ups on Wednesday, man, I just feel good. I just feel good, no matter what we're talking about. Matthew 9 .20, because
of your faith, it will happen. and Philippians 4 6 don't worry about anything instead pray about everything tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done this can help you replace anxiety with spiritual creation with love that will get you out of these things every comment every like every every retweet every boost you are literally empowering the enemy to hurt you you are cutting yourself with the modern day swiss army knife Amen. What do I say to that,
brother? That was a full -on discourse. God brought this to me. So true. What's weird, you and I have not talked about this, but I've been tracking down this same line. I'm pulling up stuff that I've got sitting here. Your brain was never designed to replay fears on a loop. That's not wisdom. That's a stress nervous system. I love neuroscience. because it's just biblical. It is. It is at its core. I've been reading things on the power of music and prayer. Both of them are powerful alone.
You put them together. Yep. And I love what one commentator said. He said, there's a reason why when you go to church and you're singing and you're praying and you're connecting with other human beings, you're worshiping something bigger
than you, someone. that you walk out different straight up and it's like it's it's every dopamine dump times a thousand and that's why you leave going i feel safe again i feel free again i feel and it dawned on me when i was reading this why i love church so much i'm a i've always said i'm a church nerd i'm a church junkie I love being with God's people because it's what we were just talking about. Iron sharpens iron. Scripture says it straight up. So one man sharpens
accountants of another. So there's something that says, do not neglect the assembling of yourselves together in the book of Hebrews. So there's all these clues in the scripture that's saying everything neuroscience is starting to discover. But the Christians that are involved in neuroscience, I really like this one doctor. Her name is... Dr. April Joy, and she's got like 15 letters
behind her name. But she is so scriptural and on fire, but she brings neuroscience to show how it's working in your body, the physical side of it. Of prayer and worship. Yes, prayer, worship, scripture. There's a lot in neuroscience right now about rewriting scripts. You just said it. But scripture is one of the best ways to rewrite the scripts of your life. You literally just copy the script into your brain. That's it. You speak it. You declare it. It's what we've been
saying for decades. You load it into your memory banks. It literally rewires your brain. And I'm big on positive and negative. I've always said I have a... I'm allergic to negativity. When I get around negative people, I feel a life sucking out of my body. It's like stick of siphon in my heart. And I can't stay in those environments very long. And I'm not just some happy -go -lucky rose -colored glasses guy. It's just, for whatever
reason, I knew it intuitively. I knew it spiritually inside, even if I didn't know it consciously or cognitively, that when I'm around positive people, that are, I always say, speak life, leak life, you know, be a leaky bucket. It all goes back to what we're talking about. It does. And I learned it because the Lord took me down these paths. And also because I was raised around some negative people. Yeah. And I just had this aversion to people in my family that were negative. And
I just pushed back. And I don't even know why. It was something inside of me said, get away from that. Yeah. So there's a lot of interesting study and science. Which is also a positive script that you created, but you are fortunate to have that script created and you can build on that and refine it and make it even better. I have to trust that the Lord did that for me even pre -Jesus. He was doing things deep in me, a deep work, pre -Christ, pre -salvation, where he was
already working things out. Do you think he had a plan for you, Pastor Jimmy Pruitt? He may have. This is what I was telling our staff and staff meeting. I said, don't think for a second that God didn't see any of this stuff coming. Everybody's screaming, oh no, Islam's taking over, oh no, Richardson, Texas, Sharia law on the streets. I said, we act like God vacated the planet, like he doesn't see what's happening, like he's not
in control or something. And I kind of just brought it pretty strong to my staff saying, guys, we can't get worked up about this stuff. Don't let
narratives spin you out. Or if you keep repeating them, you are only enhancing the power of the negative your brain doesn't determine whether this is positive or negative it just responds to whatever stimulus you give it that's right that part most of your brain is not emotional there's only one little section of your brain that that registers emotion morality darkness all that but most of your brain it's just an organ and it's simply responding to the stimulus
that you give it and if we and I was talking to Tina about this last night, and I said, if you ever notice, when you say something to Pastor Jimmy, there is always one beat longer than anyone else I know before he responds. And I know because you're running processing. You run processing, and I just guessed. I said, he's probably thinking, all right, what would Jesus respond? But you may not be thinking that consciously, but you've trained your brain, but it's very noticeable.
I mean, when you ended your discourse and dropped the mic, I waited until the mic hit the ground because I was like, I'm going to pause right here because it may be an awkward pause on air, but I'm like, no, no, no, I can't just say something. Because we've cheapened words through... Social media and clicking and everybody's a top writer now and everybody's a podcaster and all influencer Because we've lost the value of words good one. And so this is why I love reading the dead guys
all chambers. Yes Every word drips with weight. You can't just read a ton of his stuff. You have to like take your time You got to take time just one page per day one page one sentence. Sometimes you have like oh I need to And I'll clip a lot. I send those out all the time. He sent one this morning, actually, about Christmas. But I'm constantly trying to read those who wrote with more weight, with more gravity, because words are so cheap now. Well, and that's part of what the Sabbath
is for me. It's like, I need to look. It doesn't even matter. I want to read something. I don't want to listen even. Although I will, but I want to read something that is thoughtful and long and has is not a response or a promotion or anything. But it's hard, you know, to quiet your mind. It is. And you have to quiet your your your Swiss army knife. You got to put that thing away. And man, what happens then that really truly feels like this is this is the state I need to be in.
I need to be. thinking, aware, aware that the Holy Spirit is giving me ideas, that God is talking to me. I see you, enemy. No, no, no. Get thee behind me, Satan. Do you talk to yourself out loud? Yes, I do. I do too. On my walks, my prayer walk every morning, out loud. In my office, I'm constantly saying, saying, saying, that's good. You're going to be okay. Don't let that bother you. I mean, literally just, it just comes out and I've gotten more natural with that over time.
And then I read about self -talk in one of these neuroscience journals, and they're saying that that trains your brain. You rewrite your neural pathways by talking to yourself. It's also the enemy can't read your mind. You have to tell him out loud otherwise he won't go away. I have no trouble telling him out loud. That's something I learned a couple of months ago. Oh, I got to say it out loud. Okay, I can do that. That's right. That's where the force is. You know, Jesus
didn't think about stealing the storm. He didn't think about Raisin Lazarus. He said, be quiet. He said it. And when he cast out demons, he didn't think about it. He said it. Good point. There's power in that. Good point. So I love what you're saying, Adam. I mean, gosh, you just dumped a massive dump truckload of information and content. But it's something we need to, as blood bought believers, we don't. check our brains at the door. We don't check our intellect. We don't
check our ability to reason. We don't check our questions. We need to be okay. So right now, you've probably seen this, Kirk Cameron's getting slaughtered in social media, all because he and his son had a conversation about hell. on their podcast. His son asked him a question. Now, you won't read this from everybody else. Well, of course not. They'll put an 18 second clip out there and now we're vilifying Kirk Cameron like
he's the Antichrist. He's lost his faith. I haven't seen, I saw like some promotional YouTube thing like, oh, Kirk Cameron. So I actually don't know exactly what it is. So I appreciate you telling me. Well, I watched, he did a rebuttal to it online this morning and I watched part of it. I'd catch the whole of it. I want to watch the rest of it. But he's saying, He's saying he's so shocked that people got all bent out of shape about this. He said all of his old mentors are
calling him, checking on him. So what exactly did he say that was so controversial? His son asked the question. He said, his son said, Dad, you know, didn't say Kirk, Dad, help me understand what the Bible says about hell, because I'm having a hard time believing that a merciful, loving God would banish someone to hell for not believing in them, and then they'd be in torment for eternity.
Is that what the Bible says? And so, Kirk and him did a deep dive right there in their podcast, going through their Bibles, and finding scriptures that either supported it, hinted toward it, or said something different. Well, maybe, because it does talk about destruction. And so Kurt, they were just postulating out loud. Yeah, they're just, they're going through it. They're thinking
through it. They're processing out loud and people are just like taking notes going, oh my gosh, Kurt Cameron just said that there may not be eternal torment for, you know, oh, he doesn't even believe in hell. I mean, people just had to run away with this. So there wasn't even really a conclusion. They're just going through it. Oh, okay. I can't wait to listen to the rest of it. But here's what I realized. I did the same thing. I started going, Annette, did you
hear this about Kirk Cameron? And she goes, I did. I just read something about him. Kirk Cameron said that he looked at the stats. He said, there's more views on people who were talking about him saying it than actually listen to the show. He said, that is telling to me. And he said, I'm so disappointed in the church and Christians who came out and slaughtered me, but didn't listen to the whole program because there's context.
So he was kind of rebuking people for saying, you know, to say you didn't even listen to the show. You heard a clip. And you made a determination about my faith. And I'll bet if you listen to the clip, they're exactly what we've been talking about. It is. It hits you right away, right in your fear factor. He said it straight up. He said, people are just trying to get more likes. They're trying to get more bumps. And he said... Which is idolatry, which is haughtiness, pride,
darkness, darkness. Yes. I have found my... And honestly, I rarely... I'm hardly... I don't know a lot of what's going on right now. I'm hearing things kind of after the fact, like I'm not getting the breaking news version of it. I'm getting it like three days later because I'm just decided not to swim in that cesspool. You know, we had a growing up, we lived out in the country and so I can wear boots legitimately. So I'm an imposter. No, I was thinking of somebody else, but I won't
say their name. Somebody I love. I've just had a funny thought. Random. So, we had a septic tank and I remember my parents saying, don't ride your horse over the septic tank. Don't ride your motorcycle. I mean, I'm always like, looking for a jump. So, every time I take my horse around that side of the house, I tell my brother, he's on his horse. I said, Hey, hey, don't go over it. Cause what had happened has started to sink. Yeah, of course. And then some bad, really bad
stuff. Crap can happen. Crap can happen. That's exactly right. You said it nicely. And so I remember it kept getting like over the years that we live there, it got worse and worse. And my dad finally said, man, we got to do something about this. So they brought a guy out. He comes out with a big, you know, front end loader. He digs it up. Oh my gosh. So when I talk about swimming in the cesspool, I think about a septic tank
and how gross and sick it is. Because when they open that thing up, because they put a new tank in. It's a visualization. Unbelievable. Unbelievable to think that that's just a few feet from the house. You know, all that nastiness. Well, think about what's not just a few feet from your house, but in your hand. in your pocket, everywhere you go. I mean, the visceral reaction all of us have, and I've had it when I've left my phone somewhere, panic. Like, oh my gosh. I don't have
my phone. Am I panicking because I'm worried about somebody taking my phone or am I panicking because this thing that has become a habit is now not in my hand? You know, that's interesting because we've been talking about texting. And inherently, the whole idea of texting is an asynchronous communication. And you and I have that down pretty well. Yeah, yeah. There's not a lot of emotion involved here. But also, I'm not going to... You're not upset if I don't respond right away.
But if I don't respond by two in the afternoon, you're going to see if I'm alive. Are you okay? Are you okay? That's it. But people have gotten into this habit of, I got to respond. I got to respond. Someone text me. Oh, I'm bad about that. And that tells me every day, you don't have to answer that. I'm going, I think I do. It gets to the point where my daughter, who will be showing up tomorrow for Christmas, I'm very excited.
Now, she also lives seven hours away time zone wise, and she has a demanding job when she's on the job. She's not, but also she is, she's 35 and she's figured it out better than me and most of my friends and peers. She's like, no dad, no. I had to step away from it. So she might not respond for a day, for a day. I'd be like, you... When your daughter lives halfway across the world, it's a little disturbing. But you
know, she actually helps me calm down. I know she's alive because it says online or it says last online three hours. So she was alive three hours ago. But all of this is the enemy. The enemy is throwing all of this into my head with a perfect tool. I want to play this last clip from the interview with the devil. Here's where the devil gives us 10 steps. He's actually telling us how to protect ourselves against drifting. So getting into that agentic state that we're
talking about. That's it, everybody. We're done. We're out of here. Time for lunch. Wrong button. Protection against drifting lies within easy reach of every human being who has a normal body and a sound mind. The self -defense can be applied through these simple methods. One. Do your own thinking on all occasions. The fact that human beings are given complete control over nothing save the power to think their own thoughts is
laden with significance. 2. Decide definitely what you want from life, then create a plan for attaining it and be willing to sacrifice everything else if necessary rather than accept permanent defeat. 3. Analyze temporary defeat no matter of what nature or cause, and extract from it the seed of an equivalent advantage. 4. Be willing to render useful service equivalent to the value of all material things you demand of life, and
render the service first. 5. Recognize that your brain is a receiving set that can be attuned to receive Communications from the universal storehouse of infinite intelligence to help you transmute your desires into their physical equivalent
reminder 1938 okay 1938 the days of radio. Yeah Six theater recognize that your greatest asset is time The only thing except the power of thought which you own outright and the one thing which can be shaped into whatever material things you want Budget your time so none of it is wasted seven Recognize the truth that fear generally is a filler with which the devil occupies the unused portion of your mind That it is only a state of mind which you can control by filling
the space It occupies with faith in your ability to make life provide you with whatever you demand of it eight When you pray do not beg Demand what you want and insist upon getting exactly that with no substitutes. Dude, just got to stop for a second. That just blew me away. The devil is saying when you pray you got to demand it, man. Reminds me of the message translation. It's like, uh, Eugene Peterson. Yeah. It's got that tone to it. When did Peterson write it? I mean, this
is way pre -Peterson. Yeah, that's fantastic. 10, 15 years ago. Two more to go. Nine. Recognize that life is a cruel taskmaster and that either you master it or it masters you. There is no halfway or compromising point. Never accept from life anything you do not want. If that which you do not want is temporarily forced upon you, you can refuse in your own mind to accept it and it will make way for the thing you do want. Ten. Lastly, remember that your dominating thoughts
attract through a definite law of nature. by the shortest and most convenient route, their physical counterpart. Be careful what thoughts you dwell upon. Wow. I'm looking at what you did C .S. Lewis publish, Screwtape Letters. Have you ever read that book? Of course. When did he write that? I'm looking. I'm curious because what year was this? 1938. It's got to be around
the same time, I'm thinking. When was 1942 so 39 42 mm -hmm interesting that these All right, right before World War two things are might might just want to mention that things were ramping up all over Europe Yeah, yeah fear fear -mongering Propaganda now the wazoo. Yeah, it's happening all over the world. The world was frozen with fear. Yeah And here we are. Here we are again. The world may not even be that bad, but so I'm really going to try to be to opt out, to really
be radical. And, you know, I've brought myself down. I still have a job where I need to understand what's happening, but I segment that time and and I flow it through my brain into a system so I can get rid of it. Right. But really, once a day, After you know scripture before screens after I've done everything after I've We've texted after the bridge men's group daily devotional comes in so I've had I got all my stuff and Anything extra I want to I only go to to news .google
.com Just to see what the headlines are right which I find a lot more calming Than going on to social media and knowing their news from that no doubt And they're also a little behind, you know, so and that's it. And I really so I know what everyone else will be yapping about. I already know it. I already know what you're going to be talking about. I don't care. Now, the trick is, you know, Bondi Beach, 15 people killed. OK, the trick is not to because even when you
go in and and and are. Commenting like this is horrible. You're just giving Satan more creative energy That's that's the big takeaway like you're just and and like like the devil said What are you spending your time on? Well, we know that on average people spend about seven hours a day on their phone on average That's a lot of adjusting this steady diet of negativity darkness fear Fear. I wrote this down. Fear is a space filler. That's what the devil said. Fear fills space.
You're talking about not wasting time. And also, everything you see is fake. And I think this affects women. Already, it was really bad with fashion magazines in the 80s and 90s. But now every video is filtered. Everybody looks better than you. And a life is better than yours, which plays on the poverty mindset, on the fear of missing out, on making you feel low and down and no good. Even if it's a really positive story, I don't have that positivity. I'm not doing that.
It's just not good. So the phone is the Swiss Army knife. It's a great tool, but be careful how you handle it and how many times you handle it to reduce the amount of cuts, missing fingers and exploding lampposts that you encounter in your daily life. And the thing is, you and I have really reduced a lot of our scrolling time. I feel a lot better. Me too, brother. And I don't feel like I'm out of touch. So true. So true. The scripture before screens thing, now it's
worked into my daily life. So I don't even think about it. I used to just literally, intuitively, automatically reach for my laptop. I mean, it was like autopilot. And now I'm sitting there, my dog's like, what are you doing? Where's dad? You're just sitting there. You're not doing anything. And literally, because I'll just take time and I'll sit for 10 minutes. Yeah. I may or may not put on some instrumental music just to chill, just to wind down. And God just don't know me.
I have no tinnitus right now. Zero. Amen. Ooh, that feels good. How about that? Well, I was saying that, I was going, it just dawned on me I have nothing. Because I used to say I would fill that space with music just to sort of cancel out the tinnitus. And when I said that, automatically my thought went there. I'm like, wait, there's nothing there. Whoa. That's cool. Praise God. Couple things. Can I land this on a scriptural note? Yeah, please. I have the field in sight.
No, no. So good. So number one, this comes from, I love this doctor, I mentioned her a minute ago, Dr. April Joy. She has some really fascinating studies on this, and I'm trying to find out where I was because it was good. Where is it? I lost it because I jumped out to look at that. Oh, here it is. A couple of things. This is, again, she's in the end of the neuroscience world. She says this, She's talking about positive things that you could say that you need to say to yourself,
tell yourself. And if you'll say it enough, your brain will just go with it because it's just going to take whatever you're giving it. So give it things like this. I can change. Cause there'll be people listening to this that are already feeling bad, like, Oh, I'm such a pessimist. I'm so negative. Oh, I tend to be critical. Well, the whole world's critical right now. We're being trained by social media to be critical. To be
critical, yes. We started with American Idol and all those shows where Simon Cowell, thank you very much. Although he's flipped the script a little bit, but man. So I can change. That's the statement. You need to say to yourself and tell yourself, I can change. I can change. That was actually the big revelation for me with Anthony Robbins. Oh, yeah. When I had those early Power Talk tapes. The one that guy. Yeah, I've always liked him. His reinforced statement was, you
can change how you feel in an instant. That's all up to you. It's in your mind. It's in your soul. It's in your being. He was doing neuroscience before there was neuroscience. So I can change. Your brain is designed to grow and rewire. Neuroscience calls this neuroplasticity. Scripture calls it renewal. So, I'm going to repeat a scripture you shared. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12 .2. I love, use the NLT version, which is my favorite, by changing the
way you think. I love that. It's powerful. And it's there thousands of years ago. Could you hold it down over there, baby? No, it's just the door. No, it's okay. Don't worry. We're good. Hey, y 'all. Annette. Dame Annette's in the room. She came in and opened up the door. The fans are blowing. My hair is windblown now all of a sudden. Save the cargo, Captain Baines. Be sure and slam that drawer. All right, so number two. I'm in trouble now. So number two, this
challenge has meaning. I found these to be really good. When the brain finds meaning, stress responses quiet and resilience increases. Purpose calms the nervous system. And I call it getting the why before the what. Oh, I'm not busy at all, honey. Excuse me. Hey, man, you guys are running an organization here. We're working. Things must go on. We're working. Absolutely. When the brain finds meaning, stress response is quiet. Purpose calms the nervous system. Listen to the scripture,
Romans 5, 3, and 4. Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character. A couple more. Tell yourself this, I am not alone. I am not alone. The brain interprets connection as safety. Even believing support exists. Even believing support exists lowers fear responses. And that's so true. Like if I know you're in my court, you've got my back, even if I don't see you all day, just knowing that makes me feel safer. That's
what the power of community. And here's the scripture, Hebrews 13, 5, I will never leave you nor forsake you. That's a God's promise to us. Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is near the brokenhearted. Two more, these are quick. These are so good. My thoughts are not always facts. You know I've talked about the difference between truth and facts. Truth is truth. It's eternal, but facts are temporary and subject to change. Thoughts are automatic brain activity. They just happen. Wisdom begins
when we learn to examine them. In other words, don't take everything you think as truth. It may not be. It's not always right. Sometimes we have stinking thinking, as Zig Ziglar used to say. And back to Milgram, remember that when you're getting it from someone you perceive to be an authority, someone who says, I have the receipts. I've done the research. I know what
I'm talking about or wears a lab coat. Be very wary of what you're accepting as truth and this goes back to what you've taught me a lot I mean really question everything. Yes, I grew up in a first responders home. So I trusted authority He was he was a he worked for the county. He was a county, you know Lubbock County firemen and firefighter government Yeah, I worked in
the social work system. My paycheck came from the state of Texas So all of us, you know, we've had these authority pieces in our life and we just didn't question them ever Yeah, I do now. So we take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10 .5, I love that. Psalm 42 .5, why are you cast down, my soul? In other words, ask why. Why? Why? What's going on? Why am I feeling this way? I love asking Jesus, Jesus, is this true? Man, that one question will set
you free. You know what's funny? The number one thing people post on X now, at Grok, is this true? I see those add -ons now, Grok. And then Grok will answer. And by the way, they take that as truth. Because it's on the World Wide Web, it's got to be true. Last one. Hope changes my brain. I love this. The power of hope. Hope changes my brain. Hope activates motivation pathways, strengthens emotional regulation. It anchors the mind toward the future. I love that. Hope
anchors the mind toward the future. Romans 15 -13, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Last one, Hebrews 6 -19. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul. There it is. Beautiful stuff. And I gotta say, the Devil's Top Ten, they were spot on, man. It was good, wasn't it? So Your Majesty had, he nailed it, man. 1938, man. That was so powerful. That's very cool. Yeah. Man, thanks for bringing that today, bro. Are you kidding me? I cannot
tell you how this aligns. We haven't even been talking about this. So you come in with all this, I'm going, oh, you're talking about neuroscience. Well, from 1938 -39. Do you think there's a coincidence in the kingdom? Maybe the Holy Spirit's trying to say something here. Get these guys in a room. Get them on the mic. It's so weird that you came from a completely different, from early 1900s perspective, and I've been reading about neuroscience through the Christian worldview, because there's
a lot of other stuff out there. we're landing in the same spot. That's so cool. I'm kind of blown away, brother. All right. So why don't we land this plane? Thank you to Dr. McPhillan. Thank you to Dr. Milgram. That's right. Retardation on the lever. Here we go, everybody. That's it. Thank you very much. Check us out on the Godcast app. We'll be back next week. We get to do this and we love it.