Proverbs 2,

I hear an echo,

2, 20

-22,

So you will walk in the way of good

men and keep to the paths

of the righteous, for the

upright will live in the land

and the blameless will remain

in it, but the wicked

will be cut off from the

land and the treacherous

will be

uprooted from it.

This is Perfume Decay.

Welcome,

salutations,

um,

greetings, greetings

and salutations rather,

and, uh,

thank you,

all the things.

Uh, this is episode 9

of Perfume Decay,

and we have some new

things that you may

notice.

One of them is a tablecloth.

Two of them, uh, is

this whiteboard that my father

bought from

Ikea, where

we have our episode name

and the scripture that

we're in.

Uh, three of them,

there isn't a third.

Um, but,

we also have

my sister joining us.

Yeah.

Uh,

and,

yeah.

Wow.

That's,

those are the new things.

That's what's going on.

Uh, oh, we did post

on our social media.

That's a fourth thing.

Yay!

Technically, or that's the third

thing.

Third thing.

Third thing.

Um,

posted on our social media,

Instagram, X,

Facebook,

not Facebook.

Um,

yeah.

And, uh,

today it is, the episode is

called Marked Wanderer,

which pertains to our scripture

today.

But before we get into

the perfumed

portion,

uh, how was your guys' week?

Stephen?

The one not eating pizza?

Hey, whoa, I feel called out

here.

The one that gestured with

his pizza to the person that

wasn't eating pizza?

No, he's offering the

pizza.

Shout out to Burrows.

Our non -sponsor.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

So, Stephen, how was your

week?

Any highlights?

No, not really.

Anything you're looking forward to?

Mm,

not much.

Just trying to still

get, um,

full -time or get

a new job.

So,

figuring that out.

Yay!

Fun situation.

Uh, you said earlier that you

were going to be building

a desk

for yourself.

Yeah,

well, okay, so

the

backstory

is that,

um,

everyone knows about

my TV situation,

but, um,

the desks that I'm using right

now, my

mom

used it in college,

so it's older than I

am.

Hmm, that's great.

It's,

uh, it's okay.

Build quality,

but, um, it's wearing

down.

Um, so, just

need something new for

myself.

I think, uh,

matching a

shelving unit that my dad

made,

uh, for, uh,

there's two different ones,

but they're basically made the

same, but

they're butcher block with,

um,

round, basically,

posts,

and the,

um, the shelves

are sea -clamped,

basically, by friction,

uh, with each

level.

So, I kind of want to match that

with the desk, so.

That's great.

Plus, it's gonna,

you told me that the L

-shape is gonna, like, uh,

like, one end is gonna be able to, like,

transfer over to the other side, right?

Yeah, so, basically,

the side that the main

part, I don't know, have

the TV

monitor,

um, TV squared

up in the center, too,

is gonna be the main part,

but the,

um, side part,

I want to have

it to be swappable

for each side.

Uh -huh.

So, depending on what corner

I have it in, or what

orientation I want it

in, I could put it on

either side, so.

And you're making it yourself?

Yes, yes, I'm gonna try.

So, it'll be a very

interesting process.

really that was Wow, loud.

It's exciting.

Uh, I've never built a desk, so

I don't know how that would

go, but I do know that

I'm not

handy, so.

But, Steven is, and

that's why he's gonna apply for that job.

So, who's, do you know Steven that?

is, because

he is, and

that's why he's gonna apply for that job.

Yep.

And that's why he's gonna - That no one
has contacts

on.

Um, but there's a job

in which - Did we just talk about that?

We did not just talk about that.

Oh, I guess we talked about it before.

Uh, we, we did.

Sorry, guys.

Uh, we have to re

-bring things up on

the podcast.

Sure.

Um,

yeah, there's a job at a

church in which we will not

name - Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

Well - Ever.

Well, unless -

Maybe.

get We sponsored.

Unless we get Jason on the pod,

then he's gonna talk about it.

Docs.

And he's gonna docs himself.

Cause he wants people to come to church.

Uh,

in which case, whatever.

Um,

but yeah,

they're, hiring for a

maintenance

position.

Yeah, they are.

And Daniel thought of you,

Steven.

I did.

Yeah.

So - You're welcome, Steven.

That'd be cool.

Thank you.

That'd be great.

Yeah, I'm gonna apply to it,

see what happens, and

I don't get the job.

Oh, well.

But yeah, I mean, you already

got a full time.

job here on the podcast

full -time not

full -time Are

we paying him?

Yeah out of your

extra money my

extra you have oh

Yeah, like the

extra money that I could spend

on lunch today.

Yeah and lunch

dinner dinner dinner.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly

Mm -hmm.

Oh, does that mean you're spending it on

my credit card?

Maybe we should talk about this

again

again

Guys, I have a problem.

I keep stealing daniel's credit

card.

He is my sugar

daddy

Stealing or the

card just keeps on showing up

in your hand it shows up in my

hand

Daniel he looks at me

weird.

I give him a kiss on the forehead.

He gives me a kiss on the forehead He says

baby you go spend that

all day long

And I just have to look

pretty you know

It's like it's a beautiful thing

back and forth.

Yeah.

Oh, why you gotta bring the

hair back

It's messed up.

Daniel.

So no, no, no, not cool.

No, how's your week?

Oh, how's my week?

Okay.

I thought you're gonna

Continue on that.

Um My week.

Okay.

Yeah, my week was

um

It was a week.

It happened.

Was it a week I've been waking

up at 4 a .m

Oh not a week week and

then I go back to

sleep

It's good to know that I

can wake up before but you're so

you're not staying awake I'm not

staying awake.

How long do you stay awake for?

Uh, I will stay awake

for a few minutes.

Um Just to get that

effect But I

am i'm trying to build up i'm

trying i'm trying to see if my alarm will

actually wake me up at 4

because Usually

i'm bad at alarms.

Yeah

Um, you should get the alarm

clock that I have and put it

across the room because then you have

to get up The issue is is

that I won't hear it.

Yeah, you will that thing is

like a fire alarm

Yeah, but it turns

lights on.

Oh, that's nice

I don't know if the lights would

work.

I don't I don't really know you

could the apocalypse

could be going on

And I could sleep

through it.

So it's really hard to

tell I sleep through my

alarms and my phone is right

by my head

Yeah, that's very loud.

Yeah and buzzing.

That's impressive.

It's like touching it's like

touching me.

No, no, no On

my arm or whatever.

That's true.

There was uh, when we were going to

colorado I had to come and pick you up at

midnight.

You would not wake up.

Yeah, hold you like 16

times.

Yeah I i'm dead to

the world.

Yeah, so it it has

to ring the doorbell.

I have to train my brain

a very specific

way It has to be

trained to wake up.

Yeah, and so it

can happen.

I mean people in the military.

Oh, no, i'm i'm doing it

It's it's it's it's happening.

It's just a matter of

getting into the point where I

want it to be Proud of you

training yourself.

Um, yeah 4 am is kind of

crazy though.

Why 4 am 4 am

because

i'm gonna get

up I'm once I

get consistent on it and

I actually end up staying up

Uh, which may take a few

weeks.

Um I'm gonna start

running in the morning.

Wow And

then that's really

crazy getting up

early

and

Getting actually getting ready

for my day because usually I just

get up and then start

leave

That's usually what I do.

Yeah, except I work at home.

So I go out to bed

throw my robe on and

jump into a meeting as a

professional Yeah

Um without pants

on well, I have a

robot

Yeah, but no at some

point i'm trying to have a

consistent workout schedule But

i'm slowly easing

into it because if I go

full -borne then i'm never gonna do

it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So

No, good job, man.

I'm gonna

Could wake up and take a cold

shower, um,

I could

um,

but i'm not

going to

That's that's because you

won't wake up,

huh mostly

because you're mostly because I won't wake

up and

You

should

do a cold place in the morning

I'm really pissed off

and i've done the cold

shower thing before and I've

become more pissed off

I should call you at 4 am.

Yeah.

Hey, bro.

I haven't gone to sleep yet

You you you

could you could

How's tomorrow?

That's funny.

That's tomorrow.

Good is tomorrow.

I'm hoping tomorrow's good.

Yeah How's the

weather tomorrow

Tomorrow today

Could

I mix the

two words together

tomorrow

day

Tomato Tomato

Tomorrow

Maro day

maro day like bone

maro day tom

maro.

So mikayla

Hi

Uh,

great.

I

um on

friday.

I completed

three

english

assignments

nice a lot of

english.

Um, yeah

Uh in the

same I don't

know in two hours

Oh

when

the teacher gave us

maybe a

week or

two to do

them.

Yeah.

Me too.

So this was procrastination.

Yeah.

That's nice.

And then I did all the

things that I had to.

So I feel very accomplished.

That was Friday.

So you don't know your grades yet.

Next week, we'll have to follow

up.

Next week.

Yep.

It's probably gonna be like A's.

A's and B's.

That is a dream

that is waiting

to come true.

What do you...

The dream itself is waiting.

Let's be clear.

dream The is waiting.

The dream is waiting.

Pending.

Pending.

Loading dream.

The window has loading.

She put in an application.

It's...

Yeah.

It's spinning mirror.

bureaucracy how know You is.

The dream piece.

Ah yes.

The economy of the dream.

That's beautiful.

The economics of the

dream stay have crashed quite a

bit.

Oh, speaking of economics, my brother

comes up to me this week and he's like,
hey.

So ICE might become

the Phoenix and that matters

to him because

he works at a

school.

He's on the board

and

they might come in to

try to take children

away and deport them.

And so they had to get an attorney

to

basically

consult them on keeping

their liability

low.

And the attorney was

basically saying,

refuse everything, ask for

their badge,

call the police on them.

All the quote unquote

liberal views,

take that stance.

Ask for like a judicial

warrant or something like that.

I forget all the points he said.

But oh my gosh,

economy.

Okay.

I was trying to tie it back together.

I always do this.

My ADHD takes me

from one idea, economy,

and brings me to this other idea.

And I start the story and

no one has any clue

why I'm talking.

I'm ready.

At all.

So it's going to happen.

We brought up economy.

And it started because of this
conversation

of ICE.

Yes.

That's why I said.

Yeah.

So it's great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mikaela.

He asked me,

what's your take on

letting

illegal immigrants

work

and

quote unquote

take our jobs.

Right.

And I was like,

well, my my take on

that is I don't care.

They're taking jobs and they're

adding to the economy.

Like oftentimes they're taking

jobs that don't really matter

to anybody else.

Sure.

And then I brought up like,

also,

I don't like people say the

same exact thing about AI.

And guess what?

I also don't care.

The AI is going to take some jobs

too.

Like that's just that's going to

again add to the economy.

My brother's like, yeah,

that's what economists say.

It's it's funny

that you say that they're taking

jobs that people

don't want.

And most of the time.

No, it's true.

Like,

do you the same with AI?

Do you want to work in a land from

it?

No.

Do you want to

work in the field of

kitchen?

Do you want to work in the field?

Do you want to do these things?

And like, it's interesting

because it's like all the

people that are complaining

that their jobs are

getting stolen.

It's like, you don't want those

jobs.

Yeah.

If we stop

those people from having those

jobs,

guess what, buddy?

Guess what you're going to do?

You're going to pay more burrito.

for Something your you don't want to

do.

That Mexican restaurant.

Yeah, you pay more for your burrito.

True.

My takeaway, though, was

like,

I mean, if we have laws in this

country that say that you have

to go through a certain process to be

a citizen,

and it's just morally

wrong for you to break

the laws of the government that

got put in place.

Yeah.

Then either we need to change the laws.

Well, not either.

We need to change the laws.

Mm hmm.

But also, you can't

be here.

Sorry, you really should be able to

be here because you asked the economy,

but you can't be here because you came

illegally.

Yeah, that was my take.

Which is so like, in my

opinion, that's like the

truth.

Mm hmm.

Like, there's nothing outside of

that besides like maybe

how

the laws should change.

Mm hmm.

Or the

law's stupid.

Like,

it shouldn't be there at

all.

We should just lay anybody in.

Just like different flavors of

that.

Like,

notice how I said the law

should change.

Mm hmm.

Some people would say the law

shouldn't change, but also

like they add to the

economy.

I don't care.

Yeah.

Like, that's just...

True.

Like, you talk to

like economists

and they're like, all

things being equal is their

favorite phrase.

All things being equal, you

add more workers to the workforce,

the economy is going to be better.

Yeah.

You take them away and then...

Yeah.

Well, and we

just talked about this a few

episodes ago, like how

many people does it take to make a

pencil?

So many.

And quite

literally, a lot of those people

are probably

Hispanic.

Yeah.

Like, the working

factories.

It doesn't matter if they're Hispanic or
not.

It's like people Right.

that People that came from

countries...

that have bad

economies.

And so they're willing to take these

jobs because it

came from something

less than that.

And eventually, their standards are going

to change and they're going to build up
their

skills and they're going to rise

in the economy

if they want to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's an interesting point

that maybe the law

should change.

But to your point, if they're

going against the law, then

that's on

you.

And, I mean, my perspective

is you

came in knowing.

So I don't know.

Not necessarily if you're like a

baby and your family friends.

Well.

Because that's what my brother is facing

is these kids were definitely

babies when they were

brought in.

Not definitely, but most of the time.

And ICE is coming in and

threatening to deport them.

They don't know Spanish.

They don't know

Italian

or whatever it is, whatever

country they came from.

I thought the law was that

if they were born here,

then they're United

States citizens.

Yeah.

But if

you're born

and brought over when you're a

toddler or a baby, you're not a US

citizen.

Mm.

Oh, so they don't know

necessarily.

Or they know, but they don't know

their home language.

Yeah.

No, no.

I mean, ICE

doesn't know necessarily.

Yeah.

They also don't care.

I'm sure not every agent

is careless.

Oh, yeah.

I'm saying that's not

for them to care about.

That's not in their job description.

Yeah.

Your job description is to take

someone who's not a

citizen and process

them.

Yeah.

So interesting topic my brother

brought up.

I mean, it's weird

times because

my dad,

my grandpa,

his church,

it's a Spanish

church.

Yeah.

And he's got illegals

that go to church there.

And it's kind of like, okay, well,

we don't want - You deal with the moral
implications

of that.

Well, he tells

them he's like, you're

not here legally.

If they come for you, then

you shouldn't

do anything.

You should just

hand yourself

over and

be chill about a And it.

lot of people have.

Yeah.

Because why would you want

to have ICE come and

get you and

turn yourself in?

But,

and it's a

consequence of the circumstance.

You are living in a

country that, excuse

me,

you are living in a country now

that has a leader that is coming

after you and

you

are

illegal and you chose to

be illegal.

You chose not to go through the system.

Well, except for the children,

obviously.

Well, it's not - The

system sucks.

I'm sure the system sucks.

People have to get out sometimes,

but that's what

asylum is for.

Yeah.

Right.

I think we should fix our

immigration system.

Yeah.

Like the ability for people to

go through the process.

Like instead of hiring a whole bunch of
IRS

agents, we should have hired a whole

bunch of immigration assets.

I mean, I - I'm not in government though,

so I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

I don't necessarily know either,

but I know that people that

I've met

and know,

my parents have are

like, they're illegal

for however long.

And then they go through the system

still working here.

And they get - Really.

No, really.

And they get through.

Wow.

So maybe

the law has to change,

but also maybe it

doesn't because there seems

to be a lot of grace.

And - And so it's still

risky though, because New

President gets in.

Well, and - And to prove a

political point, they do something

and - Yeah.

Puts you and your whole family

at risk.

Yeah.

But that's the thing.

It's like you -

if you know

they're illegal

and you come here

and - You're taking a

risk.

You're taking a risk.

Yeah.

And you have to accept that

risk.

You're also breaking the law.

Yeah.

If you're not willing to accept that risk,

then whatever.

I

don't

have a lot of remorse

for people that know

the circumstances that they're entering

into, but choose

to act as though they

shouldn't be

there.

It's like, no, they are there.

You have to accept that.

And if you fall

victim to that,

you knew.

You knew.

Although we're acting like this

is a felony, but my

brother brought up also that this

is a civil

- it's not

felony level.

Right.

I don't

even know if it's a misdemeanor.

It might be.

I don't know.

I mean - It's really low level.

So it's not even that big of a deal.

It's just you are

breaking a law.

Well, but it

feels awful

because you're going to get

deported if things don't

go well.

It's also feeling awful for

another side because

we have

politicians

and people

using

these

individuals

in mass

to

push their own

agendas.

You know, yeah.

Anyways, how's my week been?

Daniel, how's your week been?

My week has been

pretty good.

Yeah.

Aside from a

bump in the road on the

dating front,

there was this girl

that I was going on

probably dates for like

a month or so

and probably went

on the - one of the best the best dates

I've ever gone on to the

symphony.

Just an epic,

epic

date.

Like we went to see

how to train your dragon.

It was so

good.

That sounds amazing.

I do want to point out also that

you spent an

obscene amount of money

to go to

a thing several months

from now.

She's not gonna listen to this podcast.

I hope not.

I bought three

different concert

tickets.

One to Toby And Mac.

one of them was obscene.

Yeah, so one was the Toby Mac,

Jeremy Camp, and

one other artist.

Then the other was Josiah

Queen.

And then there's one in July,

which happens to be on your

birthday,

which is four

VIP tickets for

$860 a

piece.

To her favorite artist,

Josh Groban.

I really liked her.

So you know.

So you're like, here, I'm gonna

drop $5

,000.

So yes, I'm stupid,

but I'm also not that stupid.

So before I pulled

the trigger on it, I was like, okay,

what if the

things don't go well with

her?

Then you can take your...

He and I is this popular

enough artist

that I'd be able to

resell the tickets for

the same price, if not more.

And it's the

last show

on the tour.

It's probably like row

from

the stage.

And yeah, it's really close.

It's center.

It's center stage too.

I bought

like

exact center.

So I should

be able to sell it.

I looked at like the historical

sales

for Josh Groban.

And

Josh Groban

alone

does

usually like half a million

dollars per show,

which is near sell out, if

not sell out.

It's most likely gonna

sell out because it's the last show on

the tour.

So I pulled the trigger because

of that.

Because sometimes I do like

odd investment strategies.

Like I'll buy a piece of art,

knowing that

most likely

this piece of art is gonna go up

in value based on

the other pieces of art this

artist has made.

And I like it.

Yeah, you know, so it's

the same kind of idea

here.

But I told you that

and what

did you say?

Don't sell them.

I was like, so we're

going?

Sounds like my birthday present.

And I didn't even realize when I

bought them, like that was on

your birthday.

You didn't tell me

that.

Yeah,

insanity.

I mean, there's four tickets too.

So I mean, I bought the tickets.

So if you

guys pay for the hotel

and the transportation,

like let's do this.

You say it was somewhere

really far though.

It's Utah.

We can drive there.

It's super

close.

Yeah, 600 miles.

Utah's pretty easy.

You could walk there.

Utah looks exactly like

Arizona.

We could walk there.

Part of it.

could walk We there.

Technically, we could walk

anywhere.

We can walk anywhere.

We'll be making it to our destination

is a different

issue.

Hey, but it would be an adventure, no?

Would we make it in one

piece?

We'll be an adventure

for sure.

A few

cuts and

scrapes.

Yeah, so all I know is that

I'm the new

girlfriend because

I get to go on

at least one of those

dates with you

now.

So Josiah Groban,

no, not Groban, goodness gracious,

Josiah Queen,

be to back,

Josh Groban.

And then I got to buy some more

concert tickets

so that three of us can

go.

What?

Why?

I know you can't see it, but you can hear

it.

That's great.

That's so wonderful.

So, so thoughtful.

If no one knows, if

you're just listening now.

If this is your first time,

we're not just attacking somebody.

They're attacking me with

purpose.

It's called bullying.

Yeah, it's old.

Bring bullying back.

Loving, loving bullying.

Yeah, no, it's built baby.

It's with love.

It's with love and trust.

It's not a better business bureau.

It's bring bullying back.

Yeah, amen and a woman.

So today's episode,

does anybody want to talk about anything
else

before we move on to

perfume?

I like potatoes.

Me too.

Five guys,

Freddy's, I

don't know,

liar.

Which one?

Freddy's.

Yes.

Wait, what?

Your total fries.

Your source of potatoes.

Fries.

Fries, potatoes.

You know the thin

potatoes?

Oh yeah.

Usually.

Yeah.

Potato sticks.

Potato sticks.

It's an oil.

Potato fries.

Wow.

All right.

So we're

going to enter into

our perfumed

portion of the

podcast.

But But before

we actually.

get into anything,

shall we pray?

Does somebody want to pray for us?

Oh, I would love to.

Sure.

Cool.

Let's get this hat off.

All right.

Dear God, thank you for

today's

episode.

Thank you for your word,

for showing us what happened

at the beginning

and really just

creating us in

the first place.

Thank you for your grace,

your long suffering,

and the ability

to

save us

and to forgive

us

for so many sins

that we commit

throughout our lives.

Thank you for

this

podcast and for giving us this

platform.

And thank you for

the friends that we have here.

And God, please bless

whoever's listening to this.

Please help the conversation to be

whatever

you want to be gone in your

name we pray.

So we are in

Genesis four,

starting in verse

10.

All the hats go back on.

I think

I'll

write it for us actually.

Wait, do we want to do the

reenactment

stuff?

No, it's because we'll do it the whole
way.

Let's just read it.

I'm just gonna read it.

All right, starting in verse 10,

this is after

Cain

killed his brother.

And the Lord

asked,

where's Abel your brother?

And he says, I do not know,

am I my brother's keeper?

Verse 10,

and the Lord said, what have you

done?

The voice of your brother's blood

is crying to me from the

ground.

And now you are cursed from the

ground, which has opened its

mouth to receive your brother's

blood from your hand.

When you work the

ground, it shall no

longer yield to

you its strength.

You shall be a

fugitive and a

wanderer on the earth.

Cain said to the Lord, my

punishment is greater than I can

bear.

Behold, you have driven me

today away from the

ground and from your face I

shall be hidden.

I shall be a fugitive and a

wanderer on the earth and who

refines me will kill

me.

Then the Lord said to him, not

so.

If anyone kills Cain,

vengeance shall be taken on

him sevenfold.

And the Lord put a mark

on Cain, lest any

who found him

should attack him.

Then Cain went away from the

presence of the Lord and settled in the

land of Nod, east

of Eden.

And so it was funny,

the proverb

that I,

or three proverbs that I

read,

I realized

as I was

reading them right before

the pod started

that it pertained

to Cain

because of

what it says about being

cast out

from the land.

The wicked will be cut off from the land

and the treacherous will be

uprooted from it.

And Cain

was rooted

out.

Cain was definitely rooted

out.

First thoughts on

this,

anybody?

First thought is we've

got our first comment.

First comment.

Oh, wowzer.

Oh,

wowzer.

Oh.

Wowzer.

Same, dude.

Same.

Bah -her -el

-him.

Nice.

Number one,

first comment ever.

First comment ever.

First,

congrats, dude.

Dude, that's exciting.

Merry Christmas.

Hi.

So.

I hope it's someone we know.

It's someone I know.

It's someone she knows.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

Nice, dude.

So putting in the work

for the pod.

Love it, dude.

I think Michaela's gonna have to be a
permanent

portion of our podcast

now.

I so, think yeah.

She just signed

up.

Sorry, Michaela.

But first thoughts on the scripture

here.

Yeah, first thoughts.

Oh man.

Last week we honed in

on two verses.

Yeah.

entire The time.

And we will probably do

it.

Again.

Over and over.

Well, let's start with first 10.

Yeah.

And the Lord said, what have

you done?

The voice of your brother's blood is
crying

out from the ground or

crying to me from

the ground.

So we've pointed this

out a few times,

but in

the Garden of Eden,

obviously God

asked,

where are you?

Or basically just

questioning why they're hiding

from him.

And he's asking

here, what have

you done?

And obviously we

know God knows,

but the thing that came to

my mind is that these

aren't necessarily questions

of

ignorance.

It could be a question of

outrage,

right?

Yeah, that makes sense.

You know.

What have you done?

Yeah,

asking the

obvious, not because

it isn't obvious, but

because you're

upset.

And you're pointing out that

this thing should be a

question.

It should be in question

in your mind because

you are doing it.

And the fact that, you know,

I even have to say anything

about it is

outrageous and crazy.

And this.

is the God of creation

who's

pointing out

your sin to you.

This is God

speaking

literally to Cain.

And that's,

again, it's the

God of creation

saying, hey,

what are you doing?

Why are you doing this?

Because he's

upset.

I gave your brother life.

Yeah.

And you took it from him.

His blood has been consumed

by the earth.

Yeah.

And I mean, it's so...

Blood cries out.

Yeah.

That's so

passionate.

It's so...

Poetic.

Emotional.

Yeah, poetic.

But it shows

that God isn't like,

hey,

hey, you kind of did this little

thing.

It's like, no, this is

bad.

This is awful.

I have this question though, because a lot
of

people say

Genesis

is

poetry.

Allegorical.

And it shouldn't be taken

at face value.

Does this prove

or maybe not

prove, but point to

that?

And if so,

can we take

the

creation account at

face value?

The issue

with

that argument is

that there's a lot of

poetry and

stuff in the

Bible that we can

take at face value.

Like what?

Like all of Psalms.

I mean, granted, David,

who wrote most of the

Psalms is being

literal about things, but he's

also being poetic.

And he's also...

There's eschatology being

called out, which

he doesn't necessarily

understand fully.

And all the prophets,

that's not...

They're being

quite poetic,

but also quite

literal about the things that

they're saying,

and they don't even fully understand

them.

Even with like,

what is it, Daniel has some

prophecy that's

not yet

to have

happened.

And it's just,

it feels like poetry.

Yeah.

And we don't really

understand what it means.

When you look at

other poetic

prophecy,

you know exactly what it

means.

Usually.

So I agree with

you.

I just wanted to be the

devil's advocate here.

And the reason I would

say the same

thing is because

this is

God speaking

in the midst of a

historical account.

Mm -hmm.

For him to

just...

For this specific

portion to

just be He poetic.

can be as poetic as

he wants.

Yeah.

And it would make sense

because

it's...

People are, I mean,

not saying I'm comparing

God to people, but

you think about people,

it makes sense.

Like they can say some crazy

stuff.

It makes no sense.

And that is

part of the actual account that

you give in the police report.

Doesn't make the

police report any less

evidence.

Right.

Well, and also like, if he

is being poetic,

or even if it's like

slightly allegory

or slightly and

slightly literal, whatever,

this is the creator God

who has an

imagination, clearly.

Arguably,

all of creation.

All of creation.

Who

created

David who wrote

most of the Psalms.

And said, who's a man after

his own heart.

Yeah.

And I would dare say

that the poetry is

probably part of that.

I don't have any question.

I guess.

Because that's a

lot of what we got.

Because I don't think David

was given God's

heart literally.

Right.

his Like chest.

Yeah.

Right.

But we're made in his image.

And when we're creative,

that's not like...

Michaela's drawing right

now.

That's not like a thing that

isn't God.

You know,

that's a God...

We call it a God -given

gift.

And we are made

in his image.

So when we do things like that, that's

not like not

a gift from him.

That's not of him.

The only thing that's not of him

is really our sin.

Well, yeah, fair.

And death.

Well, hold on.

Death can be from God.

And it should have been from God.

Death is from

God, yes.

Because of justice.

Because of justice.

Not because of him.

It's from God.

Yeah.

Due to his justice in reaction

to our sin.

Yeah.

But it's because

of sin.

Yeah.

It's because of us.

Yeah.

But in terms of the things that

reflect him,

it's everything but sin.

So the opposite view is

if

God is not

talking poetically here,

what if he's talking literally

the blood cries out.

I mean, you hear

Jesus saying if

y 'all were silent,

the rocks would cry out.

So do we think that this is

literally

Abel's blood

is crying

out

from the ground?

So I think that actually brings us

to the

thing

with the apple.

So the thing that you that you

kept bringing up with, excuse

me, with the fruit

from

the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil is whether or not it had power.

But one way or the

other, what we

understand about it is that there

is a physical means

and a spiritual

means of

whatever

God intends to take

place, right?

And I actually

was talking to a guy today.

You

can't really

separate, not

today,

this week,

about how when

us as Christians, we go and do

something physical.

We shouldn't

and really we

cannot separate

the spiritual from the

things that we do.

So if we go and build

something for somebody

as Christians,

that's not spiritually

devoid.

So when it

comes to something like this,

where it says that

the blood is crying

out,

there could be

and probably is a

spiritual side

to this because God

being spirit,

there probably is a

form of crying out.

I mean, he

not

only saw it

happen, he not only

knew that it was happening,

but he probably felt

it to some degree.

No, he had to stand by and watch it

happen and do nothing.

Which, by the way, was that

sinful?

Because if you and I

are the

witnesses of a murder and we have

the means and the ability to

stop it and we don't,

is that, are we part

of the

prime?

Well,

the issue is that

for God to

stop

all

those things from happening, he would have

to

destroy

everything.

So he wouldn't be

long suffering.

He wouldn't be long suffering

and therefore,

like everybody would go to hell.

Yeah.

Well,

nothing would exist because if

God knew

everything that was going

to happen.

Because God is so good and God

is so just, that's part of his

goodness that

any being who

existed

needed

just punishment,

which would be hell.

So if he were

to step in, you're saying that

everybody would go to hell.

Well, nothing would happen.

If it

were a sin,

like you're saying,

for God not to do something,

then nothing would have happened.

Nothing would exist.

Oh, because that would

set the course for

it to happen.

If God didn't create the heavens and the

earth,

then Cain wouldn't have killed

Abel.

Adam and Eve wouldn't have eaten the
fruit.

So creation wouldn't have happened

at all.

Creation wouldn't have happened.

We wouldn't.

That would be God's act.

Yeah.

Instead

of

intervening in his

creation.

Yeah.

Because, I mean,

there's

also

the...

Well, so my point is like,

can you create something

that's heavier,

like in God create rock

that's so heavy that he can't

lift it?

And the idea is,

no.

Actually,

wait, this is a different point.

Is it?

Than what you're making.

Because you can

not sin

and to know that something is

going to happen.

By knowing

that it is the

consequence of

someone's actions.

So God

being the

communicative God that

he is and creating

us in his image to

communicate,

he made it clear that

sin will lead to death.

And he communicated

to us

that fact.

And I

imagine

because he is here,

and this is speculation obviously,

that he is speaking

to Cain,

that conversations hadn't

ended,

that there was still some

form of literal

verbal communication with

God.

And that's shown later on too.

Yeah.

So, and we don't know...

16.

We don't know how long this

is from the creation

account.

We don't know a lot.

That's like...

Although Stephen asked a question off

the pod,

which kind of pointed to

maybe hundreds of years.

Yeah.

So it could

be whatever

amount of time it

seems here that

communication isn't

gone.

And even if it was

Adam and Eve still

know what

happened after they

disobeyed God.

And I can't imagine that they

would just be like, oh

yeah, we were perfect.

And then we decided not to be

perfect.

So recently, yeah, we're

fine.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

It's like, no, I'm pretty sure there's
trauma there.

And I'm pretty sure they told

their kids about it.

Because the whole world

changed.

Everything changed.

Yeah.

Well, they don't even have to

tell their kids about it.

You can feel the trauma.

Yeah.

So I've got traumatic

events in my past.

And if I decide

to tell someone

I'm dating about

those traumas or not,

they'll know that

something's off.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like this person's not

necessarily okay.

And he's just

not telling me why.

So it could be either or.

I'm not saying that

God,

not intervening, is a sin.

No, no.

Obviously, I'm being devil's

advocate.

here today.

And man, it's hot in here.

It turned it up.

It's the stress.

It is the stress.

I mean, we've got four viewers.

Oh, sorry.

So what

you're

saying is if God could

send,

just like,

I guess you

would say matter and

anti -matter, it would just

annihilate itself.

So there would be no

creation, there'd be no God.

So it's not possible for God

to send.

And so there's not even a question.

I mean, I've obviously

asked the question just now, but

it's

not an

ability

that God has

to send.

Because everything he does

is good.

Good and moral law is

based on

God's character.

And so if God were to quote and quote

send,

that would be good.

So it's not possible.

Well, and

it's a thing

of God,

what I was getting to is

that God said,

God made it clear that

these things would happen.

He communicated

enough.

And as

someone who,

well, we all do it, I should

say.

We all warn people

that what the

consequences of their actions will

be.

And that's

where we,

I guess,

we're free from

the responsibility because we

let them know, but that

doesn't change anything.

That doesn't do anything in

the grand scheme of things

because people have to experience

it.

That's why Proverbs

is so

heavy

on

who the wise man

is and who the fool

is, because the wise

man will take instruction.

We're all fools

because there's

something that we will not

take instruction

on.

And it will lead

to being cast

out.

Well, it will lead to

all sorts of awful

things because we're not

willing to listen because

the very thing that

the wise man is probably telling

us will happen, will

happen.

And then we're gonna be like, oh, well,
what the

heck?

And it's like, well, no, you were
literally

warned.

And I mean,

Cain says that his

punishment is too

awful.

Spoilers.

But it's like,

dude,

you like,

to a degree, I'm pretty sure he

knew.

That it should have been

awfuler.

Well, that.

Should have been way worse.

That, yeah, he probably

would have preferred

death.

Does he even say that he wanted death?

I can't remember.

No, he wanted

to avoid being killed by

others.

Which is a great

question.

So maybe we should table

this and move to the next verse

so we can actually get there.

Yeah.

Well, can we go back to the

question that you proposed

though?

If you have the power to

intervene

or help

someone that is

dying or being

killed, are you sinning?

If you don't.

So I actually had a thought about

that.

So if you read

Romans,

Paul is talking about how God

gives power

and authority

to leaders in

government.

And so if God is the one

who gives authority to government

and government has

the power of the sword,

it says,

which means

you give the death

penalty, essentially.

Then that means

God's government at this

point.

And if big brother is

watching you commit

a crime, is it a crime

for a big brother to

just watch and not intervene?

Yeah, because that would mean that
everything

that's ever done is

a sin on God's part

because

one, he

knows and two,

he's watching.

And the reality is

that, yeah, it is,

I like your example.

It is the law of

God that says that

this is the consequence

of sin,

of your actions

and

everything

that's done.

There's any number of reasons.

I know there's psychopath

killers out there and

are serial killers or

whatever.

I know there's all sorts of different

types of people out there,

but the reason that

we're seeing things like that is

because of the fall,

is because of, I

mean, that's why we've

talked about,

when we went through Genesis

three and talked about

how

physically

these

different curses

affect whatever.

And we keep going

over the different curses

and how

they affect

us, how they

changed the course

of history, how they

changed the circumstances

and how God's law is

basically saying, this

is

the new

circumstance.

This is the new consequence.

Here it is,

the way out of this,

the way away

from death is through

me.

And that's through obedience

to him

and his commandments.

That's why he gives the tablets.

That's why he gave us

Jesus.

That's why he gives us the word of

God is because

here's my law,

keep my commandments like

Solomon says,

and you will live.

But he also knows that we

can't.

And it gives us a

sure way

out.

Yeah.

And so it would be

against his law for him

to intervene in

every single

thing.

Every single

bad thing.

Because what falls apart in

my analogy is

in our

perspective, death is the

end.

Yeah, for God, that is not

the end.

There will be the Bema Seat,

the Judgment Day,

where

justice will

finally be served.

Whether that's

imputed on

Jesus on the cross

or on the

person who committed it

in hell

for eternity.

So just because

God is watching Cain and Abel

here and

doesn't intervene,

just like the government sometimes

doesn't intervene,

doesn't mean

justice

isn't going to be

carried out.

Right.

The government here,

when they don't intervene,

it's arguably

wrong

for them not

to because justice

can only be carried out

when people are

alive.

The Spirit does not die.

It just does not.

And so God can

wait for Abel

to die and still

be able to carry out

justice.

Well, no, but I'm saying,

for God to

intervene

immediately

in every single

circumstance

to

prevent

whatever bad

thing from happening

would be against his law

because it would

be against what he's

already done in

sending Jesus

in

his

grand plan.

It'd be like throwing out the plan.

It's like, oh, I'm going to

interject in every little

thing

because… But

that's why we say that

God… He'd be able

to helicopter God.

Right.

Right.

But that's

why

God

is…

What man

does

for evil, God

makes for good.

So, yes, there are

evil things happening and

God is intervening, but

he's not intervening in the sense

that he's

stopping the

evil.

It's his will

is still being done.

His love is still

being carried out.

The gospel is still being spread.

Because Abel

is murdered

and

God doesn't do anything about

it, doesn't mean that Cain is

the word of God's plans.

Yeah.

He is not.

And I think

that's where

a

question like what you

posed could lead is…

Because I know that

there's plenty of

atheists,

unbelievers that

believe

that God

is evil.

I believe that.

Maleficent God.

Yeah.

And

when

it comes to questions like that,

it's like, okay, well, that's

interesting.

When we come from our perspective

of if I don't do

anything and I can do something,

that I'm sinning, that I'm doing something

wrong,

but as… That

is true for us.

Well, as someone…

But like I said,

as someone who seeks

to always

communicate.

And in the moment,

if something goes wrong,

if I don't do

something, I don't always

feel bad about it.

And I don't always feel bad about it

because I'm probably

going to let you put your hand

on the stove if

I told you not to.

Because… It's going to be a great parent.

If I don't

let you put

your hand on the stove

after telling you

not to do it several

times, even,

you're not going to get it

because I literally told you.

If you were my parent, I'd be

dead right now.

Well,

I mean, you

have to have an

understanding of

what the

situation actually is and you

have to be willing to step in

when things get bad.

And you have to…

People need awareness.

People need to pay attention.

People need to not…

Because what I'm saying, yes,

I am kind of laying down as

the law for me, but

like, I also

have awareness of

every situation.

I can't ignore…

Like, if you're going to go and

almost kill yourself every time

you go outside…

Knives into outlets.

Yeah, it's like, well, but

I would have to

pay attention

to you

as a parent.

But that's the other thing

is that we want law

to do everything for

us.

We want our rules to do

everything for us.

And that means all the

attention, all the

work that comes into a

relationship, we want it to

be done through

law.

And I don't think… We don't

even see God doing that.

He writes,

he presents his

law and then

he intervenes and he

does things.

And he creates miracles.

And then he does the

ultimate intervention,

which is send Jesus.

So it's like God

lays down the law.

He says, keep my commandments

or you're going to die.

But then he turns around and

he's like, okay, well, I'm

going gonna to keep giving you chances.

I'm gonna keep sending

you the Kings and the

prophets and the judges

and I'm

gonna keep doing these things

for you.

gonna I'm stay your sentence.

Yeah, and

so it's like,

God is still paying attention.

God's still right

next to you.

He's not just a referee.

Yeah.

For instance.

So

it

baffles me

that people want

things to be like that and people think
that

I'm that way when I

talk about law

or like

how I think things

should be and that I'm

completely

immovable in

that because

the thing

that I was gonna bring up is that I

understand this idea

of like

what we've been talking about

with God knowing

and understanding and

not doing anything.

Because again,

I understand

and see how things can

go for people and I'll even

communicate with them.

And nine times out

of 10, it means nothing.

And so - Just

like Proverbs one

says about the,

wisdom is shouting in the

streets.

Just begging people to listen

to her.

Yeah.

And people just walked by.

Yeah.

And that's

a crazy image.

Because wisdom

is a beautiful woman.

She's incredible.

And no

one's paying attention to her.

It's crazy.

They're paying attention to the

adulteress.

They're paying attention to

the one that's trying to

destroy them.

And I don't want that to seem

like - That's what Cain

was doing here too.

Yeah.

He was paying attention to

not

wisdom, which is what God

said earlier.

Last episode we talked about.

Actually maybe two episodes ago

where God said sin is

crouching at your door

and its

desire

is against you.

It's not for you.

And it

desires to destroy you.

And you have to control

it.

You have to

have,

what is it?

Dominion over it or just control it?

I think it says control it.

Control it.

And so God,

the author of wisdom

gives him that bite

and

he walks

by and goes to the

adulteress and slays

his brother.

Right.

So verse 11.

Steven, did you have?

Cool.

You're just posing the question, McCallie.

Well, I just wanted to return to it.

And so,

well actually,

and I don't think,

I don't know if you meant it in this

way, but I thought you were

kind of posing it as

to like

us,

not towards

God as a

certain figure

to basically be

the person

not doing anything.

You're supposed to be us, right?

No,

but go ahead

and say more.

That's interesting.

Because I'm not understanding yet.

So basically,

and this is what I

thought about it.

So basically we see

something happen,

like breaking a law

or something like someone's being

killed in an alleyway

and we're out on the street

in

where everyone

else can see us, but

those two people are in the alley

and you're the only one

looking down the alley

and you're the only one that

can do anything at that

point.

Is it a sin not

to do anything then?

Yeah, I would say

so.

And I kind of want thoughts from it going,

gotcha, got that.

What's your thought on it?

Yes,

because you have the power to do

something.

And then the other

thing is, is that

you

by

definition

in the Bible, you are

also condemning them to

death.

Where in the Bible does it

say that?

Because you say it's by definition,

condemning them to

death, right?

Do you know what he's referring

to?

I sound familiar,

but I don't remember.

If you know, is it Paul?

If you know something to be wrong and

you do it anyways,

you yourself are committing a sin.

I thought that's something to do.

one That's thing.

be To done with like an

adulterer, I think,

in that manner.

So I agree,

it would be a

sin, but if it's not in your

power to do anything, then it wouldn't

be.

So if you're a child,

no.

Like even not getting help at

all?

Yeah, I mean, if you're a

child and you see someone

getting stabbed to death

in the alleyway, like

your job is to run.

Yeah,

well, and that

brings up a good point.

We often think,

I just think about like

the traumatic side of

things.

You having the power

to do something

doesn't mean that you have

the power to do it,

if that makes sense.

That makes sense.

So just

because I have

strength doesn't mean that I'm

capable of

doing the thing that I am.

What you're saying is just because you
have the

opportunity doesn't mean you

have the

ability to do it.

Or more like just because I have

the ability

doesn't mean that I

can take the opportunity.

So going back

to to...

the traumatic

side of things,

if I've never been in war

and

I see someone

getting killed

right in front of me,

I could be the strongest,

coolest guy in town

and

I'm going to

probably freeze

and have no idea

what to do.

In America,

where we haven't

seen war in

a long time.

And means that you wouldn't have the
ability, you would have the

opportunity, but not the

ability.

No, no, you would have the

opportunity and you would,

you wouldn't know, you

would have the opportunity,

you would have the ability

technically, what

the thing that is required in

order to accomplish that, but

you wouldn't have

one

important part,

which is the initiative.

You wouldn't, well, you wouldn't have

the experience, you would have the

initiative

to do it.

Yeah.

The mental side of it, the emotional

side of it, you're lacking

a vital part

of accomplishing

something.

Yeah.

And like,

for instance,

it's like if you have a gun, it

does not mean you know how to shoot

it.

Yeah.

So you, and you probably

shouldn't shoot it.

Sure.

Because you could kill

yourself.

Or you could kill, yeah.

So you would agree that it's,

you could have the opportunity to do

something, but not have the ability

to.

And because you don't have the ability,

your responsibility is

to protect yourself.

Yeah.

Respect,

to protect yourself

or who you're responsible

for.

If that person is

someone in your care and

you run away,

that's

probably

sinful,

unless you have the

ability to do so.

Do something.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, and it's a

major gray area,

gray area,

because.

So we're still

thinking in the frame

of life and death,

and God doesn't think that way.

I mean, obviously that's a part of his

thought process, but he doesn't even

think in the

frame of time.

Well, he's outside of time.

He's also outside of death

and life.

So life was created, God

created life.

God was there

before life was created.

So God doesn't think in terms

of life and death, and God doesn't

carry out justice

in those

bounds.

Like we have to.

We have to live

in time.

And we have to carry out justice

while we're alive.

God does not need to do that.

And well,

and to that point, God,

it says in Ephesians

.10,

that God has prepared works

for us.

And I mean, that pertains

to good works.

Yeah.

But I wouldn't, yeah,

it pertains only to good works.

And so anything

that God prepares

for us or anything that God

has for us

are things

that we can do and

things that...

He's given the ability.

Well, yeah, that we will do.

And the

logistics of that are

weird.

But at the end of the

day,

God knows that we

can and that we

will

because,

yeah, because we have the

ability.

And so

there's this idea

of like, if I

don't,

you know, you'll be convicted by the Holy

Spirit when you

don't do something that you

can and

you're supposed to

do.

And there's a sense of,

you know, was that a thing that was

prepared for me or was that a thing not

prepared for me?

It probably was prepared for

you in the sense that

you need to learn

from it.

Yeah, for you to be convicted and for

you to...

Because you knew you weren't going to do
it.

Yeah.

But,

you know,

the things that you are meant

to do, you're going to do.

So with that,

was Cain meant to murder

his brother?

Absolutely not, because it wasn't a good
work.

Interesting.

Because only God is

to take a life.

Carry out justice.

Carry out justice.

This beckons back to our

episode about forgiveness.

If the king is

forgiving debts

of

person A and

person A is owed

debts by person B,

there's a...

I mean, Jesus tells a proverb about

this.

And the king forgives person

A, person A goes to person

B and says,

you owe me a thousand

bucks, give me that money back.

And the king is rightfully

angered by that

because,

dude, I just forgive you a

trillion dollars of debt.

And you're going after this

person that I'm

also king of

for a thousand

bucks.

Are you freaking kidding me?

So it's not our

right

at all.

Yeah, we're not

meant

to...

I mean, God uses us to

do the things that we're

meant to do.

You know, like

God puts people

in political positions.

God puts people in

any point of

authority.

And He

also gave us dominion

over the earth.

And so

there's...

It's interesting because we're

talking about this And I'm literally
thinking

about that question.

So...

still of,

is it a sin for us

to not

do those things?

And I keep bringing

up that God

has things for us to do

and that we will do.

That's weird.

That's really strange

to me.

Even

coming

from a more, I guess,

deterministic point of

view,

it's weird

because I definitely

believe that it is a sin

if we don't do the

thing that is

good.

But also knowing that…

And activity is

a sin too.

Yeah.

Activity and

inactivity.

Yeah.

But also knowing that

God knows that

and also has a

plan for the… has prepared

the good things that you will do.

Yeah.

Which… Okay, okay.

I figured it out.

It is because

God

prepared everything.

Everything that is good,

everything… It's already

ready

and He is

there.

And the

seed

was planted, we just have to

reap the harvest, right?

And

God's

plan is every step

of the way, the whole entire

process.

And so when we

come in to

that point,

it's like that's when we're going to be
ready

and we're going to do that thing

rather than,

I guess, more of the

deterministic

whatever,

which,

you know, again, I don't

fully… So this

dropped a little while ago

and I just see

the little dent in it.

I'm really sad about this.

This is a lot of money.

Sorry.

Squirrel.

I keep

looking at and crying

internally.

But yeah, that's perfectly fine.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

You can't see it.

So… Well, Steven can't

see it.

Catch

and

strays.

Reflections show dense

and scratches much

better.

I don't see any reflections right

now.

Pitch black.

Did you find the

verse, Steven?

I think

maybe.

I'm still reading through some

of the verses that I

found

on

it.

One that might

hold it is

James 4,

17.

Okay.

What's that say?

Therefore to him

that knoweth to

do good and

don't…

It not to…

Not him is

sin.

Yep.

Yeah.

Love me the key, Jamie.

Why are you laughing, Mikayla?

Because she didn't understand anything.

That was just sad.

Her brain shut off when she

heard the verse.

My brain shut off

and it tried to send

back in and

it just didn't want

to.

The starter was organ.

I used the

King James version

and it

sounds a lot better in your

head than it does up.

You send a lot more regal

in your head.

You're like, man, this is

cool.

I'm a kaloon.

I didn't

realize that was James.

I thought it was Paul.

He said

James, right?

James 4,

verse 17.

Man,

we… At some point we should

move on.

Hey, you know what?

We've only talked about one verse.

Maybe we should move on.

That's what I just said.

We should move on to…

11.

And now you are cursed from

the ground which has opened

its mouth to receive

your brother's blood from

your hand.

Wow,

more poetry.

But is it not?

Because I know for sure

God uses the ground

to swallow up

Israelites.

Literally,

the ground opens up and people fall into

the shield.

But also, there's

the fact

that blood is a

liquid.

And the liquid

will seep into

the ground because

it is not

one solid piece in which

liquid cannot… And you think the

ground… is Seep a num Got

a taste for blood and

wanted more?

No.

That's not what I thought.

I'm sure

there's a portion

of our audience in the

future that will

listen to this episode and be

like, you know what?

Me and Daniel, we

get each other.

We try.

And she's probably gonna be really cute

and she's probably gonna DM you.

And I'm gonna see it first.

I'm

gonna

act as Daniel

and be like, hey, boomer.

I had a pretty mama.

That is

good

acting, Michael.

Yeah, that was… Hang

out with… Snaps

for Michael.

Dude, I love

Johnny Bravo.

Dina,

who's Johnny Bravo?

It rings out.

Dude, he's got the yellow

hair and the…

I have a permanent set of mind.

I thought you were They were doing

Elvis.

No.

Oh, that's hilarious.

Dude.

Okay, what should I

watch?

Me too.

Johnny Brown.

Oh, it's awful.

Sorry, should I?

It's old Cartoon Network.

Oh no, you should definitely watch it.

Oh, I do know Johnny Brown.

Yeah, you do.

You do.

Big, buff guy.

Big, super buff, black

sunglasses.

Super tall blonde hair.

I'll look good.

That is me.

Dude,

when I was

cleaning

pools for whatever

reason,

I'd walk up to a pool and I'd be

like, hey, they're pretty much all.

I remember you saying

that.

That was your catchphrase for a while.

That's beautiful, Michael.

I really love this.

Absolutely crazy.

That was riveting.

Thank you.

Now you are cursed

from the ground.

So, let's start there.

You are cursed from the

ground.

the What heck does that mean?

Well, he explains it later.

Basically, he says that you

can't really work the

ground.

It's not going to yield anything.

When you work the ground, it shall

no longer.

So, but here's the thing.

Shall no

longer yield to

you its strength.

What does that mean, though?

This is kind of poetic.

How do you get strength from the dirt,

Mikaela?

Yield to you.

Shut up, Michael.

Mikaela?

I don't know.

Okay, Michael.

So, it will no

longer yield to you its

strength.

Okay, Mikaela, let's walk through this.

So,

Mikaela,

this table is really

hard.

Yeah.

So, you could say

that because

it takes

a lot of strength

to

have a yield

to you or break

all apart,

that it is

yielding its strength.

I don't think that's what it means.

That is what it means.

I don't think so.

That's literally what it means.

Steven, what do you think it means?

So,

what was cane

originally

when Abel

was alive?

Ding, ding.

A farmer.

Yeah.

Okay, but go on.

It has to yield its

strength to you.

It has to break for you.

Steven,

obviously our brain waves

are on the same

frequency,

so keep going.

So, in strength,

what do you have to do every year

now

to get a

good yield of a crop?

You have to remineralize

it, basically strengthening

it to

get plants.

Oh, that's a different viewpoint.

I wasn't thinking of that.

I was thinking of calories,

straight up calories.

Like, to gain strength you

have to eat.

Like, I'm in a bulking phase

at the gym right now and I've got to eat

enough protein in order

to put on the mask, you know?

Uh -huh.

And so,

if I'm not eating

enough rice along with

that, for example, it's just not going to

happen, right?

And if you don't eat any food

at all, you're going to die.

You're going to lose all your strength.

And so, that's what I'm seeing this as.

The issue is that it says,

when you work the ground.

The ground, yeah, that's farming.

Right.

So, but you're working it.

You're not taking

it from.

When you work the ground, it

shall no longer yield

to you its

strength.

Right.

The ground is

giving strength,

yielding strength.

How does the ground give you

strength?

You don't eat dirt

and

get straws.

But here's the thing.

Maybe as a toddler or

a kind of a learner.

I would say that

because it is

poetic language

and also it is

not Western

poetic language

or really

anything that we

obviously fully understand,

that it

is yielding.

When it talks about work,

you're working it.

You're literally working it.

So, when he is working

and

not

yielding its strength,

it, I mean, to me it

makes more sense that when he is

working, it is going to just be

harder for him to

work.

But that already was a

curse for his parents.

That doesn't mean that it couldn't become

more of it.

I think

it might have

became

harder

because

what

I'm thinking

is

the

strength is

like

what Stephen

said, like the minerals

and stuff in

the dirt.

So, every time

you

work

the ground or

the earth,

it takes

or the

minerals disappear.

So, then

it becomes harder

and

it's not giving

you its strength.

Its strength

is disappearing

as well as yours.

So, it becomes harder

to work the ground.

It's a net loss.

It's moved to new ground in order

to get more

strength.

Maybe.

What's the similarity between

all of our thoughts here and all?

Things are harder.

Yeah, things get

harder.

Things suck.

He made it worse.

I really think though

that it's got to

be,

I mean,

I really

think it's farming.

Like this guy was a farmer anyways.

like he Yeah.

brought his

farming goods

instead of the flock

as his sacrifice.

So what better

curse to come from

God than to say, hey,

you know how you have a, you had a

green thumb?

No, you don't.

Yeah.

Well, and again, I don't think

that would necessarily refer to

like what you're saying calories

or what you're saying,

the minerals or whatever.

Because it even says that,

behold, you have driven me

away today from the

ground.

So he's not even like,

he's not even like a

proper noun ground.

Yeah.

The ground, the ground that's

like around the curtain.

And he keeps, he keeps

emphasizing he's

just a wanderer on the

earth.

In other words,

he's not going to work the

ground anymore,

probably because it is too

hard for him now.

Yeah, because he doesn't have a green

thumb anymore.

Or the minerals.

Well, well, right.

Either way, he's

a wanderer.

He has to be.

In my mind, he

can't grow any food.

So he has to steal it.

Sure.

He has to use people

or buy it.

He has to go into other

labors in order

to

eat in order to survive

in order to gain his strength.

He has to pull his strength from other

people like he did his brother.

Yeah.

He's cursed to murder

other people just

like he did his brother

forever and ever.

I think to your point

too,

because obviously,

Cain's

line continues.

And there's a sense

that, well,

where we're at right now,

it's not necessarily that

we don't,

that we can't farm,

but we don't want

to because

it's too

hard in a sense.

We were just talking about this

with ice

and people running

jobs that we don't want to

do.

And it's like,

I guess maybe that

the green

thumb becomes more

specialized.

It becomes more of a, people

that are willing to

do that kind of work

too.

That back breaking layer.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

That's what I like.

So moving forward.

So you

are cursed from the ground.

It's opened its mouth to receive

your brother's blood

from

your hand.

When you work the ground, it shall no
longer

yield to your strength.

You shall be a fugitive

and a wanderer

on the earth.

So a fugitive lends itself

to people who are

after him.

Well, I would imagine that his

parents wouldn't be.

Too happy.

Pleased.

And I mean, in my mind, I

feel like he kind of just

left after this

conversation.

But this is awful and I'm going to

leave now.

But this is sometime

after he murdered

his brother.

And when they were in the

field, Cain rose up against his

brother, and

brother Abel and killed

him.

Then the Lord said to Cain,

where is Abel your brother?

So it doesn't say exactly

what the timeline is here, but it

seems the language

used

is quite

immediate.

So it's probably a short timeline.

But yeah, you're right.

With that short timeline, he might have
just

wandered.

Let's find out.

So 13 says, Cain

said to the Lord, my punishment

is greater than I can bear.

And that punishment is the ground won't
yield

its strength.

He'll be a fugitive and a wanderer.

So three things.

My punishment

is greater than I can bear.

Behold, you have driven me today

away from the ground

and from your

face I shall be

hidden.

Why does that matter to him?

Curious.

Cain is saying,

the thing that

I'm good at, farming,

you've taken that from

me.

And not only that,

but you are

forcing me to

never look upon your face again.

Well, I don't know if

it's necessarily in

that way.

Again, we have to

acknowledge that

Cain was

raised

by Adam and Eve,

who were already

set

away

from God's

face physically.

They're not dwelling

with him physically

anymore.

They're not in the Garden of Eden.

Although his spirit is

there.

Yeah, his spirit is

obviously there.

No, no, obviously it

says that later

so we can infer

that his spirit is there.

What does this say, Nats?

Verse 16, then Cain went

away from the presence of the Lord.

Although that could just be

the fact that the Lord was

talking to Cain.

So he walked away from his

presence.

So it doesn't necessarily

infer that the Lord's presence

is there in

general.

So yeah, go on.

So the presence of the Lord is gone,

whether physically or

spiritually.

Yeah.

And so Cain at least

has some

understanding that

if he sins,

if he could disobey his God,

if he goes against his

laws,

however you want to put

it,

that

God's

face is turning further

and further away

from

him.

Our favor in

God's eyes is

turning because we are

are committing committing.

worse things and

God is proving that

by cursing us

with more things.

And,

you know, I mean, the Bible

talks about a lot, we're getting further

away from God, we are lost,

we,

you know,

are so many different

things are setting us

away from God's

face.

We're no longer in his

presence, we're no longer, you know,

all these different things.

And especially at

this point,

I would say that

because they don't have

the Holy Spirit in

dwelling,

you know,

feeling his presence

is

probably a whole lot

different.

Because we don't,

as Christians, we don't

experience not

having him anymore.

But they could, I

mean, obviously just step

away.

I mean, we can experience

emotional distance.

Yeah, we can

experience a distance.

But in terms of

like,

because we have him in dwelling,

yeah, it'd be like separating

our skin, like we

have to,

like

separating

any part of our

body off of

ourselves in order

to get away from it.

Yeah, it sounds painful.

Yeah,

it doesn't sound fun.

It doesn't.

No.

Very scary.

Or maybe like,

it'd be like separating

your

consciousness

from your

personhood.

It's like, well, you

can't.

And that's like,

we can't lose our salvation.

So we can't lose the Holy Spirit.

So it's there

no matter what.

Whereas here, you

know, God

seems to pop

in and show up

and pop out.

And we walk away from him

literally.

Yeah.

God walks away from him.

Cain walks away from God.

I've been watching

the

show David, I think it's called.

Oh, the

animated one or the?

No, live action.

Okay.

And it's

solid so far.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I'd recommend watching it.

But God

indwelt

Saul

until he did

it.

And so I

used to think that because this

spirit indwelt Saul that

he was saved, but that's

not a thing back then.

That's a thing now that

we are marked with the Holy

Spirit as a promise.

It wasn't that way back then.

Yeah, it wasn't part of the covenant.

Which is nuts.

So it goes to say

exactly what you were

talking about.

Like, it's

so absurd to try to

separate the Christian from the

Spirit, that

it's like saying,

you can remove

who you are from

your body.

Yeah.

Because you can't.

You remove who you are from your

body, you're no longer

alive.

Right.

That's called being a vegetable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So God's

face is hidden from

Cain.

He says, I'll be a

fugitive and a

wanderer on the earth.

So he's agreeing with God.

And then he goes a step further and says,

whoever finds me will kill

me.

And then God says to him,

he helps the aunties.

He's like, hey, you know

what?

If my parents

find me, or if

my siblings find me,

I'm a dead man.

Abel was like the

favorite.

People tell good

stories.

Not me, obviously.

Imagine that guy

who's able to keep

everybody's attention around the

fireplace.

Now he's gone, and it's your

fall.

So you're in danger.

You're in danger, dude.

Those haunted stories that Abel used to

tell around the fireplace.

It's funny because I definitely

described Cain as being the

eloquent one.

Yeah.

That's funny.

So he says,

whoever finds me is going

to kill me.

God says to him,

no.

If anyone kills you,

vengeance shall

be

taken on him

sevenfold.

Yeah.

I mean,

God is acting

here.

God's promising a

Cain.

If anybody kills you,

I'm going to kill them and their whole
family.

Yeah.

Like, you're good.

So this is odd to

me.

Well, let's just go to the end here.

Wow.

We're actually going to get a section

done.

The heck,

dude?

16.

I kind of want to give it to someone else.

Does anybody else?

You want

me

to do it?

Bill for it.

King James.

Make a Bible, you idiot.

So God says, nah,

if anybody kills you, bro,

I'm going to destroy their family.

This is the Daniel.

Annihilation.

The Daniel version.

The Lord says nothing about

a family.

Well, I'm going to

take vengeance on them

sevenfold.

Whatever that means.

I'm just interpreting that

as your whole family too.

The Lord put a mark on them.

And everybody knew

that

that mark was

God's

gang sign.

Have you Have you guys

watched?

probably Probably.

haven't watched this.

There's a movie that I just watched
recently.

I think it's like the records or
something.

Two brothers,

Hawaiian brothers, they go back to

Hawaii after their

dad is murdered.

And one of the brothers

is wrapped

up in this gang

over there.

Now he's a cop,

not necessarily on the street in their

room or nothing,

but the

gang boss

basically

kidnaps him and

puts a mark on his

neck and says,

no one's gonna hurt you

because

my mark is on you.

But if you're not gone from here in seven

days, I'm gonna kill

you.

So it kind of reminds

me of this

here,

like God's gang sign.

If you mess with Cain,

I'm gonna kill you.

I'm the one who

deserves justice on

Cain.

And if you take that justice from

me, which you

can't.

But if you try to,

it's the thought that counts.

And I'm gonna destroy you

seven times,

seven

times more.

Anyways, Stephen, you wanna take 16

away?

And Cain went from

the presence of the Lord

and

dwelt in the

land of

node.

No,

nod, right?

Whatever.

Because there's no E,

nod.

I don't know.

This is English.

On the east side of Eden.

Perfect.

I don't know why that trips me up.

Just like,

no E.

There's no E.

The land of node.

Nod.

East of Eden.

And that's where that,

that's a common

phrase,

actually.

Really?

East of Eden, yeah.

It's like a poetic

thing,

mostly, I think.

That makes sense.

Can you give me some examples?

Well, there's an anime called

Eden of the East, I

think.

Okay.

There is?

Yeah.

I've heard the phrase

East of Eden.

Yeah.

It reminds me of like a

band name or something.

Yeah, there's that.

That's a cool brand.

I think there's actually a band

called East of Eden.

I'm pretty sure.

That's beautiful.

Let's bring up a beautiful browser.

gonna Google I'm it.

But there's also,

I've heard it said

like, that we are

East of Eden or

that people are

East of Eden or.

East of Eden.

It's a Steinbeck

novel.

Steinbeck.

Thank you.

Oh yeah, I have heard of it being

a book as well, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, I've just heard it used

as that idea

of,

I guess you just don't want to be

like Cain and be East of

Eden.

Or us being like

Cain and being East of Eden.

Right.

Which is,

isn't there?

I haven't watched all

the entire show yet,

but it's supernatural,

I think.

The Mark of Cain comes

up.

Oh, does it?

Oh yeah.

Well,

so hold on.

Isn't Cain

the,

considered

the

ancestor

to a specific group

of people?

The Canaanites.

No, not the Canaanites.

It's obviously the

Canaanites because

it starts with Cain.

Hold on.

So his people

are the,

I think the same ones that made

the tower of Babel.

Hmm, hold on.

While you're looking for that,

I kind of want to think about this, like

15 and 16 again.

So the Lord says to him,

no, no one's going to kill you.

If they do, I'm going to take

vengeance on them sevenfold.

And then he marks Cain

that way, if

anybody finds him

and would attack

him, now they

won't because they see

God's mark on him.

So it's kind of

a curse

and a mercy at

the same time.

You did wrong.

Here's your punishment,

but I'll give you

this mercy.

Yeah, like I won't let anybody

kill you.

Like you deserve.

Or like I was saying that

death is too easy for

you.

That too, it could be death.

But God doesn't say you deserve

death.

He says,

ground will yield to

you.

No, that would be a fugitive and a

wanderer.

Not, and

you're going to die.

No, I'm saying

that if

God was to

basically kill Cain

right there,

it would be

too easy of

a mercy.

And so then he's making him

live longer

as a punishment.

In misery,

yes.

Okay, yeah, I could see

that.

So it's not necessarily a mercy.

It seems like a mercy because

Cain is so afraid of

that.

People are

referred to

as coming from the

line of Cain.

I think is what it is.

Because they are

murderers or they

act

a certain way that is

Cain.

No, there is a,

later on in Genesis,

it talks about this dude who's like,

I'm like a hundred

times worse than Cain.

And that's his pride

point.

That's great.

Right?

You drink, I mean.

I'd lie in the hangout with my kids.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's like, hey, yeah,

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I
know.

I'm just like, Cain,

baby, I'm worse.

100 times.

Dude, you hear about the people

that would have killed Cain?

Dude, I would have killed Cain?

It wouldn't have been sevenfold, but I'm

not full, boo -ber.

I'm killing it.

I would have killed Cain,

brought him back.

Killed him again.

Brought him back again.

Killed him again.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's great.

That's like seven times

seven.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a song by

Josh Wilson.

Seven times,

seven times.

That's a good song.

That's great.

I love Josh Wilson.

I love this.

Snaps from Michael.

Did we

finish this?

I think so.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

I mean, we are an hour and 40

in.

Nuts.

Oh, we're about to get to Noah.

Oh, crud.

Yeah, we are.

Ooh.

Ooh.

Let's talk about going

verse by verse.

I mean, actually, Noah's

pretty

dense with

like just

information.

I mean, we're about to hit a lineage

here.

Oh, yeah.

Which is in chapter

five.

You can either say that's

boring or you can say that's

like the most

interesting thing

you could read here.

If we had the time,

I mean, it is the most interesting because

if we had the time, I feel

like there's information that

we could glean

from

it.

Oh, I think well, we will.

I think you

want to just scroll

past?

No, no, no.

I think we should read it

and try

and get out of it what we

can.

But there's

a lot of

things that we just won't know.

I'm sure.

And we'd have to do research on maybe.

Well, I'm going to save it for

that episode.

Sure.

I have so many things to say on it.

We still have this section

after

this,

17th.

Where Kane's lineage

goes on.

That's very interesting.

Yeah, I think that

ends our

perfumed portion.

Do we have

anything to carry

us into the

decay portion?

Or is this going to be our first

opportunity?

Where we can just talk about anything?

We can just talk about anything.

Dude, let's take the opportunity,

bro.

Just take the opportunity.

Okay, I have something.

Go.

It's been bothering

me.

Well, hold on.

Do we want to explain

to new audience

members possibly?

So we're going to

be leading into

the decayed

person

portion.

The decayed portion

of this

podcast in

which we are stepping away

from the Word of God

and not

talking about it directly.

We have been going kind

of verse by verse and

really talking about anything

else.

Not in the sense

that we're talking about

death or

things that are wrong or evil

or whatever.

We can talk about those things.

We can refer to them.

But ultimately, it's just

the decaying

process of

perfume, if you will,

because we have more

things that we

think about.

There is ideas.

So the idea is

perfume is

God's Word and

decay is the life that we

actually live.

People think that

Christians are

so

unrealistic,

head in the

clouds.

Religious,

fully religious, overly spiritual.

Not realistic at all.

We're trying to be idealistic.

And the idea here

is why

I'm looking forward to reading

Ecclesiastes, because

that book gets real.

And that's what the decay portion is.

It's real.

Decay is

life.

We talked about it in the last episode,

when God left entropy

became the law.

Everything now decays.

Everything falls apart.

And that's just the life that we live

in.

And so we can be Christians and

read our Bible

and get the

wonderful scent

of perfume.

But our life is

still in a state of decay.

And like it or not,

all of us are going

to die.

And like it or not,

everything that we do to

build things up will fall

apart.

And so this is just

the note

of the podcast of we

recognize life is

that complex.

Where there's these

ideals, but

there's also the reality.

And the reality is life

sucks sometimes.

And we have to live it.

And it stinks.

It's decay.

But it's also what

God has given

to us.

And Ecclesiastes,

again, like I said,

one of the best books, I

think, in the Bible.

Because it gets real with

you.

He experiences everything in life.

And he says near the end, basically,

the best way

to live life is

to enjoy

what God has given

us.

And if we sit

there,

choosing choosing...

to not enjoy

what God has given us,

despite the pain, despite

the pointlessness,

then we are

miserable guests.

So this portion is to

enjoy everything

good in the world

that is decaying.

You know, it's interesting.

I read a book a

bit ago.

It was about - Do you read?

I know, right?

I didn't think that was an outfit that -
crazy, That's

Michael.

Not enough.

But I was reading a book and

it was about,

it was like

getting

married young

and

how,

like, I don't know, like

the things that are holding

people back from getting

married are

stupid reasons.

Like what?

Also, what was this book and who was

it by?

I don't remember.

I could not tell you.

I don't remember

names.

So that is a lost on

many.

Did you get it

from coffee shop

person?

No.

So basically

the things that they were laying

out was like, okay, if you're

waiting for

some specific

milestone,

you're an idiot.

Like if you're waiting to get enough

money, if you're waiting to

get out of school, if you're waiting to
get

a specific job, if you're waiting,

blah, blah, blah, blah.

The idea is just do

it?

No,

the idea is if

you are in

a

biblical relationship,

if sin isn't

an issue, well, excuse me.

If sin

is

like crouching at

your door, if you will,

and you don't have

rule over

it,

like you need to,

yes, you need to get that

under control, but if it's like

sexual sin,

bro.

The Bible says like, if

you were burning with desire,

you need to

get married.

So that's opposite

of Christian

wisdom.

What?

Worldly Christian wisdom says if

you

are

struggling with sexual

sin, you aren't ready

to get married.

Well,

it's

not saying that you are

ready,

but you still

need to go through counseling.

You still need to go through the

process.

You need to repent of this.

You still need to bring it under control.

You still need to bring under control, but

like, yo,

y 'all want to be

together.

Y 'all

are

pursuing God

together.

You are

living life together

already.

Y 'all have the spirit.

Y 'all have the spirit.

Get married.

Like, why are you

putting it off as

though other things

are going to add to what

you already have, which is a

relationship with God

together?

And that's the thing about

the contract of

marriage

is that, yeah.

Covenant.

Covenant is a contract.

No, it's not.

Yeah, it is.

God makes the covenant

with people.

It's a contract.

No, that's a covenant.

A covenant is

unlike

a contract because a

contract is only

enforceable if both

parties.

Yeah, if you sign it.

No, if both parties uphold their end

of the deal.

Oh, right, right.

If we had a contract for

salvation, we'd be

screwed.

And if I had a contract

in

marriage, I'd be screwed.

Yeah.

So that's why it's a covenant.

A covenant is I will love

you till death do us

part,

whether you

do

me wrong or do me right,

whether you love me the way I

think you should or

don't.

I'm going in sickness

or health, like I'm going

to do my

duty wishes to love

you.

And you're gonna fail.

Of course I'm gonna fail because I'm a
man.

But the idea of marriage is

not to be

perfect.

It's to

understand

both being the giver

and the recipient

of a covenant.

But if that's in

the - Which is what we get

from Christ

as the church.

But if that's in the contract,

then you uphold it.

In the contract?

Yeah.

No, it's not a contract.

No, but I'm saying

if that is in the

contract, then you are upholding

it.

Yes,

you have to

if it's a contract.

What do you mean if what's

in the contract?

I'm saying they're interchangeable

because a

covenant is

also a lot

like a vow,

a lot like keeping your word,

a lot like whatever

else.

But contracts

keep into

consideration and

covenants and all

these other things have to keep

into consideration

what reality is.

And so if you put in a

contract, what reality

is, how things

are actually gonna go down, then

you are upholding

the contract.

That's not a

contract though.

That's a covenant.

But that would still,

if you're accounting

for - No, no, For

the fallibility

of - This is

the

legal

definition

of what

you're talking about is

not a contract.

A contract has certain

meets and bounds

and what you're describing

is a covenant.

Okay.

You You want me to look up the definition?

I mean, - we used to shoot it

anyways.

Yeah.

Go for it.

Here, I'll look up.

You look up.

Contract, you look up covenant.

Yeah.

There you go.

Keyboard is so loud, dude.

I can hear you

typing.

Oh, thank you.

You're welcome.

It's mechanical keyboard.

It's supposed to

be.

It's supposed to be

ASMR.

It's why you wear headphones.

Don't make it quiet.

It's not quiet though.

I can hear.

Well,

Kayla, why are you snapping into the
microphone?

going I'm to be like, munchies.

ASMR.

All right.

I want to make sure that I get a good

source on

this.

Bible study tools .com,

maybe?

A written or spoken

agreement, especially when

concerning employment.

I love employment.

Enter into formal.

This is a good source.

Got questions .org.

I'm not employed.

Enter into a formal and

legally binding agreement.

Secure specified rights

or undertake specified

obligations in a formal and legally

binding agreement.

Impose an obligation on

someone to do something by

means of formal agreement.

Arrange for work to be done by

another organization.

Formally enter into

a marriage.

Enter into a

friendship or other relationship.

Catch or develop

a

disease where infectious contract.

Become liable to

pay.

Together draw.

Are we still in the same

world?

Con, tra here.

Con meaning together,

draw,

draw here.

Meaning draw,

drawn together,

tightened,

contractus.

What source is this?

This is just straight

from.

It's the newspaper later.

Middle English

via

old French from

Latin contractus

from contract, drawn

together, tightened.

From the verb contra

here, from con together

and tra here.

Draw.

I don't understand.

That's the etymology of the word.

What is etymology?

Hey, look up the etymology

of etymology.

Oh my gosh.

Oh boy.

I don't want to.

What did you find?

It's a loophole.

It is a loophole.

But a we child.

The world's gonna blow

up like an

oaky.

Okay, so covenants according

to got

questions .org.

Generally speaking, a covenant

is a promise

between two or more parties to

perform certain actions,

which sounds a lot like a

contract.

The word can

also be used as a verb

as in we

covenant to work together on

this project until it is finished.

A covenant is very similar

to a promise.

So this is kind of what you were saying.

So the reason

that I use the word

contract is

because

it's

your

because two people are

agreeing to it.

And it is,

oh, here we go.

The king would promise

certain protections

and

a subject would

promise loyalty

to the king.

So it can either be a

promise made between

two equal parties or between a

king and a subject for this

example.

And then the final sentence, a covenant

might be

conditional

or unconditional.

And so to man,

covenants, contracts, promises,

vows, etc., they're all the same

because it's between

equals.

And

because

there's

obligations for

both parties to uphold,

right?

Even if you're a king

or a subject, like

if you're the subject, like we

would be for God,

we still have the

loyalty

to

God that we have to uphold.

But you look at the

covenants that God makes throughout the

Bible,

which we're about to get

to on.

It's always

God

padding

the contracts

so that a

man or whoever he's

made the contract with

doesn't have

any obligation

at all.

So that's the difference.

And the reason I'm so

hard -headed on this is

because of how I've heard it preached,

but I'm open to being

wrong.

Well, the reason that I

say...

We have to be clear, like

God's promises

and

contracts slash

covenants, whatever you want to call it.

Like they're different

because He

puts in there that

it's

not reliant upon

us

or anything

that we would do or

not do.

We would mess

up,

but He does not.

And I mean,

the covenants,

we're not

agreeing

to a covenant.

God says, I'm going to make

a covenant with you.

So it's a one -sided thing.

And this is

what the covenant

is.

He's binding Himself

to this covenant.

Which makes it more of like a

promise or a vow.

Which is God saying,

this is what I'm going to do.

He's not asking.

He's saying, I'm going to do

this.

Whereas in my mind,

a contract of,

you know, we say our vows

to somebody, which is

not...

them necessarily agreeing

to them.

But when it comes

to marriage,

if both parties aren't

agreeing,

you're raping

the person.

You are

kidnapping them,

raping them, and

it's

not a good thing.

You are becoming one.

And that denotes

everything

that says,

so if you become

one, it even says

it in what, 1 Timothy

or whatever,

a man does not

act against his own

body.

Your wife is now part of your

body.

You are, in a sense,

obligated.

I said in 1 Timothy.

You are, in a sense,

obligated to

treat her as

your body.

It likens that

to Christ and His

Church,

His body.

But the thing is, is

that she is agreeing to

be joined with you.

That's where

it is a contract

in that sense.

But again, I point to the fact

that the

contract

isn't

bound to law

because

God's law

for marriage is

that you

don't divorce.

He despises divorce.

He hates it.

And also it

has to be between a man and a woman.

And the

standard

is

to stay together.

So there's a

lot of things wrapped up in that,

a lot of obedience, a lot

of you,

this is how this is done.

A lot of things in,

I would dare say, in the contract

that you are agreeing

to, that you are

saying as yourself,

I'm going to sign my name

on this thing spiritually,

really.

But I'm becoming one

with this

person of my

own volition.

And we are also

saying to God,

we will put this as

yours.

But everything with

man needs to come with a

caveat of we're going to

fail hard.

And if you

view

anything,

I mean, outside of the

legal system, I don't care

about the freaking legal system.

But if you

view

anything

in

life,

in relationships,

as a hard,

like, this has to be perfect,

then you're an idiot, and

you don't live in the world.

And I

probably will

have no dealings with you,

because you're a waste

of time and space

and breath for

me,

because you're

condemning everyone around

you.

You're condemning yourself, and it is

going to be so hard.

I have to dust off my feet and

walk away, or

you're just

death to

everything.

And like, obviously, I'm going to pray

for you.

I'm going to,

you know, I

want you to get out

of that.

But that's hell.

It's awful.

I know people like that.

I've been like that.

People think that I'm still

like that.

But it's awful, and you're

killing people.

And so it is a

contract, because you are

agreeing to it with

another person.

You both have decided that you're

going to do this thing.

And you're going to do it

badly.

You're going to fail, but

you're doing it for the glory of God.

But you're signing your name on it,

and you're becoming

one with that person.

And there are

things that you

are supposed

to do that you need

to do.

Obligations.

And if you don't do them

by the law of God,

you are

condemning the other

person.

You're condemning that relationship.

You're condemning

yourself.

And you're pointing

to God's eyes you are that

person.

Yeah.

No.

Because you're pointing

to God, and you're saying,

forget your

stupid rules.

And.

Forget your rules, I'm going to kill my

brother.

Right.

And it's the

same thing with

these curses.

You are cursing

yourself.

That is a consequence

of the law.

So yes, I'm calling it a

contract.

Okay.

All right.

What were you talking about before a great
that?

That's story.

We were talking about

marriage.

You must be

daft to

think you need

to be ready.

Oh, yeah.

So in this book,

yeah, Anyways.

He's talking about the facts.

I'm going to grab a beer.

Okay.

So he's talking about the fact

that

you,

like, if you are in Christ,

and if you are basically doing

life together already, like,

just get

married.

And then he talks about, I

think it's any

ecclesiastes that he's talking about

this, but like,

it might have been something I don't

remember.

But he references the

fact that you're to

enjoy the wife of your

youth.

And like, he's talking

about all this stuff

of like,

you,

like, just get married

is kind of how he's going

about it.

But he's He's being very

very cool cool headed about it.

He has some crazy ideas.

But he

gets to the end of the book and

he's like, okay,

yeah, I said all these things, but

also like just get married,

not because

of all this

other stuff, but like the

days are evil.

And, you know, God wants

you to enjoy

the wife of your youth.

He wants you to

take care of her

and he wants you to,

you know, not

look at everything

as a

roadblock

to getting to

that.

He wants you to just enjoy her.

How do you

deal with that in reality

though?

Because I've wanted to get married

since I was 19.

I'm 28 now.

Right.

And about to turn 29.

I've dated,

like officially dated

more than a handful of

girls.

And it just hasn't happened

for me.

Like, my

attitude

is

generally of,

I'm certainly not ready.

I'm still not ready, but

there's never a perfect time.

There's things that you can do

to make it more perfect

or better.

But I've always had the

attitude of like, I'm gonna

do my best, but I'm

not gonna say no because

it's not perfect.

But that seems to

be every

other

person's point of view.

Things have to be perfect.

Things have to be perfect.

And because I feel

off,

I'm gonna walk away.

Right.

So am I just super unlucky

here?

Or?

Well, again, it's an

agreement,

right?

You can't just decide

this is going to

happen.

So that's my question still

stands.

Am I super unlucky?

Like, am I just running the people that

think things have to be

perfect?

So if you take things from my

perspective, they weren't worth your

time in the first place.

Yeah.

And so there's this sense

of

God's sovereignty.

He knows the person,

he knows you,

and he

knows ultimately that

it's not going to work out.

It's not going to work

out because you suck.

And obviously that, but not

necessarily that.

Well, right.

But it's ultimately like,

that's not who he has for

you.

Yeah.

And if you were to stay with

that person, if things,

whatever, yeah.

Or it just wouldn't be

in his, it wouldn't be perfect.

It wouldn't be right.

It wouldn't be the direction that God
wants

you to go with.

be good.

It wouldn't Well,

but it wouldn't be

in the direction that God wants you to

head in.

So people,

especially Christians,

think to themselves

that, think

to themselves

sometimes

that there's

something that I can do wrong

that will get in the way

of God's plan.

And I,

I think that constantly.

And that's the thing.

It's like, which is stupid

because I shouldn't be thinking that way.

Literally God has taught me in the past

season that

it doesn't matter what I do.

He's still going to bless me when he wants

to.

And the thing is, that

you could marry what

you believe

to

be the wrong

person.

And if you believe that,

you're still struggling

with the sovereignty of God

and his plan

and the

direction that he wants you to head

in.

If you believe

that

you can marry the wrong

person.

No, that's not possible.

Or that you can, you can like,

what, because everything

that we do,

if it ends up

being bad, if it's

evil, whatever it

is, it,

God will turn it

for good.

And if he will turn it for

good, then you

can't marry the wrong person.

What you really did.

Inversely,

you can't not marry

the right person.

Well,

I can.

But ultimately it's like.

So,

inversely,

what you're saying is every girl that

I've dated in the past, it was

not the right person.

Yeah.

Well, and I

literally put it this way,

not worth your time.

They're not worth your time.

Because.

But they're worth someone's time.

If, yeah, they're absolutely.

Yeah, it's not, this is not

denoting what their value

is.

It's saying that they

weren't worth your time.

You shouldn't put any

time, money,

effort, whatever

into that

heart,

soul,

whatever, anymore.

Because

it's

not God's

desire.

Because ultimately those things

are a torture.

They are you cursing

yourself really, because

you know,

ultimately,

who God is.

And that he has abundantly

more.

As a Christian,

he has more for you.

Yeah.

That's what I've seen.

Every time I date someone

new, I'm like, oh my gosh,

where did this person

come from?

They're like so much better

than the last person I dated.

And that's every single time.

And so the last

time I was like,

God, I don't know how you're gonna

top this.

And then he did.

And then he did it again.

So it's almost

encouraging at the

same time, because

I mean, I'm

10 years into this,

and it kind of sucks.

Because I have friends that have

toddlers like toddlers.

and older now

and like,

happy

-ish marriages.

Marriages are

caveat.

But I'm just chilling

over here feeling kind

of lonely.

And where is my

person?

Where is the family that

God has given me

that yearning,

that deep desire

to have that family?

Where is that?

It's the

hope that I want

to is each

time I meet

someone, it's

better than the last.

Yeah.

But it's also where like,

and I always

point to this

myself, which

everything that I say to people

that people hate when I say it,

I hate it when I say it.

I'm glad you hate it.

I truly

do.

But the idea that

like, how much more are you

going to value that thing?

I tell people when they enter

into relationships,

withhold.

Withhold, withhold, withhold,

withhold, withhold, just because you

can have it right now

doesn't make it

right to have it

right now.

We live in an

instant gratification of

society.

When we start withholding,

we value more.

I think of

like going back

to being able to live for hundreds of

years,

there wasn't

really this grand sense

of instant gratification.

And because

of that,

I think that there is

more availability to

value life.

Because

what I'm

valuing now

with instant gratification

is the availability

of instant.

But if I wait for something

and I willingly

wait for something,

so much more

valuable.

And I mean, it

falls apart because

you can not value

things with

it not being

instantly available.

But the idea that

I'm with

whatever person.

And yeah, we could

do anything

because it's available to us.

We can spend all the time

together.

We can,

and coming back to my views on

the I love you thing, like we can

say I love you.

We can kiss, we can

hold hands, we can go on a

million dates, we can hang out all the

time.

We can do all this stuff.

We can text all day long.

We can call, all those

things.

But if we withheld,

not because

we don't

want it, but

because we do want it,

but we also

one value

that time to just

enjoy every little

step of the way, kind of

like how it is with

God,

how it should be with God, I should

say, where we enjoy

every tiny

little step and

really like we're

going to Proverbs.

And we're kind

of doing this, these bite

-sized pieces.

And

we're

doing that because in the

podcast, we're taking

bite -sized pieces

and we're taking them

to crazy

heights.

And we are

edified by it.

We are falling

deeper in love with

God in

more awe

and wonder

and all these different things.

Because

we

need

to

take that idea.

Everyone needs to take this idea

with hold in

your relationships.

Unless you're married.

Unless it's beforehand

agreed upon.

Right.

Well, but it's literally

what Scripture says.

Yeah.

But it's this idea

that everything can

be withheld because

you just want to

enjoy, right?

Enjoying doesn't mean that

you are taking everything that you

possibly can because you can.

Enjoying is taking

those moments, taking

every moment,

captive.

Yes.

Taking every thought.

What is it in the word of,

what does it say in the Bible

when you take

every thought

captive?

Yeah, take every thought captive and

make us a myth of Christ.

Yeah.

Part of that is

you're taking a

captive and

you're applying

it to God, right?

Well, what does that take?

It takes so much

focus.

Yes.

It takes so much time.

It takes so much, like you are

meditating on this

thing

because

you need to apply it to

God because that's what it

takes, especially

in our culture right now, instant

gratification.

I have to take the tiniest

little thing and I have to,

like me trying to wake up

at 4am.

My goodness, dude.

Hard.

Like I have three alarms

that go off before that.

I don't wake up.

But like

I have to put

so much work into just

doing that because

of so many other

things that I want to do in the future

and that's what it

takes.

Are you going to wake up tomorrow morning
before?

I am going to

wake up tomorrow morning.

Do it, Michael.

It has to be every day.

If I don't do it

every single day, I'm going to go

crazy.

Almost midnight.

That's right.

I'm going to go back to sleep.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm going to stay up for a few minutes and
then

I'm going to say,

how am I safe?

So we do have

a

viewer right

now.

Hi viewer.

Thank you for sticking with

all of this.

Is that hard?

Yeah.

So we've said in the past that

if we had viewers,

we'd want to

let them drive

the topic.

Yeah.

Do you want to like,

open that up?

We can kind of put that into practice

if they want

to, if they can, if they're

listening.

If you have a topic you want us

to, like a question topic.

Are you present?

It doesn't have to be Bible related.

It doesn't have to be anything.

Just ask question.

the You know what?

I think the question that we

just talked

about was literally

just like us

doing some kind of lead up

to something and I think we completely

lost where we were heading.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because I had a topic.

You did?

I a had topic.

Well, I just wanted to open it up.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a good idea.

But anyways,

we'll be watching the chat.

Ask questions.

You want to try to,

oh boy, go wherever

you're going.

Do you remember where

you were going?

I do remember.

Oh, good.

Perfect.

So I was on TikTok as

I often am.

Yep.

We all said.

Dang, that's messed up.

But I'm on TikTok

and

I'm

scrolling in someone

and I see it all

the time.

I see it all the time.

I see all I it the time.

see Michael.

It's

people

crying

over the fact

that they didn't

know that things were so

awful in

the world, in the place

they live, all this different stuff.

And I'm like, but they are.

I'm like, what are you talking

about?

I left a comment on this

one.

I was like, okay, here's the

thing.

Maybe like,

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something

here.

But I'm pretty sure that

we live in a world where

slavery is still a

thing.

Tyrants are still a thing.

I just listed all these

awful things in the

world.

And I'm pretty sure those things have

not gone away ever.

So wake up.

Like maybe

we're spending

way too much

time behind our

phones and just not

paying attention to the world around us.

But that's a

thing that greatly

bothers me.

That's fair.

Because it's like,

how

do

people not

know that the

world is so awful?

Because their innocence has been protected

by their community,

by their family.

Their innocence?

Yeah, innocence is a

thing.

Innocence or ignorance?

I mean,

well, ignorance

is

bliss.

But innocence

is

ignorance

of sin.

You don't need to know about sin.

But

once

you do, you lose your innocence.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So it's not necessarily

a bad thing

that

they're

so horribly broken

up about this.

But if they

should have

them...

have They softer hearts.

Yeah.

I mean,

anyways, go on.

Why does it irk you?

Well, it irks me because

I

hear what you're saying.

Yeah.

But also,

how

do you live

past

any

age and

not know?

What age?

I don't know.

Any age?

Eight, 10 maybe?

Okay.

Especially, I mean, it gets

lower.

The age of innocence gets

lower.

In certain ways, yes.

But how...

I still haven't seen someone

be killed in front of

me.

Well, right.

My innocence is still there.

But with the transfer

of information,

with technology at our

fingertips, with

so many kids

being

iPad

kids or whatever,

your innocence is gone

in an instant.

In a way.

You're still...

Well, yes.

could You watch someone's head get chopped
off

online.

Yeah, But it's

still not the same as seeing

someone in real life

getting their head chopped off.

Right.

But you can still be aware

of the evils that are

happening in the world.

Oh, 100%.

Or still be aware

that there are awful things.

You don't have to

go on the internet necessarily.

You can just go outside

and see

the awful things going on.

If you see a homeless

person, what do you

think about that?

That it's just like, oh yeah,

they screwed things up for themselves.

They're idiots.

And I mean, yeah.

A lot of the time, yeah.

But some people,

nope, they're homeless because they got

screwed over by the

system.

Because they are a

veteran.

Sure.

They

served

you and

your country and their

country and now they're homeless.

And I mean,

but it's like this

person specifically was

probably 18, 20,

something like that.

And I mean, you can't go to...

What was the vibe?

Was it like

pink hair?

Was it liberal vibes?

liberal Liberal vibes, blue hair.

That's the point that I'm kind of - Or

was it homeschool

vibes?

No, no.

It was definitely like they

went to public school

for sure.

Okay.

And like, I

mean,

that's the thing is like

on, I guess,

more on the

liberal side,

it's also on the conservative side.

I don't - Oh, 100%.

I mean - It's on every side,

but like - I think on the

liberal side, it's more like

it's

almost

virtue

signaling,

whereas on the homeschool side,

it's legit.

Like they just didn't know

because they weren't

exposed to it.

Which is - Which is

- A form of evil and it's - You can

argue if that's good or not.

Sure.

Yeah.

I don't think it's good that anybody

has to be exposed to evil,

but in an evil world,

it's good to be prepared.

You don't - ooh, interesting.

You don't think that's good for

anybody to be exposed to evil?

No, never.

Really?

Yeah.

What about - okay.

Do you think that it's good for people to
be

exposed to pain?

Yeah, but that's different.

Pain existed before the fall.

Oh,

interesting.

Struggle can be also

compared

to pain.

So in contrast,

it can be good.

Yeah, struggle.

Struggle creates

strength.

Pain is the signal

to stop whatever

you're doing.

But yeah,

pain exists to be before the fall.

The purpose that

God says that

childbirth will be more painful,

not painful.

And that'll be harder to

work the

ground.

Yeah, so hard work existed.

Yes, already.

Now it's going to be harder.

Painful, childbearing

existed.

Now it's going to be more painful.

Pain existed before the fall.

Hard work existed before the fall.

Evil did not exist before the fall.

I mean, it did, but we were innocent

to it.

Right?

The devil,

Satan, was in the garden,

whatever it was, whoever it was.

So evil certainly existed, but

we were innocent to it.

Just like when I was going to

high school, I was fairly

innocent.

And so people would be

- just

lack of better

example, they'd be showing

each other

porn that they

found on their -

whatever.

And they'd be showing it to their buddies.

And I'd be innocent

when being like, Oh, hey,

what are you guys looking at?

And they're like, oh, you don't want to

see this.

Because they knew my innocence.

And they didn't want to be that one

to take

that from me.

And so no,

I don't think anybody

should be exposed to evil.

I think that

sheltering is one of

the greatest forms of evil

ever created.

An evil world?

Yes.

Because - But no one deserves

to be exposed to evil.

It's not about deserving

though.

It's about

if you

don't

know of it,

one of two things is possible.

Christian or non -Christian,

one of two things is possible.

You're either going to run in the

right direction,

or you're going to run

in the

complete

opposite direction.

And there are some

great people out there

who have not been

exposed to

what is possible

out there, who are going

to be.

And their

parents, their

friends that are

keeping them safe,

are going to experience

them descend into

the deepest pits

of hell.

And I want to punch them in the face

every single time.

Because it

boils

me up inside

that

you know,

and maybe it's the

ignorance that you don't know

what evil can do to

someone, even with them

just knowing that it exists.

But I have

watched people

be exposed,

and I am going to

tell,

again,

we have to communicate.

We have to let people know,

because we have to equip

people.

The Bible is our

tool that tells

us about all the

evils

and

all the goods.

And we have to do both.

So in a sense, it's

not a

thing of

deserving.

It's not a thing of

like, we have

to.

We absolutely have

to.

Because we live in a sinful world.

Because we live in a sinful world.

We are sinful.

And because of the

circumstances that we're in.

That makes it more delicate, because

depending on

the person, if you tell them about the

evil stuff, they'll want to do it.

The proof in that is

God's word says

sin

took advantage of the

law

and used the law

to determine

what evils

they could do.

Yeah.

But there's a difference

between what

I'm pointing to is being

able to cope.

If you don't start people off

early from

learning how to cope

with things.

How to deal with it.

How to deal with it.

You are setting

them up for failure.

Jinks.

But here's the main first part.

When you set people

up for failure,

I would dare say

that you are are

sinning.

sitting.

That's evil.

Especially if you're the one.

who's responsible for them.

Stephen, what would you say?

Here's the dangerous part though.

There would be

no defined age.

So then you would have

to start at a child

age to start

preparing someone.

And that could most of the

time, terrify

them and scar

them in a way.

Right.

But again,

you have to in every

relationship, you have to pay

attention.

You have to

have a sense

of tact.

You have to sit there

and understand

the situation.

And that takes focus,

that takes intention,

that takes heart.

It takes a lot of

things that people are not willing

to do because they want instant

gratification.

And I am a huge advocate

for

shut up.

Shut up your brain, shut

off your whole head.

Because if you

have a child,

you have no remorse for me.

You have absolutely no remorse for me

when they start to hate you.

Because of

something

you

could have done and you should

have done.

And just because you're

negligent in having a

child in the first place,

does not mean you have to be

negligent in the

raising of that child.

And I think I could rip

their head off.

I really could.

It deeply

pisses me off.

And it's not that

I don't understand that,

you know, the circumstances that

those people are in,

you know,

maybe they're just not ready

or whatever.

I don't know.

But they have a

sense of, I

had this child, I

need to take care of them.

You need to

understand that there is ease

with the child.

You need to understand that

they need you

for everything.

Yeah, totally dependent on you.

And

when you

don't give them the

things that they need, they're going

to end up just

like you.

In all the

worst ways.

And if you don't

want that, which most

people don't,

you

need to

have intention.

You need to try.

And when you don't try, it is obvious.

But how do you,

to Steven's question, how do you

know when to share

the evils of the world?

Like at what point?

Like do you share as soon as

they can form

sentences and understand

like how to have a conversation,

do you start talking about

the worst

evils of the whole world?

We'll get to this one.

People will

treat their child as

if they're perfect.

Right.

And that's not the move.

You have to correct

them.

Could not be the move.

And when you don't,

because they will

sin naturally,

so you have to correct them.

If you don't correct them or

if you just distract them or

if you just

redirect

the whole thing and

say, and turn it

into this good

thing, then they're just going to keep

doing that

thing that led to

this good thing.

Because that's

what you do.

You're just redirecting

to make it seem like what

they did was good, even though

you redirected

it because it was bad.

Redirecting it doesn't mean that you've

changed the habit.

It means you've created that.

You're talking about

not

necessarily only

introducing them to

the evil in the

world.

You're talking about introducing

to them

the idea that they

themselves are evil.

Yeah.

That they do evil things.

No,

you're not

going to go and tell your child

at five years old, Hey, by

the way, people

kill people.

Watch this video.

Let me show you.

It's how the head falls

off.

It's more.

It's more that

they

will

show

their sinful

nature.

They will show their sinful

nature.

And that's where it starts.

And then a little bit slowly be exposed

to things.

And when, you know,

especially in the digital age, they're

going to be exposed to those things like

that.

And they need the

tools to build and identify.

You're going to have to roll

with it.

But if you don't start at a

young age

of, hey, there

are things that are bad and

you need to do the thing that

is good,

then they're just going to do the thing
that is bad.

Yeah, we're working on piety

and virtue.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's not

like you're exposing them to every

little thing immediately,

but it's more that

you are

setting

up

an idea that there is

bad.

And there is good.

And there is

correction and you

need to be corrected and there is

good.

And this is how you get to the good

and the good.

There's consequences

on either

side for the bad thing,

the good thing.

And so do you have a direction

that you want to go with this conversation

because I have a

direction?

Yeah, go for it.

So for me,

I've always known

the truth is

when I sin,

it's not

necessarily

black and white

as far

as God's disappointed.

And now he's not going to give you this

thing.

It's more complex than

that.

Evil people thrive.

Evil people

make

make millions of

dollars.

have the greatest lives

while they oppress

their wives, their

children, their business

partners, they

destroy lives

all around them.

And they have the greatest

life ever.

Now, arguably, they

don't.

But

evil

things happen.

And by evil things, I mean like

disasters, natural

disasters, deaths,

all these horrible

misfortunes happen

to the best

people.

Like, and I mean

morally upright

righteous people.

Like for example, like Steven did

nothing to be blind,

but he's blind.

What did he do to

deserve that?

Right?

The ideas

talked about in

Job and

Ecclesiastes,

that you

can't necessarily

look at wisdom like

in Proverbs and

say

the

righteous people are going to thrive.

And the evil people are going

to be uprooted from

the land.

It's not always going to happen

because we live in

a twisted world

and things get

twisted.

And so the good person who was supposed

to thrive is now

uprooted from the land

and the

evil person who was supposed to be

uprooted is now thriving.

So having a brain fart

here.

You got this, bud.

Thank you, Mikaela.

I appreciate you.

And our podcast cheerleader.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh man,

I'll get back

to it.

Thank you.

What I was going say.

to You go into your direction.

Well,

just

with where you were kind

of going with that,

I mean,

again, it's,

yes, I have my perspective

and I think it is the

greatest evil, but

I can't live without

the idea that

if whoever

your perspective is the

greatest evil.

No, no.

The idea

of

sheltering your

children.

Okay.

One of the greatest evil is not the
greatest

evil.

But your example

of

Steven.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, he did nothing

to deserve being

blind.

Yeah.

But your perspective

of him is telling

of the fact that he did

nothing to deserve

being blind.

Hold on, let me read it.

Okay.

Steven.

And

that's,

I wish I had a word

for it, but that's not

deserving of it.

But that is,

if we see that as an

evil, then that evil

has been turned for good.

How so?

To glorify.

Because,

so like,

you know, I've met people that are

sheltered, right?

And due to their

sheltering, they

change it.

All their experiences, they don't

resent all of it.

They don't hate all of it.

They take it as

information

and

value it.

Because if they didn't have that, then

they wouldn't be able to, they wouldn't

be the person that they are.

They wouldn't be able to teach people.

They wouldn't be able to change

how people view

that way of raising your kids or

whatever.

They wouldn't be able to, whatever.

They wouldn't be the person

that they are right now

in order to do the

things that they're doing.

And that

makes that

experience valuable.

No, they didn't deserve

it.

And didn't deserve

to suffer.

But that suffering

produced

good.

Produced value, produced

love,

produced something

far more

valuable

clearly, or

else God would have not had it

be that way.

And that being the case

means that,

I mean, God wants us to

look at the

experiences that we have

and understand them

as a gift from

God, not as

a curse.

We know what the curses look

like.

But what man

means for evil,

God turns for good.

So even then, God

gave us all these curses,

but that doesn't mean

that there wasn't good.

That was produced from them.

So how do you

deal with that?

God deals out

curses,

and these curses feel

like they're evil

in themselves,

but it came from

God.

And you're saying that God uses

those curses for good,

ultimately.

What is the ultimate good?

God.

God.

And a very

common thing

to

be brought up

on this

topic is

Paul and his thorn in

the flesh, right?

And what did that thorn in the

flesh cause him to

do?

Look to God and cause him to rely

on God.

And so if you

view the

things that are

supposed to be pointing you

towards God, which is everything,

as anything but things

that are supposed to be pointing you

towards God,

you're missing the point.

As anything but.

What do you mean by that?

As anything but.

So these things are distracting me

from looking at the face of God.

So anything

you So, anything you put before

God is an not.

idol.

Anything you love before

God is an idol.

Anything you want before

God is an idol.

Anything you hope in,

anything you think

about, anything you whatever,

all those things,

anything before God

is an idol.

And so, if we

put anything before God,

then it is

us not

viewing the

ultimate good that

is supposed to be produced

by all those things.

We can love

and not be an idol.

We can think and not be an

idol.

We can

work and not be an idol.

We can do all these things, but if

we don't attribute them to God,

then they've lost all their

value.

That's the whole point of

Ecclesiastes, that everything needs

to be appointed to

God.

Everything needs to be

given to God.

We need to rely fully

on God in

absolutely

everything or

its value

is nothing.

And so, the things that

are evil, things

that are curses

or

whatever, those

things,

if we look at what God is

doing with them,

or if

Paul looks at his

thorn in the flesh, he's not looking

at it as,

oh man, I am

so

cursed.

My life sucks.

He's looking at it as, no,

God wants me to focus on him.

And this is how he's doing it

because he knows I'm not going to

do it otherwise.

And

I

try

to think of examples

of how people

do this,

they do it, except

they do it in

other

ways,

very bad ways.

But children will

do this with their parents

when they start off,

it's them screaming at them

or

acting

out or

whatever.

It's like, pay attention to me, pay

attention to me, pay attention to

me.

But with God, he's

not throwing a fit.

He's not doing

whatever

things

that

are childish

or bad or whatever.

He's saying, no,

this roadblock is here.

This wall is

here.

Whatever it is that I put

here, it is here because

if you go past it,

you're not going to go towards

me.

I want you with

me.

That's it.

And that's

our purpose as a

Christian is to focus on

God, is to love God

and love others.

And so everything is pointing

towards that.

And if something isn't

pointing towards that and you're pointing

at yourself, it's,

well, it's not about

God, it's about you.

When you point it at you, there's

your idol, right?

Yeah.

And it could be anything

outside of God.

Most common nowadays is

money.

Yeah.

And sorry,

to actually answer your question

of how do you deal with that,

how you cope with that, is

valuing

that God is

doing all

those things, whatever it

is, because He loves

you, because He wants a

relationship with you.

And He also

understands that you're going to

resent Him.

You're going to be upset.

You're going to not accept

it

for what it is, but

He's doing it anyways.

You know how Jesus says

God is a good

father,

is better than these evil

fathers that wouldn't even

think to

give their son a

stone or snake

as a present.

And how much better is your

heavenly Father who gives good

gifts, right?

So why is a heavenly Father

who gives good gifts giving us

baggage,

giving us thorns in the

side, sins

that we can't get

rid of,

evil

circumstances

that

we didn't want to experience,

or

just the

result of the fall,

like being

blind,

right?

That's a result of the

fall.

And how is that

a good gift

for an even better

father than those evil instead

would not give their sons

a stone or a snake?

Because if it leads

to

loving Him,

then it's not a

bad gift.

How would that lead to loving Him?

Because it does lead.

So

naturally in a

relationship,

there's going to be

conflicts.

Am I that?

Yeah.

In

a

relationship, there's always

going to be conflicts,

but conflicts

are

typically

the way that you

grow the relationship.

Depending on the

person, however,

it could

separate you.

But the idea

behind

the conflict

is,

I want you

to

grow

a better

relationship with me.

So there's always going to be

hardships.

And

going

back to what you said

about

how

things were

still going

to be hard even

if we didn't

fall,

there

would still

be a

conflict of some

sort,

but ultimately

you would

go

to

God and

you would be like,

I still love

you.

Or hey, I know you did

this because you love

me.

So it's like a

parent reprimanding

their child.

Like, it's to learn,

it's to grow.

And the same with

curses.

I feel like curses

were made

as

a reprimand.

You did something wrong,

but I want you to

come back to me

so I can teach

you to do the right

thing so you don't

make a bad decision

again.

Yeah.

And I mean, that's what

God does with

the curse.

First curse, he doesn't just

curse them.

He also says...

It's for his glory.

I mean,

yeah, and he curses

the devil too.

He says, I'll

come back and I'll crush you.

Right.

Just like a good parent punishes

their kids for doing a bad

thing to correct their

behavior.

He does that, but also

he

destroys

the

person who led them

astray.

He just

protects them.

Right?

And that's what he's doing with Satan.

He's promising.

I'm going to destroy you one day.

That's a promise.

I mean, he does.

He did.

And it's me

saying,

were

you

born with blindness?

Yes.

Okay.

You being born with blindness isn't

necessarily

something

that God gave to you

necessarily.

It's something that he

allowed you to have,

but it's not

an evil that

he did.

It was an evil that is

in the world and

he's allowing to

happen.

Just like that question of

God was

there when Cain killed his brother

Abel.

Was that evil for him to not

step in and do something

about it?

And our conclusion

was no,

right?

No.

So I guess it's the same

thing, but

he's not just a

bystander in

this.

He's actively

in our

lives,

allowing certain evils to

happen to us.

And this,

I mean, it's a

horrible topic.

I hate it

because it's hard, but it's

real.

Just like we all

here at this table, I think

we all don't

like the idea of a helicopter

parent

who keeps their

child from

learning the hard

way.

I think

God agrees

and he's

willing to

let his children learn

the hard way

because

he knows that

that's the way we have to learn,

especially me.

I am so

stubborn.

I will not listen to

wisdom.

I am that guy who walks by wisdom

with my

eyes bulging out of

my head after the

adulterous wound.

I'm that guy.

Not a great statement for

myself or anything, but I'm just a

fool.

Every time I read Proverbs,

I feel like an

idiot.

I mean, that's a little, I

feel like that's what the book is

saying.

Hey,

you're all idiots.

I am the idiot.

Thank you very much.

And so God's

mercy for me

is to allow

me to do

stupid stuff

so that he

might be able to use that to

make me

come to my senses.

Yeah.

Well, and you know,

the

character

of God is

to glorify

himself,

but it's

to unify

and to

love.

And all three of

those things,

they

work together.

So when it comes

to

the

things that he wants us to

do and the experiences that

he offers us, it's not,

I

mean, you've heard me say this,

it's not for

you because our

experience is not our

own.

And that

means that yes,

I get the opportunity

to experience

this, which in

and of itself, because I'm living

is mercy

and grace.

Yeah.

But it's not, but I

didn't experience this

for me.

I experienced it for

the glory of God

so that I can

love others.

Right.

And that's the other thing

that I think

Paul

understood is that

he's writing this letter,

he's talking about this thorn in the

flesh, and he's telling them about his

thorn in the flesh, not to say, woe

is me, but

to say, I have

this.

And

to

be vulnerable

before this

congregation and

also to say,

you know,

in a sense, if I can do

this, you can do this.

He's trying to encourage, he's trying

to empower, he's trying

to

offer

up up his

experience

as a means

of keep going,

right?

And that's what all of our

experiences are for.

It's not for

me because my

life isn't for me,

it's for God.

And if my life is for God, it

means that it's for the church, it's

for the

lost, it's for

anybody but

me.

And we all

experience it, but when

we do things that aren't,

when we don't live our

lives for us, we

forget about

us and our

needs and we end up just

doing things

because we

need to do that in order to

do this for somebody else,

right?

And when it is

also for God,

like, I mean, obviously I can do things
for

other people and then totally

forget about myself.

And then I end up in a ditch

somewhere, but if it's

for God and it's for

others,

I don't end up in that ditch.

I actually end up better off.

I actually end

up

in

a place

that I

didn't believe I

could be not

because - Because he actually

cares.

He actually wants you to

be better off than you are.

And he's

intimately guiding that.

And that's why he's not just the referee

on the

sidelines

giving curse

calls.

Well, but

this

is what I

believe is the

consequence of

obedience to God.

Because if we're being obedient,

we are glorifying him.

And if we are glorifying him, then we

are serving

others.

And if we are serving others, we're
glorifying

him.

And the consequence of that

is that we end up better.

And that's the

hard thing, right?

You finished your

coffee and you're

drinking mine.

Holy cow.

It is 11

.54.

Put down the drugs.

I see you

drinking it.

Put down the drugs.

I fixed you drinking it.

Holy cow.

You have drugs.

I had to be a brother for a

second.

We both have issues.

Anyways, but that's

how it works.

And that's

the thing that's hard

for us because we

think, well, the world thinks

that I have to focus

on myself and then I can

help others.

It's not that way.

And it will never

be that way.

Because selfishness

is the result of that,

right?

Yeah.

Pride was

before the fall.

You,

parents

become more

mature when they

have children.

Thing is about having kids is that

you didn't

work on yourself to

prepare to

be a parent.

Ooh,

for a full circle.

Because when

you

do

that, when you prepare and

then you have the kid, you weren't

prepared.

I realize, oh,

all those books.

Yeah, I have heard any

number of counts.

You can prepare as

much as you want.

You aren't prepared.

But once you have that

kid, you're ready.

Not because you're

prepared, but because

you have the kid and you're gonna do.

Because you have the responsibility.

Well, you have the responsibility,

and you're gonna do it.

You're not

going to, I mean,

and again, there's plenty of

parents that aren't going to do that, but

you're not just gonna leave that

kid at the fire station.

Yeah,

and for

some people, and this is

my,

going back to my

hatred for

certain types of

parenting.

For some people, yeah, that

does look like

I'm gonna do

something that I

don't understand is awful.

Because I think it's the best thing

that I can do for my kid.

And

that's where I calm down

when I'm talking to that kind of

person.

But because

maybe they

are doing everything

that they possibly think is

right and good in the world,

and they suck at it.

And I have

to sit there, and I have

to acknowledge that,

because I don't know.

I don't know what their upbringing

was like.

Maybe this is the

greatest good

that they know of.

And

maybe

they haven't read the Bible all the way

through, or maybe they

haven't

been convicted about certain things,

whatever, I have no idea.

But at the end of the

day, if you stuck around

for the kid,

unfortunately, but fortunately, I have

to say, that's amazing.

And yeah,

you screwed up

your kid, you did an

awful job.

But you stuck around, and

you probably

are saying now that you did

your best.

And if

this is your best,

and the kid is alive,

and they have to do the same

thing, which is figure

it out, really,

but not in

the Christian view.

But the

driving

point there is that

the thing that matters is

the relationship.

It's not that you end up

perfect at the end.

It's the fact that you

maintain that relationship.

So the The

idea idea that God can

give you

bad

gifts,

shouldn't really even be a question.

It's just,

is God there?

The answer is yes.

Is God there from the

beginning to the end?

Yes.

And this kind of goes full

circle.

I think we could probably end here

with your

first point

of,

are you ever ready to get married?

Are you ever ready to have a kid?

No, no,

absolutely

not.

No,

never.

Doesn't mean you should shirk

responsibility.

No.

If God has given

you the opportunity to get

married, get married.

If God has given you the opportunity

to get married, have

kids.

If God has given you the

opportunity to have kids, have kids,

right?

Not everybody who's married has the
ability

to have kids.

That's not on you.

And my heart goes out to you.

Like really sucks.

And in that same vein,

you know,

again, the other thing that I'm

constantly pointing to is

that we're always

trying to make decisions off

of a hundred percent certainty and we're
never

gonna get that.

We're never gonna have to.

And if we

stop trying

to, and we just

acknowledge that we

have to make a decision without a

hundred percent of the information.

Yeah.

And we acknowledge what's in front of

us.

And, you know, because there is a

standard and the standard isn't

a hundred percent certainty.

We know in

relationships, like, okay,

does the person love God?

You know, are we able to

pursue God together?

Are we, you know,

able to do life together?

Then go for it.

You know?

Amos three three.

Anybody know that one?

Nope.

No.

Amos three three.

Amos three

Sometimes I forget that.

What a poll.

Deep poll.

Deep cut.

Certain chapters in

the Bible.

Chapters?

Books.

Books, yeah.

Yeah.

I keep calling them chapters.

There are chapters.

There are chapters.

There's a little bit of chapter size.

I mean, you could look

at them as chapters and

then like the actual

chapters are.

Books.

Other things.

Amos three three.

Do two walk together unless

they have agreed to meet.

Say that one more time.

Do two walk together

unless they have agreed to

meet.

Dude, I turned right to Amos.

It's like you were aiming

for it.

Amos.

Amos.

Oh.

Dude, this is like

when someone asks

you if you want to do

something and you're like obviously,

but instead of saying obviously, you're
like,

does the,

does the

sunshine?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Does the

moon come out at

night?

Does a tree fall on the forest

if no one hears it?

There's a lion roar in the

forest when he has no prey.

Yeah.

Literally, that's his verse.

Do two walk together unless

they have agreed to meet.

So that's the whole thing here is like,

if you guys have agreed to meet,

if you guys agree to walk together,

what else do you need?

Besides God walking with

you two,

if you have that, then you both

agree to walk together.

Do it.

And

the

great and

awesome command that

God had with Adam and

Eve is be fruitful and multiply.

Multiply is not one plus one

equals two.

Yeah.

It's a

joke

that our friends

usually say.

That's funny.

Aiming for three kids or something.

But it's 12 actually.

It's 12.

Dang it.

12 or three.

But we are

three hours

in and

we're pretty

good.

Considering how

quick

questions

want to start doing

these podcasts.

That's a good question.

What made us want to do this podcast?

I'll take this question

and then

pray

out.

So the

answer to that question

is

that

Daniel and I

were talking

and

while

we were driving to Colorado

and back from Colorado

and we were

talking about the Bible

and

then

it led into whatever

randomness.

And I'm just like, you know what?

If we started a podcast, what

would it be about?

And Daniel's like, I don't know.

What would it be

about?

He does this with me too.

And I'm just like, it

would be literally us just having a

conversation.

Because what that

produced was

actually me writing

in my book also.

Because you were able to,

through our conversation, you were able to

actually put words to the

thoughts that you've always had in your
head.

Yeah.

Because Daniel was a good

backboard

for ideas.

But yeah, it was just

like, we have good

chemistry.

We have similar

ideas.

But we also come at things very

differently

and And we we can have

conversation and we can do.

it and have fun.

And yeah, and what kind of

convinced me is,

cause he'd been trying to convince

me to do a podcast for like

months before that.

I was like, nah, dude, that's

lame.

That's crazy.

I can't believe it.

I would never do it.

Like, I don't want to be that guy.

But when we were on that trip,

literally our chemistry

was so

unique that we could

talk to

anybody.

Yeah.

And I'm not even, I'm

not exaggerating there.

We were talking to the

bouncer at the

concert.

And she's like this

40 year old woman

who's probably just like

trying to get through the night.

And we became this

joy,

this bright

light in her night.

And she felt included

and happy.

And like she was laughing her oof

off.

Sorry for the language, but she

had a great

time because we

just, our chemistry

was so

like unique

and perfect in

that moment, especially with that

concert and just, oh, I'm

so good.

But we,

that entire trip, we're able

to make everybody that we

came in contact with

feel special.

And that to me

is special.

Cause

life

to me without

relationship and without

good relationship is

pointless.

And I hate it.

It's drudgery,

but somehow

when me and Michael get

together and bring other

people in,

it's good stuff.

And so it

wasn't necessarily the trip on

Colorado to Colorado that

convinced me.

There was a night

that we hung

out.

We started watching movies

together a few

nights.

And one of those nights movie ended

and we were like, we stayed up

till some God awful

out.

And he poised

the question of like, if we did

a podcast, what would it be named?

And I'm like,

he came up with a stupid

name.

No, that's stupid.

I'm like, you know what we should call it?

And I was in this like heavy metal

phase.

We should call it perfume decay.

Just like totally out of nowhere.

I'm like, we should call it perfume decay

because it sounds metal.

No thoughts.

And I came out with like

just from nowhere, just

came up with this

idea and I'm

like explained exactly

why should it

be called perfume decay?

And it's just like out of nowhere,

I'm like, because life is

like, it's so

complex and it's like

beautiful, but

it's horrible at the same

time.

And it's just like

that entire night, we

were almost like

acting for

each other as if we were on

the podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

That was epic.

So that was the night that I was like, oh

yeah, we should probably do a podcast.

That's great.

And then

we

got everything set up, we started

doing it.

And Daniel's like, hey, is it okay if

I bring my friend?

Oh yeah.

And then Steven got right

there.

Steven was just

there.

He was,

you were

just chilling.

He just was chilling.

And then we started asking you

to look things up for

us.

And then we're just like,

Steven's basically part of this podcast.

Hey Steven, do you want to be part of
podcast the

now?

So like you sitting over there in the
corner

by the door.

Yeah.

It's like, hey Steven, you want to just
sit

by me?

And well,

now he's stuck.

He's with us.

You're stuck here now.

Yeah.

And now - How does it feel?

You've been used, manipulated

per se.

Not any different than normal life.

Yeah,

that's a great

- a That's fair answer.

Valid response.

And he doesn't say

a lot, but when he speaks,

it's crazy.

Every time he says something,

it becomes like at least one or

two episodes.

It's life changing.

And then I think - He's over

there shaking his head.

I think Mikaela's going to

end up being a

regular.

For regular.

She's doing - I

live here.

So,

yeah.

Yeah, this side of

the table

are like,

we

talk the

entire time.

This side of the table like adds

in like

some crazy

flavoring.

Whenever they have

something to say.

We add the flavors.

Because honestly, we are pretty

bland.

I don't know about that.

We're like porridge

without sugar.

You guys cook and then

we add

to your cooking.

We make your cooking

better.

Thank you for the

question.

Yeah, thank you for the question.

I don't think we were

actually given that full

context before we happened.

So - Congratulations.

And now we never have an answer

to that question again.

Right.

That's not enough.

We're probably going to have to answer
that question.

We're going to have to.

We should make that.

Ooh, we can make it short.

Yeah, just make it short.

Ooh, that's what I do.

And then we'll

still have to answer it.

Yeah, absolutely.

But you can make it brief

now.

Very nice cooking indeed.

But thank you.

for listening.

Yeah.

Sometimes

I've listened

back to this.

I'm like,

how do

people do this?

I give up after an hour.

Honestly.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I could.

In my head it's like

I already know it's gonna be

what's happening.

But if I wait like two

weeks, then I'm like, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For that first episode,

we're calling episode zero.

Yeah, that was that was

honestly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was so good.

But

this

is perfume

decay.

Episode nine.

Marked wanderer.

Marked wanderer.

I don't did we really

talk about the

wonder the wandering

aspect very

much.

Gosh, dang it.

We did not.

Oh, come on.

But we did

talk about the marked

wanderer.

We did because we talked about can.

Yeah.

So mission accomplished.

Our conversation did

also wander.

So that's true.

Yeah.

And we marked it down on this board.

We did so it's official.

And we got through verses

10 through 16.

We did.

That's a good point.

12, 13, 14,

15, that's seven

verses.

Wow.

Yeah.

How many verses we got through last

time.

Two.

We've been through.

Yeah.

One.

Wow.

Good job.

We're making leaps and bounds.

Leaps and bounds.

Yeah.

We have this cool board.

And I mean,

we've got some

crazy episodes

coming up.

We do.

But this next episode is

probably gonna be one of the craziest

because we're the

entire thing is actually

not going to be

the typical format.

We're gonna be going over our

constitution

as a

podcast.

So official.

Which starts off with perfume

because we talk about what

we believe

as

Christians.

Statement of faith per se.

Our statement of faith.

And then it gets a little crazy.

Yeah.

It's not gonna be boring.

Yeah.

It's not.

When you think of constitution,

you're like, so official.

Yeah.

Must have written up with a feather.

Yeah.

No.

This is like,

we were, we were

crazy.

Yeah.

It's nuts.

So it's gonna be fun.

That'll be a good episode.

Episode 10.

Episode 10.

We're still

alive.

If for

future listeners and our current

listener, if you have any

questions,

comments,

you can

just

constructive

criticism, whatever you

can

use

YouTube.

We have social media now,

perfumed decay

on

Instagram

and Twitter.

We'll have discord.

We hope we'll have Reddit.

We'll have all the things.

We'll have all

the things.

Look, for

the

older

generation.

So,

you know,

let us know.

And yeah,

but no questions.

Yeah.

Comments.

We hope that this

was edifying.

We hope that it was entertaining.

Yeah.

We hope that it was somewhat

informative because we learned things.

And we hope that someone prays

us out.

And we will a back be in minute.

So

I

Stephen

Lekala.

I got you.

I got you.

Thanks.

I

can pray some.

Cool.

All right.

Lord, I thank you for

this opportunity that you've given to

us to

make

a podcast

for your

glory, for our

good.

And ultimately,

as is it, is

for your glory.

It is also not

just for us,

though we are being edified, but

it is for

those

who

are listening and

will listen.

We don't believe that

anything happens by coincidence.

And you prove

that to us.

It's all

with

everything that happens.

We're constantly

surprised

by your

will and

the good that comes

out of the dark,

the light that gets

shown

in the

places that we aren't looking.

That's still a small voice.

That's,

I've heard it said that

if, you know, it's not that

God's word isn't

speaking, it's that we're not

listening.

And that convicts

me deeply.

And I think it should convict

all of us that

being God's word

is God speaking.

And we should be doing this

constantly.

And that's what this podcast

kind of aims

to do is to be

in your word,

Lord,

and to

hear what it is

that you have to say while

also just

understanding that

we are to fall deeper in

love with the God of

creation

and

continue in awe

and wonder.

So, Lord, I pray that you make

this podcast

more for your

glory, better for your

glory,

make us better for

your glory.

And with future

episodes as we

improve, as we

move along, as we

possibly get more viewers,

as we post,

all the things that we end up

doing that it isn't for

us to gain

anything,

but it is for you and your

purposes for it.

I thank you for the conversations that we

had today, and I thank

you for the conversations that we will
have

in the future.

And I pray this all in your name.

Amen.

All right,

that's episode nine.

Peace out.

Later.

Love you guys.