Scripture before Screens

Father, what a privilege, what an honor, what a joy to come before you today. In the middle of a week that's hectic and busy and harried, and yet we still have this attitude. We get to do this. So Lord, we lay all this before you. We thank you for our friends that are listening and joining us, and our prayer for them is for your grace to be more than enough. to be absolutely

sufficient in their lives. We thank you for the testimonies that are coming back from people who are engaging their faith and engaging their walk with you, some of them re -engaging and some for the first time stepping into this. So we pray for grace upon them. And Father, as we do this, we always want to honor you in everything we say and do. Thank you for our families, our friends, our fur babies. And we thank you for this time, this podcast in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. It's Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025. We Get To Do This. This is episode number seven. Hey, brother. How's it going, my friend? It's going good. It's good to be in the house of Pastor Jimmy and the Five Brian's. That is so funny. That'll make me laugh for a long time. I'm just checking out your hoodie today. Yes, I got the Iron Sharpens Iron. That is awesome. Proverbs 27. That's one of my faves right there. I live by it. I live by this and Ephesians 6 .12. I

just can't figure out the tattoo. For Ephesians if Ephesians is really difficult because you know you want to do whole armor of God It turns into like a knight of you know, yeah shining armor Yeah shield and sword. I'm looking for the perfect. Yeah, I haven't quite found you know No one thinks about tats until you decide to get one about how how Hard it is to pick out the design go or design it because it's like a sweater. You can't take off I mean, yes, it's

there once you do it. It's done. It's in here in your body So yeah, so you're you're kicking around the fusions of well, you know as I'm saying that I'm thinking to myself What is the number one emoji we use? The swords. The swords, the iron sharpens iron. So maybe I need to not be so critical and go for the swords. There you go. I like it. It's been 61 years, man. So I haven't gotten a tat yet. So 61 for you. It was, I think, 58 for me when I got these. Oh, really?

Yeah, Tetelesthi. Yeah, and Free Indeed, which I'm going to be preaching on this very passage on Sunday. You know, Pastor Brian did a great job bringing about, you know, national, local freedom based out of, you know, the Bible, which impacted obviously the Declaration of Independence. He did a phenomenal job with that. So I'm taking a different tack. I'm coming in from personal freedom and spiritual freedom. So we're talking

about freedom on those two levels. And then Dr. Rick Scarborough will be with us the following week, which he's a legend. Oh, really? He's going to preach? Yes. Oh, fantastic. Super excited about having him. He's pumped. And he'll be bringing freedom from more of the geopolitical thing. I mean, really, really just kind of his story of how he stepped into that space as a pastor. And of course, I'm going to have him tell this story about his daughter. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's

a great story. That story is the message. It's a good story. Does he just go around the country speaking at churches and rallies? I mean, what does he do? You know, he's way past retired, but in his retirement, he's retooled himself and re -upped, so to speak. So instead of leading a church as a pastor, he now speaks, does engagements, but he does a lot of training. for pastors in terms of cultural engagement. Right. That's his big, that's his big thing. That's his big rock.

It is, it is the big thing. You know, actually, I was going to start with something else, but that cultural engagement, let me see, because I did bring a couple of clips. Great. And this one, now who is in my life, who is the biggest non -believer that you can think of? Really? Oh. Yeah, shall I say that out loud? Yeah. Joe Rogan? No. Oh, I'm not... Who I work with all the time. Oh, I'm not gonna say the name, man. I don't do that. None of them will be upset.

No, no, you say it. John C. Dvorak. I know, I love John. He calls himself a lapsed Catholic. A lapsed Catholic. Now, ever since I was saved, proclaimed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, We've never actually even talked about it. We don't talk outside the show. But he has chided me. He makes fun of me, you know, which is... I've heard him. First of all, it's expected. It's expected. But something interesting has started

happening. And so, you know, when he sends in clips, I don't look at him on our Thursday and Sunday show. And I saw he had something about NPR and faith and religion in America. I'm like, oh brother, okay, this is going to be interesting. So I didn't actually bring those clips. I brought his analysis of these clips because he's, and

it goes right into the cultural engagement. So the story was, of course, some professor from like the Christian Islamic Jewish Institute, like, okay, that's not a broad swath, but okay. And how the churches are diminishing. And I think what they were really focusing on is how this big church splits in, I think, the Methodist Church. Now the Anglican Church. The Church of England. Yeah, I just heard about it. So they're not going to recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury,

which is like, whoa, that's a big deal. And so they were kind of going into, and he has this long standing thing. We both agree that social media is a problem, particularly with young kids. And he just launched into something and it was more about the church and then it kind of morphed into music. I just wanted to share this because this gave me so much courage. and encouragement for what's going on. And it has a lot to do with

our church right here. That's why I think it's interesting that your church has a number of little factoids that it pulls off that I think… I just love little factoids that it pulls off. I love it. I use that word all the time. I love it. When he says it though, somehow it doesn't feel good. I don't know what it is, but it's

just, it's incredible. I'll go back. That's why I think it's interesting that your church has a number of little factoids that it pulls off that I think, which will be create a revivalism, I think, which is the socialization thing. Yes. Which is a lot of churches become social. And I came up with this thinking about this because I did a hit on Chanel show on Friday. Oh, I missed it. A Chanel hit. But Chanel Ryan, the One America News, he goes on, he talks about, he shows TikTok

videos of crazy liberals. But I guess he's getting into deeper material with the Chanel, yes. This discussion was about this country and western guy who's a left winger and how about country and western is, you know, they're trying to move in on it. But she said, she made the comment that there was a large, the country and western music is the largest genre that is growing the fastest and asked me if I had any idea of why

this might be. And I said, maybe it's because country and Western at least has to do with relationships and, you know, boys and girls. And and the idea that you can, you know, there's there's love songs within the country and Western genre as opposed to shooting somebody or bitching about immigration status in a song. And so you end up with this kind of the need for socialization. And I think the churches that do well are the

ones that are pushing that part of it. they have their message, but the idea that kids in particular, young ones, the Zeds, they, you know, they haven't been, they don't have, there was a big story that was going around all this last week on the mainstream media about one of the high schools that cancel all their dances. It's insane. Cause nobody was going to go to the dances. And it's like that brings back my old point about the sock hop. And so I think churches have their

opportunity. uh to help kids socialize because it's a yes it is a place where you can yes meet people your abs and and i will say that more so yes the non -denominational churches i think are doing quite well and they're growing and they also have very young pastors you know when i say young i mean 40s and it's a very different breed a very different genre and the music is actually much closer to country and western,

it's all Nashville. All of the Christian contemporary music comes out of Nashville now, and they're, you know, they're, Ann Wilson, traditional country artist, boom, moves right over to Christian contemporary, Jelly Roll. You know, this guy is the furthest thing from Christian contemporary music, has the number one hit with Brandon Lake. Never heard of any of these things. No, I know you haven't. But in the legendary words of Lonnie Frisbie, there's a whole generation out there just looking

for God, man. So I thought this was really interesting that he pegged that the churches who are socializing and becoming centers of the community again, which is exactly what you and Annette have done here with Bridge Church. I mean, we're here all the time. There's always something going on. That's our heart. And you know, I grew up unchurched, completely, until I was 18 years of age. When I stepped into this world, it was like stepping

on the moon. It was a lunar landscape. I didn't know what was behind the next crater, behind the next rock. I had to learn a whole new world as a young person. I was met with grace. old people that love me. I call them blue hairs because back then they all had blue hair. They were so

sweet to me. But what I realized too is as I began getting to serve churches and began getting involved in ministry, and while I was going to college, we would serve a lot of small churches all around Central Texas, tiny churches out in the country. and they would have these old pavilions out there. It was the center of the community or the center of the county. I would hear stories about how everything was around the church. That was the community center of the church. You didn't

have a separate community center. You had the church fellowship hall. It was the community center. I remember just sitting around with these precious folks as they told those stories. I got to serve in a small town in central Texas called Comanche, Texas. I think there's around 4 ,000, 5 ,000 people there. Small churches. You feel like you're a bit in a time warp, but it's good. Mayberry RFD, you're feeling it, right? You're feeling Barney Fife and the sheriff and

all that. And it's like, there's something Americana and good. And some of that has not been lost. We are in town. It's this small. We're 12 ,000 people, but we're connected to Austin, San Antonio. We're in this sort of weird vibe where we get more influx from larger cities. So we're large on the weekends, back to normal during the week, except for during touring season. So our heart is to have the church become a flourishing place

again. to where any day of the week you drive up, there's cars in the parking lot, there's people going in and out. I call it the buzz factor. The louder it is in the halls, the happier I am because that means people are here and they're seeing their church as a connector for the community. And you're doing that with a Godcaster. I mean, that's the heart of that. It is. And did you hear the report from Mindy, by the way, about the battery plant? I did, actually. That was

fascinating. Yeah. So, you know, that's like a... Now, she wrote it and I turned it into a report for her. Right, right. Because there's this big... I wondered if it was our Mindy. It is our Mindy, but that's not... That's not the voice. I know. I get it. That's not our Mindy's voice. I get it. Exactly. Yeah. But she... It was pretty much how she wrote this message to the women on a text group, like... Can I, can

I put this on Hello Fred? Because I think it really, it does, it does create this connector. And notice what Dvorak said there. He said, this is where a revivalism, he said revivalism, I think. But because he means, he's a very smart guy and he studies history, he knows about cycles. And I mean, he's said in the past, you know, we're due for another great awakening, which I agree with, of course. But what, what a fantastic observation. because we have the catalyst group

here on Wednesday nights. I mean, can we do more? We should be...it feels like we should be...we got the women's ministry, we got the men's breakfast. With Tuesday Night Bible Study with Tommy Hayes. That's right. We're looking at introducing another one or two that may meet on a Thursday night, because we want to compete with each other, we want to make opportunity. Right. Where literally you could be up here a lot, and the goal is not

to pull families apart. That's the danger of having so much going and having this huge menu of opportunities. We've got to make sure that the family is always the center of it, not just everybody goes their separate directions. So we're trying to create opportunities where we're together, like on Sunday mornings, the kids, at least the junior high and middle school. I'm not in junior high. That boy, I really dig myself.

Middle school and high school stay in the service through the worship and even the announcements. We feel like that's important. And through communion, we want them to participate in that. Then we dismiss them to more age -appropriate things. But the idea is that this becomes a hub for the community. And I mean, we're doing like shooter training, active shooter training, which not everybody agrees with. We had one family leave the church calling us hypocrites because we don't

trust God. I'm like, what? Where do you live? Hello. So anyway, weird stuff like that. But anyway, so we're trying to say what can we do that's needed in the community that we can fill that gap, you know, meet those needs. And so anyway, that's what we're doing. How about the idea of a sock hop? I'm just saying. I know, I know. I had little things running through my head, of course. I was in high school, 76 to 80, and of course, Smoking the Bandit came out,

you know, what, 79, 80? Yeah, it did, it did, yeah. That was the show we, okay, so for prom, they rented the, the high school gets the community center. Right. Okay. And my big town opposed Texas. and they showed that movie, Smokey and the Bandit, at that to keep us from all going out and getting drunk. Right. And it worked. I mean, I stayed in. We had a great time. And

I'm saying it more for my own history. When we moved to a very small village, 900 people south of Amsterdam when I was a kid, we literally had three digits on our phone number exchange. Our number was 771, and I had my own line, 445. It was very small. These are big rotary phones, by the way. And I remember we had a village, it's called the Dorps House. So it's a village house, which is kind of like a community center. It's where the school did their gym practice,

and they had this hall. And on Sundays, they showed movies, obviously. But the one thing that I always loved, and I would love to see this come back, and I'm not saying it's for the church

specifically, but there were dance classes. where you learned how to dance the classic dances and by default you were forced to dance with a girl or with a boy and I just wish that would come back because I think that's so good for kids to interact with each other that way may not be church appropriate although man It would be great if we had something like that. Well, hey, we don't rule anything out. Here's my go -to, my standard response to people who bring ideas

and trust me with a lot of ideators. I know what you're saying about ideators. Your standard response is, let me pray on that and I'll get back to you. No, don't say it like that. I say it like this. I'm just messing with you. I will put that before Jesus. There you go. And we will do the next thing He says. Amen. I hold to that. Yeah. Yeah. So when we introduce new things, it may be an idea that somebody brought that we put before Jesus. And we, as a team, a staff, felt

like that was the Lord. It was a green light, go. I love that. So yeah, we've got several things we've got on the hopper, in the hopper, so to speak, that we're just praying about. And when he says green light, go, we go. If he doesn't, we don't. So it's that simple. Well, I'm really excited about getting the podcast studio started. And we already have the Young and Faithful with Jonah and his... I guess, semi -permanent co -host, Gage. It's what it looks like. Gage is

awesome. They're doing great. And I'm looking forward to more of that. I really am. I'm so excited about it. So we'll be moving into the Life Center. Annette and I will move our office into the Life Center and then this will be a dedicated studio. And during the days, it'll be an opportunity for people need to meet, you know, we have meetings and stuff. It'll be used for that. But this will become an operational room, a hub, if you will. Yeah. where we can

have even more podcasts. I feel like there's lots of them in us. I feel like the people that are in our church, we've got people in public office, we've got people maybe going to, I can't let this one out of the hat yet, maybe about to run for public office. So we've got opportunity here and then we've got the place to do it where we can get good word, good messages out there. into the World Wide Web. Yes, I'm very excited about that. The inner web, as somebody said once.

I'm looking forward to being very busy helping people get... I just ordered a new piece of gear. Zoom came out with this wonderful little very... A lot of guitar stuff. Very simple box. We just plug stuff in. It has like, you know... your sound, everything, it's all kind of pre -programmed, and it just works. We use the Rodecaster, but I can just see that being a little daunting for people. I just want them to come in, hit the button, and you're good to go. You're recording.

So I'm hoping to integrate that here. Very cool. It just came out. I just heard about it this morning on Pod News. I'm a bit of a gear nerd, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. So we've been talking about social media a lot. How you've been doing on social media? I've got a touchdown to report. I don't know what's going on right now, and I'm not missing out on anything. Isn't it amazing? Somebody brought something up to me this morning, and I was like, have you

heard about it? And I'm like, no. And it had to do with Candace Owens going down the wormhole on something. And I said, no, haven't read that. Here's an Easter egg for Annette. Even Annette, she's laying in bed, she's got her phone out, and I've got mine out for about two seconds, and then it dawns on me, I've got it, so I'll put it away, and I've got my Bible beside my bed, so I'm picking that up. Or sometimes I'll use my tablet because it's got all my translations

on it. It's a mini. It's easy to hold onto. It's a mini. It's just like a book. So she's been saying, hey, did you hear about this? I'm like, no. Hey, did you read about this? No. Hey, did you know? And it feels good to say, no. Exactly. I don't know about that. It does feel good. It does. Increasing for my work, I need to know a lot of things. But I have now just cut it off. I cut it off until like Saturday night if I do a little bit of prep or just Sunday morning early.

Turns out, everything I need to know, I can pretty much get within one hour. I really can. Now, I'm reading emails from people, and so I get a vibe of what they're thinking about what's going on. I don't click the links. I'm just like, no. And I think my show has gotten better. Come on. It really has. I love this. No, my mind is not. I'm really good at segregating stuff. receive stuff, I codify everything. That's what I do. You categorize. You can, what's the word, compartmentalize?

Compartmentalize. In a healthy way. There's a healthy compartmentalization. And the way I do it is I take it in, I put it into my system. I have a system on my phone and in my computer, and it just categorizes it, and it's easy to find and search. And even for this show, the tag is WGTDT. It's like, oh, OK. I know what that is. Drop it in there. Whenever I have a thought, I can just put it in real quick, and then I flush it. out right away. You have to,

you have to flush it out. And it has really made a big difference. And there's been a couple of things that have been going on and I'm seeing increasingly how, I think I've told you the devil's playground, how this social media in particular, it's so unhealthy when people are Getting into it and going back and forth and I had a thought that I wrote down this morning Okay, because I've got I've got something I want to share on

this topic. So keep going I was thinking if you're on social media and you get that comment you get you know or whatever because you know I go on X To look at my just my inbox my mentions because that's where people it's like it's literally like email for me Someone will send me something. Okay, that's the link. I got to save But of course, there's always the, you've been a Christian for five minutes, you think you... All this stuff. And I've turned this into a forgiveness practice

tool. Good. Good pro tip there. And it's really feeling good. So I don't respond. And I certainly am not going to say, I forgive you. That's like, you might as well just poke someone in the eye. But I meditate on it. and I'll probably give it a heart. Just so I saw you, because there's nothing else to do or thumbs up on X is just a heart. And I purposefully stop and I think, okay, Lord, I'm forgiving this person. And it's really working for me. It really feels good.

Because immediately that adrenaline or whatever it is that when someone says something to you, You can't help that. Cortisol. Yeah, cortisol. You feel that right away. I'm like, no, no, no. And I've gotten, I can do it within like three seconds. I can do it almost with my eyes open. Forgiveness practice tool. Wow. So on that very thing, we've been talking about this in our staff meeting is we've talked about some social media issues. We've talked about this and I've used

the term radical forgiveness. Yeah. And I think I brought that up in our podcast, what did on the platform. You did. Yes. We got to practice radical forgiveness. That's one of our core values. But I like adding the word radical to it because it pushes the edge. When we talk about forgiveness, it's kind of, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, people just rush you along. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll finish your sentence. But when you talk about radical

forgiveness, it takes a whole new tone. And radical forgiveness is where you don't have limitations or categories. You just forgive no matter what. That's radical. I forgive you, but I forgive you, but we won't add that little but on the end, but this is like, I forgive you, period. Yeah. You can't put a but in a sentence because that negates everything that came before the but. It's just no good. I love what you're doing.

And I actually started doing that when I got... I think it's part of that encouragement to think of this. It helped me because I started doing it. I didn't at first. I received the cortisol dump. I was swimming in it and just feeling that weight on my chest. I was like, man, why is this getting to me? It's just social media. I don't know any of these people and they don't know me and have no context, but yet I still felt it. But when I shifted gears, because we talked

about this. and I had talked about radical forgetfulness. I need to practice what I preach. So I started looking at their names. And once I have their name, I'm like, thank you very much, so -and -so, and calling their name. Yeah, yeah, whatever it is, whatever their handle is. And just using that as, oh, thank you for giving me your name. Now I can call your name before the throne of

grace. And the Bible says in Hebrews 4, that were to come boldly before the throne of grace, and it says, there you will find mercy and grace to help in your time of need. So I'm like, I want to present these names before the throne of grace so that they can find mercy and grace to help in their time of need. Obviously something triggered them. They're upset about something. They've probably got trauma in their own lives or whatever's happened. Why else are you there?

Exactly. So now I get the privilege of calling practicing radical forgiveness, calling their name before the throne, and then releasing it, going on. And that's how I was able to get over it. And then I started laughing about it after a while, because it shifts your whole perspective. Wow, thank you for all you people giving, all 44 ,000 people giving your names. And I got to read through them. I quit reading what they were

saying and just calling their names. And of course, always remember the less you send, the less you receive. So the less you post, the less you're going to get. That is a good pro tip. It works in all media. I'm getting very few texts here lately. And it's only because I've quit sending out texts. I quit trolling. I quit throwing the line out in the water. I just quit. I've been considering talking to Tina about doing a day of the week. Saturday may not be the easiest

one for a lot of reasons. In fact, there's a lot of reasons why it's not easy for both of us. I think that if we just had our phones on, you know, do not disturb except for our kids, basically. You know, you could set that up so that those do come through. I've been thinking about talking to her about doing it for myself, too. Because it's not just social media. Like a 24 -hour deal or a 12 -hour all day, whatever. Whatever, all day. Just do a day. And just no

phone. Just no phone. Just put it over here and just leave it alone. Because it's everything. It's text. It's all kinds of stuff. It's not to say social media is the problem. It's not. It's the whole deal. It's everything. It's, oh, how old is Mark Harmon on the NCIS? How tall is he? Because I need to know that. There's that. I need to know how much he weighs. I mean, it's crazy. We just get into this information crave. I do. I'm an information junkie by nature. So

we're jumping online for everything. What is Scripture? Does Scripture talk about that at all? You don't need to know everything or not knowing everything is necessary? Oh, I love this. He's going into a system. I don't even know what... Are you using the Chad GPT? No, not Chad GPT. Perplexity? Maybe. It's okay. It's a valid use. I'm okay with that. It's a great search tool. It is for that. Oh, it's fantastic for searching scripture. I do it all the time, like, okay,

let me find something about this. And it will come up, usually comes up, I do go back and make sure what it spits back is the right scripture. I do too. I'm very careful. Yeah, not sure that it's always doing the right thing. You come up with anything? I prompted it with, does the Bible have scriptures that speak to needing to know? More information. Hmm. No, it's nothing specific. You know, you've got a lot of general stuff. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Meaning references for God initiates true understanding. Maybe that's what we need to look at. What is true knowledge? What is true wisdom? What is the wisdom and the knowledge you really need? I like where you're going with this because again, I call them pro tips. These are like little pointers like here's something I'm doing that's helping me and I love that. I love where you're going

with that. One of the things that's helping me in the morning as I get up, I have this little saying in my mind now, and I say, I say scripture before screens. Just so simple. Scripture before screens. Cause my habit has always been to open my computers. I'm sitting there with my cup of black rifle coffee. Mr. Chevy's begging to get up in my lap. And so as I'm settling in, I tend to sit down and open my screen. Of course you're hit with all kinds of notifications, all your

new emails, everything. Important, important. Look at me, look at me. Alert, alert. Breaking news. All that hits you in a nanosecond, right? As soon as you open it. Put your screens down, pick up your Bible to the next level. Scripture before screens. Boom! That's my morning thing. I love it. I sit down and I let that run through my mind before I open this up, so I'll reach for my Bible. Now, I might sometimes pick up my tablet. This depends only because I don't

have notifications on it. I just go right to the Bible on it. various versions of the Bible sitting on my desk all over. Now, do you needle drop when you pick up your Bible? Sometimes I do. One of my favorite Bibles that I've had for, gosh, 30 years now, it's got so many marks. and big pages. So like I can flip through it and man, it just comes alive with ink, you know, highlight, all different colors, circles, notes.

And I'll thumb through that and things will always pop up because it'll be something I wrote, you know, a reminder. Why is that important? I look, oh, I remember that, you know, back from 1997, you know, that was cool. So I'll do that. So I'll needle drop like that, especially through the New Testament. There's several things I do. There's a verse of the day on my…I use…what's it called? Something tree. It's my Bible search thing. Anyway. You got to search for your Bible

search thing. Well, I've got a Bible search program. Instead of using Logos like a lot of guys use, it's super complicated and really cumbersome. I use this. I'm trying to remember the name of it. Anyway, it'll hit me later. But what I do, it's got a verse of the day every day. So I'll pick that up and I'll click on it. And if it's something that speaks to me, I'll roll with that. If not, I'll do some needle drop or I'll just stop. I'll ask the Lord, Father, what do you

want to say? What's on your heart today? And so I'll go with that. But this idea of scriptures before screens has been a helpful reminder. I have another pro tip. So that's my first one. My second one is this. I heard this phrase a while back and I didn't incorporate it into my ongoing. You can read something and it hits you, but it's up to you whether you really implant it in your soul, right? Whether you go, this is important. And so I stumbled upon this phrase.

And it just stuck with me. And if I can push something aside and four days later it's still pinging, it's probably God saying, hey, listen up, God tap. So here it is. And it was read like this. I don't negotiate with weakness. Now, that was how it was written from whoever wrote it. I don't even know who it was. But I actually, in my mind, I drew a line. I didn't mark out weakness. I just put it off to the side and I

drew a line. I don't negotiate with blank. And what it has done for me, this has been something that's really powerful for me. I looked at, I found a scripture that really fits for this for me. First Corinthians 16, 13 says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men. This has been a daily grind. Yeah, it has. I've used that verse before. But that speaks to me. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong,

let all that you do be done in love. So I started a list and I started this a couple of days ago and I'm just finding it keeps going. I don't negotiate with weakness. That's how it was written. And I like that because weakness can be proneness to temptation, proneness to do something when you should be doing something else, you know, proneness. So I just started filling in the blank. I don't negotiate with sin. I don't negotiate

with time wasters. And that principle stuck with me because we're going through the unseen war with Victor Marx and his team, and we're on session seven out of eight on the videos. And there's this mentality of you don't negotiate with demons. You don't talk. You don't have a conversation. You interrogate them, but you don't negotiate. And you command them to We're also big fans of NCIS. Season 21 out of 24 seasons is how far

we've gotten. But you know the saying from the government, we don't negotiate with terrorists. So, you know, that's kind of that same spirit. Good one. So I'm using this for me. I don't negotiate with sin. I don't negotiate with time wasters. I don't negotiate with temptation. Here's one you'll appreciate. I don't negotiate with social media trends. Boom, I don't negotiate with demons.

I don't negotiate with the flesh I don't know negotiate with the need to be liked or accepted That's that's it right there the need to be like that kind of gets to the root that sure does sure does I don't negotiate with past trauma I Don't cuz all these want to negotiate with you They want to talk to you. They want to be in your head. Boy, the enemy uses all those negotiations all the time. Inner dialogue. A couple more, a few more. These are good. I don't negotiate

with critics. I don't negotiate with dark spirits. I don't negotiate with procrastination. Now that's the one I'm working on. So I put that on the list on purpose. That's more of a goal than a reality for me right now. I've been negotiating a lot, so I put that there on purpose. Here's another one. I don't negotiate with lust. I don't negotiate with the need for likes and clicks. That's helped me a lot with social media backing away and pushing away. And two more. I'm going

to keep the list going. This is just what I came up with this morning. I don't negotiate with pain. I'm not going to allow pain points in my life to cause me to compromise or to do something I normally wouldn't do just because I'm in pain. This is so good, Jimmy. I love this. This is a pro tip. I don't negotiate with worldly compromise. That's where I got so far. That's just from this morning. That is good. I just started writing these out and it just hit me how we let these

voices get in our head. And we think it's us. Sometimes it's the flesh. Sometimes it's the devil. It's the enemy. And we'll let that negotiation—and we know by the nature of the devil—let me just share this scripture with you. This is going to my Bible now, and I'm going to pull it up in this translation, John chapter 8, and this gives us the nature of the devil himself. John 8. Here it is. That's the best silence I've ever

heard. I know I'm just looking for it. No, I take your time I love silence on the podcast people look down. They think their podcast player has stopped They fiddle with their speakers. What happened? What went on? Why did I hear anything? so this is this is talking about the enemy of our souls and This is bothering me I'm gonna find it Here's where AI is helpful. Bible verse, I'm going to give you my prompt. Bible verse

that says, the father of lies. What's so beautiful about that is it'll give the verse right to me. Yeah. John 8 44. No wonder you couldn't find it. It was 44. I skipped right over it. It was there. I rolled through it. Here it is. Oh, there it is. This is Jesus talking to the Pharisees. And he says this, why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word. You are of your father, the devil. Boy, who says that Jesus is always nice? Nope. Hello.

He's called these guys out. He says you are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of it." And did the Pharisees respond well to this message? No, they rarely responded well to Jesus. Wow, that is good. They go on into a dialogue at this point.

But what you're saying is so good because how often we all have this. You wake up and the minute I'm conscious, I'm still in bed. I do the Lord's Prayer. Right away, it's like, let me just do this. And it says, but sometimes... Do you do your own version of it or do you do the classical version? Sorry to interrupt. It's a hybrid. I always think about our Father, which art in heaven, which is your version. No, that's the King James version. The King James version. Thank you. Okay.

That's the version. I'm King Jimmy. That's King James. There you go. They're different. And I always think about heaven, and I stop there and think about how big heaven is all around us and the stars and everything. Hallowed be thy name. You are holy, Lord. You are holy above all holy. I know that this is the command. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then give us this day our daily bread.

Lord, give me guidance and provision. I'm not talking about provision like money, like give me provision for the things that I need. So if I get through that, I'll get to the temptation part in a moment. So I do that and then I'm usually set, but if I don't, you can wake up and there's that thought in your head. There's something going on and I can feel, I mean, this is... been 60 years that I've not figured this one out. Like, ah, he's trying to get in my head right

away. He's trying to set the tone, set it straight, which is where you're the weakest. That's why scripture before screens, if you pick up the screen and there's a weakness already going on and one thing hits you, you are done for the rest of the day. It's very hard to pull yourself out. Sets the tone for the day. Yes. Yes. So when back to yours. Well, and this leads into a clip because we talked about it. Cool. and lead us not into temptation, which... Could you

explain that? Because I think a lot of people are like, that's kind of weird. God's going to lead us into temptation? Can you just... Yeah, the way I say it, because I personalize mine as well. I'll do the traditional version and then I do my version, which is wildly different sometimes. But two things on that that's important, but let me get to that point. The way I phrase that, because sometimes the... Greek language or Aramaic doesn't always translate exactly like

English. They just don't parse out the same. So some scriptures can be kind of confusing like that one. That's a good example of a confusing scripture because why would he lead us into temptation? Well, he wouldn't. So the way I say it is, Father, I thank you that you never lead me into temptation, but you do deliver me from evil and the evil one. That's it. It's just a simple twist on the words, but it actually is more accurate to the actual original language. And to today's way

we understand. Father, thank you that you never lead me into temptation, but you do deliver me from evil and the evil one. So let's talk about the temptation that is coming our way. It is coming to a chatbot near you. This is a big one. I think we just have to just talk about it for a minute. ChatGPT will soon be able to write erotica for adults. This update was announced by OpenAI boss Sam Altman who said users who verified their ages would be able to access a

wider range of content. He said OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, had previously made the chatbot pretty restrictive and that it was less useful slash enjoyable for users with no mental health problems but new tools meant those restrictions could soon be relaxed. OpenAI was sued earlier this year by the parents of US teen Adam Raine who took his own life. The lawsuit that Adam had discussed his suicidal thoughts with the chatbot. In a statement given at the time, OpenAI told

the BBC it was reviewing the filing. Both in the UK and the US, there's concerns about what this update will mean for child safety. Written erotica does not require an age verification in the UK under the Online Safety Act. And in the US, there's calls for more regulation at all levels. OpenAI did not respond to our request for comment. chopped up. Did you have to chop it up? No, that's how they posted it. I have another one. I heard the same story highlighted

on SRN news. The reason I was listening to S, the only reason I heard it is because I was on the Godcaster. And there it is. Hello, Fred. I wasn't on social media. I was on the Godcast. I heard news, relevant news. Get the Godcaster app, everybody. You can get all of these great podcasts on it. Hello, Fred. So first of all, there's a couple of things. The classification of erotica is what a load of bunk. I know. That was bizarre from the beginning when they said

that because I'm going, wait a minute. Erotica is like, okay, you just mean porn, smut, nasty, dirty talk. And the part that really stuck out to me is, well, for those who don't have mental health problems, Flash news flash. That was an odd statement. We all have mental health issues. Every single one of us. That's exactly what we've been talking about for the past 40 minutes. These are mental health issues. I mean, you're sick. You're human. And this stuff, I mean, it's going

to, it is going to start slipping in. So we just have to identify it because you're going to be talking to your chat bot no matter which one it is. It'll be Grok. It'll be, I'm sure. perplexity, anthropic, all of them will have this because this is the product. We've talked about this like personal chat bots and people want it to be really personal. What will it take for the chat bot to go, well, this person is verified of a certain age and seems to have no mental

health issues. So I'm just going to slip in a word or two and see if and then you can be led down the path. We need to arm ourselves against this, because it's going to happen, particularly men, particularly young men. This is not healthy. This really concerns me. It is very concerning. It concerns me a lot. I just added to my list, I don't negotiate with CHAT GPT. There it is. I'm going to draw that line in the sand. I will not go there. And I will not refuse. But the

tragedy is that... The temptation now that they've made this grand announcement and now we've told everybody it's there a lot of people didn't even know Yeah, that's the hard thing about news sometimes For example when we watch NCIS, I know just said it again Annette was like every time they blow something up or they have an attack on the government Annette goes they're just giving people ideas I'm not honey. You think people don't already have ideas. Well, I don't think they're giving

them anything. But yeah, you know what they say her thinking it If a news report isn't making someone mad, it's propaganda. So this is actually a PR message. This is a PR message. And Elon Musk did the same with Grok and his little animated character. This is all get the app, pay $20 a month. You're going to love it. Are people paying for that now? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think lots of people are paying $20 a month for something.

And, you know, right now We're in this period where $1 .3 trillion of investment has gone into AI. They're going to need another trillion before it pays off in enterprise and workplace. But we still need to have the customers. So how do you get the customers? They have a perfect product. The product is the chat bot. And we had friends at the house. And my buddy, he's just like, we're talking something. He just talking his phone.

So he's not even typing anymore. He's actually Talking to the phone become an auto response. It had exactly that scary. I mean he he's he's pretty low blow bar I know you're talking he also sells AI to enterprise and okay, so but still he's a musician He's making music with it. I mean we've had long conversations about this Vick will be okay, but still it's that it's that next step. I'm like wow you're in that next step You know that that's interesting. So we

just need to be aware of it for our kids. Yeah But for ourselves, I mean, really, it's so easy. This is big temptation. And not just erotica, all kinds of ideas come out of it. We mentioned this last week, but I think it's worth mentioning again, for those who didn't hear the podcast or maybe you're new, but we talked about the fact that people are so lonely and so broken

and so isolated. because now you can live on a screen and we have a generation of young people who this is all they've known socially is a screen and so the temptation for that now that the screen will talk back to you you know like how 2000 or whatever you know uh it's so easy to do that and so tempting to because hey i'm by myself i feel alone but oh what a nice voice here on chat gpt you know she makes me feel affirmed and she's positive and you start down that track

and I can see and Ed and I tested it out together and we were laughing about it a lot because I triggered it to keep saying something. It had to get the last word. It's sycophantic and it's continuously building you up and have a great day and be good. And I'd say, oh, thank you. Oh, you're so welcome. If you have anything else you'd like to know and talk about, feel free. And I said, well, I really appreciate that. Well, I appreciate you too. And I was like, This could

go on for an hour. I mean, literally, I think it would get the last word no matter what. So what just hit me is maybe the lesson here is that we need to be reaching out to our, as believers, reaching out to our brothers and sisters, just saying, Hey, how you doing? Want to go grab a coffee? Want to go to lunch? Can we invite you over? But as you know, that involves risk and we're risk averse. We do not want to take the chance of someone turning us down, ghosting us,

rejecting us. And so the chat bot will never reject me. So now it's easy. And we know what soft times make. Yeah, soft men. That's right. Weak men, hard times, hard times, strong men. So we're living in that where now I don't have to have a bunch of outside relationships. I've got my bot. I may have several versions of a bot. I'm assuming you can do that. I don't know how this works, but I'm assuming you can have several conversations going. And it'll remember

where it was with you. So I'm also saying, let's make sure we don't let others fall into this. Let's get them out. Let's go somewhere. take a walk or grab a coffee or anything. Get outside. We did a two mile power work this morning and it was so beautiful. You could hear the birds singing, sun coming up through the hill country

and little light fog. And I was like, why wouldn't I want to be out here breathing this air and waving at our neighbors as they drive by, you know, wishing they were walking, stick on to work, but whatever. We've got to do something. We've got to. It's almost like we need to hearken back to a time that was before all this if you want to stay mentally healthy Yeah, you've got

to you've got to do it. Absolutely Wow last thing for me is this no Kings protest that took place and Which whether it was seven million seven hundred thousand or seventy million doesn't really matter, but I noticed a couple things that I wanted to bring up because, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts. The Godcaster gives me

all these different faith -based programs. Some of them are more conservative news, like they all come from believers, from faith -based perspective, but I'm really not exactly happy with what I'm hearing. And the first thing is how this was set up. And I like Mike Johnson. I think he's doing a good job. I don't like what he did. before this came up, which was a strategy. I think it came from the president, which I don't like either. This was the messaging and the strategy about

the no -kings protests. Thousands of people are expected to descend on the nation's capital for a no -kings rally. A peaceful movement seeks to send a message to the Trump administration saying that America does not put up with would -be kings. This week, multiple Republican leaders called next week's event a hate rally. This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th, the Antifa crowd and the pro -Hamas crowd and the Marxists, they're all going to gather

on the mall. This is about one thing and one thing only, to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold, as Leader Scalise just commented on, a hate America rally in DC next week. And then October 18th. Okay. None of this happened. None of this happened. In fact, what I saw was American flags, people, there's always going to be someone yelling something, but mainly handmade signs. If anything, it was, I don't like Trump rally.

That was very obvious. These were not hate America people. I did not get that. When I heard that, I thought that was a leap. Again, we talked about running down the hill. You're going to run 30 feet down the hill, you're going to take a step. I keep hearing this from both sides. This is not a left blue thing or a right red thing. Everything is so inflammatory right now. Every word, every sentence, every post. But this is what I like

so much about what I saw. I saw people who only really hate President Trump because they've been told to. They just have a different media diet and I see it. Literally hear the words coming out. Oh, I know exactly where you got that from this nickname that came from that podcast This this slur that came from, you know five different hosts on MSNBC But I don't like that I see the same From the quote -unquote other side and a lot of this these losers their Marxist They're

not hate America people. In fact, we're so much closer after this No Kings rally. These people are being patriotic in their way. They believe that... Which is their right. Of course. And they're saying, it is very American to protest. I agree with you. Yes, it is absolutely American to protest. There were American flags. This is the first time. The American flag was almost persona non grata. If you had an American flag on your car, on your truck, Republican, Nazi,

that ended with this. Something really beautiful happened. And I'm not hearing the other podcasters in the universe really picking up on that. In fact, I have just a short clip of someone interviewing a no -kings protestor. And what you will hear is that She didn't really, she was just protesting because it's American to protest. No King's Day. And why specifically are you out supporting No King's Day? I think protest is important. Why are you protesting? How much time do you have?

A couple minutes. What's the main reason you're out here protesting President Trump? I don't agree with a lot of the decisions that are being made. Is there any decision in particular you

disagree with? where okay so I would start with well I don't even think I don't even think it's appropriate for me to have this interview so so she had a brain freeze because she realized like oh wait a minute what am I I don't actually know but I would like us to take this opportunity to see our our fellow brothers and sisters for what they are. They're patriots. They love America. You know what? You hate the president. I can agree with that. That's fine. You hate him. I

don't hate him. That's why we voted. And, you know, you'll get to vote another person in three years. But I saw a lot of opportunity and I don't see people picking up on that. You're hitting something here I think that's really important

because over the last Few weeks. I've been sensing something in me a shift to where Be careful how I say this because so many of my friends on the far right Have become so disparaging if anything that doesn't align with everything they think or believe And they'll would even say you're not a Christian if Really? And I'm struggling with that. I'm like, wait a minute. We need to be careful with that. We are not judge, jury, executioner for who's a Christian and who's not.

And what's happened is, is people have made these political alignments the thing that's the deal breaker on whether you're a Christian or not. And I'm struggling with that right now because, and I think I should struggle with it. I need to struggle with it. I don't want to just take things because I have friends or I'm part of a group or whatever that are running down a certain track. I think we've got to have voices of dissent.

or we will not have the boundaries or the anchors or the accountability where we think we can just say anything. Our country was built on that. It's not just the left. It's so easy to be on the right and point across the aisle and just disparage and say, you can't say that. How dare you say that? But then I look over on the right and they're saying something categorically catastrophic

and disparaging too. So it's like, Man, it's like there needs to be a checkup that's the level across the playing field here because I'm having to just watch myself and trying to be more careful with my words, trying to be more wise. I'm trying to think more biblically as opposed to just, it's so easy as a pastor. to stand in a pulpit and say something and get a rise out of a crowd. Whatever your platform is, it's easy to want to get, again, going back to, I don't negotiate

with the need to be liked or accepted. I'm refusing that right now and it could change not just what I say, but the way I say. trying to be more careful and not just be inflammatory because it gets out of boys and Right, you know what I mean class.

There was a clip and I heard it and I thought I marked it and I didn't and it was a Woman she was a no -kings protest and she said hey, we're one nation under God and it hit me so I'm like, oh Yes, we're one nation under God doesn't we all have to agree and I don't know what her what her belief is but she said it I'm like Yeah, we are one nation under God. We're not intended to always agree with each other, but all I heard

was, well, it wasn't really seven million. Oh, you know, it's just like, get over yourself. I saw flags. I saw flags, a lot of flags. I love what you're saying here because it's actually kind of confirming what I've been feeling, sensing deep inside of me. I don't know what that's going to look like yet, and I don't have to know what it's going to look like. I just want to be in alignment with his heart, with God's heart, not just a certain persuasion's heart. It's part

of my pushback on social media. I just got sick of reading it. I hit things that key in the algo, so now everything that drops in my news feed is just that amplified, and it seems to just get louder and louder. to where I've just got to push back, close the screen, pick up my Bible and just go, okay, I need a break. I even told Annette, she keeps asking me, hey, did you read this? I'm like, no. I said, I'm actually taking a break. I'm pushing back on that. I don't think

she's even landed with her yet. I'll know if she listens to this. This is the big egg here. The Easter egg. But really, I'm doing it intentionally. Here's what I'm finding. I have a lot more peace. in my soul right now. Of course. I'm not spun up. I'm not mad. It is well with my soul. Even on the No King stuff, I did not go down the rabbit hole. I did not chase news. I didn't click a single link. In fact, I've hardly looked at all. And I just thought, what you said, it's their

right to protest and to dissent. Our Constitution guarantees it. And the moment we think it's only one side's right to do so, And then we're going to castigate everybody else who does? Or that they're lesser than, because they disagree. So I mentioned this on No Agenda, and I got... Oh, I bet you did. I got all kinds of emails. Yes, they do. They hate us. They want to kill us. Link to video. Hey, of course, if you put a thousand people on the street, someone's going to be...

You're going to find the one guy with the sign that says, kill all Nazis or whatever. But that was not what I saw, brother. Even Dvorak is like, well, this is like the same as pussy hats without the pussy hats. No. No, it was not. I saw American flags everywhere. People had them in their shirt pockets. People were walking around with their waving them. That got my respect to such a degree, and I think it was overlooked by almost everybody.

Good catch, Adam. Really, you're saying something that needs to be said, and needs to be said in our camp. It needs to be said out loud so that we're not just becoming one more part of the problem where we're escalating people. And what happened to the forgiveness bit? Yeah, what about radical forgiveness? Yeah. Man, I know this needs to come up. This conversation needs to happen among friends and brothers and sisters to say,

you know what? And I said this back five, four years ago, if we would pray for our enemies, and I was thinking in terms of the last administration, if we would pray for them as much as we castigate them and disparage them, Maybe things would change. Maybe it would make a difference. Just maybe God would hear our prayers in heaven and heal our land, just saying. And I think honestly, if I was to say it out loud, I don't think the change would be in them as much as it would be

in us. That our hearts would shift instead of us being so easily triggered. and being hooked with clickbait, right and left. This took me a year to realize this, and it happened the last time, maybe it was a year ago. You're way ahead of me, brother. It was six months ago, and we had people here in Fredericksburg protesting outside City Hall. And with flags, all -American flags, and I remember, Tina mentioned that she

went around, and I'm not quite sure. if there was words, but then the person said, well, God bless you. Have a good day. I don't care who says that to me. It's how I receive it, not how they said it. And I truly believe we have a moment. We have a real moment here if we can reflect on it. And let's just all agree on our flag. Flags are important. That's why, you know, Wars are fought. We're fighting a war over a flag, over a rainbow colored flag, which has no authority.

Our American flag has authority. And if you're going to fly that flag, I'm going to respect you. I'm going to respect your difference of opinion. I'm going to respect you. Wow. Thank you for bringing that up, Adam, because that's something that's been working inside of me. And honestly, the more I push back on social media and close my screens, the more that's rising in me. to where I'm like, can we find something

we have in common just for five minutes? Just have a civil conversation that's about something we agree on. Because what we've done, and I have found myself go down this track just to be very transparent, to where I'm angry. at people that I disagree with, and I didn't used to be that way. I've fallen off into some hole. Well, the amplifier of social media does that to you. It's very normal. That's very normal. Brother, let's leave it here. Let's stick a big pin in this

one because I want to come back to that. It's important. And this is the first I've discussed. Well, I talked about briefly on No Agenda, but this is really the conversation I wanted to have. I don't get that from other... other places I am. So thank you. Thank you. And it's important that us here on this and in this genre, as brothers in Christ, talking about radical forgiveness, talking about what we don't negotiate with, this is important. And this could be part of the conversation

that brings healing to a nation. I hope so. I not only hope so, I pray so. I'm with you. Scripture before screens, brother. That's the way to go. Thank y 'all for listening. Check us out on the Godcaster app. We'll be back next week. We get to do this.