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The Debrief Podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown. Author and lead pastor of Sandals Church, Matt Brown debriefs current issues shaping our culture from a spiritual perspective.
Welcome to the debrief podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown. On this show, pastor Matt sits down with his friends to answer your questions about life, Jesus, and the bible. Let's get into the episode.
Tammy Brown:Hey, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the debrief. Before we get in today's questions, I have two things for you. One is that so many of you have been writing in or catching Matt and I in the grocery store or in the lobby at church just saying how much you're enjoying this. And we're super excited that it's been so meaningful for you guys. So we love that.
Tammy Brown:And then the other thing is, just before we get into all these questions, want to catch up a little bit about us and what's going on with us Yeah. Which in this season is this very new role that we're doing for the first time in real time, which is grandparenting.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's awesome.
Tammy Brown:And our little guy is just about four months old right now. Tell me what you're learning about yourself as a grandpa.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I think it's my life is about legacy now. It's thinking beyond me because so clearly he's going to outlive me, which is my hope and my desire. That's fair.
Tammy Brown:I'm crying right now.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And yeah. But just thinking about, you know know, when you're younger, you're trying to pay rent, you're trying to make your marriage work, you're trying to establish your career. I feel like there's so much work involved in that, and there should be. I don't want anybody that's young to not try your best and try to establish a career. I think you should give it your best effort.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But in that, right, you're exhausted. You and I were learning about each other, your brokenness, my brokenness, our brokenness, trying to raise kids. We'd never done that before. We didn't know what we were doing. You lost your dad, right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And for those of dad died, I mean, you were 29 years old when he died. Right, So things were really, really hard. You're 26? Yeah. Sorry.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was 30, you're right. I was 29 when we got sick.
Tammy Brown:So you were 29.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There we go. So things were really, really difficult for us, and now, you know, the church is established, you know who you are, I know who I am. I told you the other day
Tammy Brown:I feel I'm mostly.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, I feel like we're in a really good season now. It's not that our marriage is perfect, but I feel like it's healthy. We're able to identify things more quickly, work through them, listen to each other. And now we're kind of mentoring our kids, you know, trying to help them navigate poor decisions, good decisions, wise decisions. Difficult decisions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And difficult decisions. And so I'm just thinking about West and his life, you know, and it's a beautiful thing, it's an amazing thing. I think the thing I heard you say before the show started is, I just appreciate how quickly things go, you know? So we're not doing the long nights, so we get to enjoy the days. Madison, our daughter's doing the long nights of not sleeping, you know, Logan's got to go back to work now.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So life is difficult, you know, raising young They're just tired. Yeah, they're tired. And you know, you and I have talked a lot about, to all of our single moms who are listening, my heart just goes out to you. I just don't know how you do it. And so I want you to know, we love you, we're praying for you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes. I can't imagine, I'm watching two adults, you know, Logan's thirty, Maddie's twenty eight, married, one kid struggling. So I can't imagine how a single parent, mom or dad, is doing it all. And
Tammy Brown:so Well, on that note, let's just tell everyone else, if you have someone in your life that's a single mom or a
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:single
Tammy Brown:dad, love them. Help them. Say, Madison told me one of the coolest things that someone did for her was that they they said, you have me from two to five. I can come over and clean the house, or hold the baby while you nap, or take a shower, or if you wanna go get your nails done on two from two to five on Monday, I'm yours. And she was just like, oh my gosh.
Tammy Brown:It was incredible. Like so to those of you, or to those of us that, like, you know someone, like, help them out. It's so much work. Right. Sometimes they just need a nap.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. That's a great idea. So So I love it.
Tammy Brown:What would you say to Wes today if you could? I just like, I I love I love you,
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I I would just tell him I love him and that God is with him, and as hard as life is, that's part of the adventure. So the difficulties is what makes life an adventure, know. The difference between a vacation and an adventure is adventures have ups and downs. And I think too oftentimes people settle for vacations. And I think really that's what people, when they fantasize about life, they want this never ending vacation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like I was golfing yesterday, and one of the guys, I think he's 65 years old, I said, I'm gonna have to get a new job in heaven. And he's like, wait, we work in heaven? And I was like, of course we work. There was work in the garden. It's just not
Tammy Brown:cursed Oh, you're just gonna have a whole new debrief. Yeah. I'm like, not
Tammy Brown:cursed I
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:thought I
Tammy Brown:was just floating on
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:clouds forever But people had this idea that heaven is vacation, and I was like, no meaning in that. There's meaning in toil. There's meaning in work. The difference is it's not cursed. It's not cursed.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so you and I were talking about this a couple weeks ago in small group. You know, when Eve was cursed because of the sin, child rearing, or childbearing was not painless before that. It says that its pain was multiplied and increased. So pain is a good thing. Like if you don't have pain, right, you don't know you're burned, you don't know something's broke, you don't know something's Yes,
Tammy Brown:it's not always bad. And oftentimes
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:we think of pain as always bad, but no, no, it's it's very very healthy. Yeah. So what's gonna be removed in the new heaven and the new earth is the curse. Jesus takes the curse away, and you know, we're gonna live with purpose. But But get that whole idea of vacation forever out of your mind.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's a useless life. And sloth, for those of you who know, in Enneagram, it's so important. Sloth is a sin. Doing nothing, being lazy, accomplishing nothing. And oftentimes as Christians, I think in our culture we've made sloth an idol, and it's actually a sin.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's one of the reasons I love the Enneagram, because it calls that out. Lazy people, like one of the most harsh judgments Jesus gives is to the lazy servant. And so let your life matter. I'm not saying you should never vacation, you should never rest. Rest is a command.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I would tell West, life's an adventure. Enjoy the ups and the downs. There's a time to vacation, right? Sabbath is a real thing. That's important.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But don't Sabbath all the time. Six days you shall work, one day you shall Sabbath. And I think a lot of us would need to vacation less if we Sabbath more often. So that's good. Yeah.
Tammy Brown:All right. Well, we're gonna jump into these questions, and honestly, I don't even know how I want to answer or contribute to any of them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I did do a lot of
Tammy Brown:research this week. Thank you
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:for the questions. Yeah.
Tammy Brown:Good luck to you. This first one comes from our dear friend, Annie Moss.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. We love her.
Tammy Brown:And it says this, is it okay for Christians to try is it Reiki?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Reiki.
Tammy Brown:Reiki.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I had to look that up. Did not.
Tammy Brown:Well, I did too. Yeah. But I just didn't know how to pronounce it. Is it okay for Christians to try Reiki? I haven't tried it yet, but I heard it's supposed to relieve stress, trauma, and emotional wounds.
Tammy Brown:Do you wanna start out with the definition of what it is? It is
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So I'm not an expert on Eastern religions, and so feel free to pick this apart. I've never done Reiki massage. I actually had to look this up. So as best as I can tell, Reiki is an Eastern practice, may come from Japan, may come from something else, but the idea behind it is manipulating the energies that flow in and out of your body.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So acupuncture is similar, in that there's a very precise map that Eastern religions have mapped out, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, right? You go and you get acupuncture, and when we poke these areas on your body, it seems to relieve things here. So here's the difference between Reiki and acupuncture. Acupuncture, there is scientific research that indicates that it works. That's why you and I at Kaiser Permanente, they will pay for us to go and experience acupuncture.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There, no such evidence exists, as far as I could tell, for Reiki massage. Here's why I would caution against it. And let me say this, every single person is a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, you can go to the Lord for this and seek his counsel. Here's my counsel. My counsel is I couldn't find anyone to definitively tell me what the higher power is that they're calling upon to help manipulate the energy in you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That is a huge red flag for me, because we need to think about, the Apostle Paul says we now see things as in a dimly lit mirror, right? So we're staring at eternity, we're looking into the spiritual world through a fog. We don't see things accurately. We don't know what we're dealing with, and we've got to be very, very careful as we enter into a world that we don't understand. There's a great section of text in Deuteronomy 18 ten-twelve, and it talks about as you enter the land, the promised land.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So it was inhabited by Canaanites, and they were very, very despicable the way that they practice religion. One of the things they did is they sacrificed their children by burning them alive. It's just one of the things they did. God says don't do that, but then he goes into a list of things that as Jews, they're to abstain from. Witchcraft, sorcery, divination, seeking spirits, all of these things.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And here's the thing, I believe almost all of that is demonic, and they're smarter than you, they've been around longer than you, and they can manipulate you. They know things about your family, they know things about your friends. We don't know what they know, and here's the danger, when we start going into that, instead of going to the word of God and seeking the Holy Spirit and the truth of Christ, we start ending up with cards, tarot cards, we end up with spiritual divination, not sorcerers, but you know, what are the people that can see the future? My mind is blanking. Soothsayers.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now, soothsayers, but there's another word for it.
Tammy Brown:Psychic?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Psychics, there we go, thank you. Psychics, all of that stuff. I think the Bible speaks against it, because it is real. It's real stuff. And just because it's real stuff, and I'm not saying there aren't fakers out there.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, whenever we get a call to go pray over a house where there's demons or moving chairs or ghosts, I'm always like, if I'm around, like, man, I wanna go see that. Here's what I would say. Most of that stuff's fake. It's just not. It's just not real.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Every now and then, you catch a real fish. Every now and then. And that's because the devil doesn't want to be caught. His his gift is camouflage. He wants to remain unseen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So that stuff is really real. Okay. So maybe it's manipulation, tarot cards. Maybe it's, you know, manipulating your feelings, maybe they know, you know, they can ask leading questions. I'm not saying they don't do that, but sometimes it's a real soothsayer, that was a great word, it's a real psychic, and those gifts are not from the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So what gifts, where does that gifting come from? And I would say another spirit. So let's back up to a couple episodes ago, where I said we can use the word energy and spirits in the same way. So we use energies to talk to non Christians, and in the Christian world we use the word spirits, right? I think it's the same thing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so what I don't like about Reiki is it's an unidentified spirit that may help some people. And what I would say is, I don't want to be healed by the devil, I'd rather be sick for That's just me. I don't want that. I don't want somebody laying hands on me, praying something over me that they may not know what it is, they may not know. That's for me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now, there could be somebody that's a Christian, and maybe they have a way that they do it where they're praying the Holy Spirit over you, but then I would just say, don't call it Reiki. You know, you and I used to do yoga, and some studios, right, we were fine. And then there were other studios
Tammy Brown:where So met it was like a workout.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, like where it was a workout, was And then there were other ones where I was like, okay, that got religious, and I did not like that.
Tammy Brown:Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't want some, know, Hindu prayer prayed over me at the end of stretching and sweating. That's not what I want, and I would tell you, I like, I'm not going back there again. I didn't like that. So you gotta be very, very careful. I think stretching, meditating, breathing, learning to be present, those are good You don't need an unidentified spirit to help you with that.
Tammy Brown:Well, yeah, everything I read up on it was like, it's transferring one person's energy to another person to block it. Like, they're you're not actually even touching them. Yeah. And I was just think that's what kept going through my mind is like, but what what energy would they be giving me? Like Yeah.
Tammy Brown:Do are they are they a good person? Do I want their energy? There's a lot of people I wouldn't want
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:it. My favorite comedian, Brian Regan, we haven't seen him in a while, but he has this great schtick on it. So he went and he got Reiki massage, and he's like, they never touched me. And so he said, when it came time to be paid, he said, I just put my hand on my wallet, and I sent you an energy payment. So he was like, he's making fun of it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So, I mean, there are some people that may find benefits to it. And I'm not saying that human beings, because healing is a real spiritual gift. Yes. I've told you many times, I feel like you have the gift. People are created in the image of God, and I'm not saying that people don't have the gift of healing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God has created human beings, I think, with immense potential beyond what we know and understand. I would rather go to a Christian healer and be prayed over, and work through those things, and understand where my blocks are. Because I think energy is a real easy way to say, I'm not responsible for the pain I'm experiencing. What I would rather say is, okay, what sin are you holding on to? What fear haven't you worked through?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What wound have you not healed from? And then let's deal with those things so that you can be free and experience healing. So in my book, Everyday a Miracle, chapters 10 through 12, specifically deal with healing things that won't go away. And I would encourage everybody, I'm not trying to sell books, but get those books, read chapters ten, eleven, and 12. Talk about deep healing and the role of the spiritual world, and there's just so many things.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What I talk about in the book is if medicine and spirituality could come together, and what I mean by that is Christian spirituality. I was reading this morning when you were gone that Sir Isaac Newton, who's one of the most famous scientists in the history of the world, and a lot of people don't know he wrote more about theology than he did science. Oh, I didn't know He's a Christian. Yeah. And it's a crime that young people that are going to school to learn science, and what he thought was there were two pathways to understanding God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:One was the word of God, and the other was science and math. So one is investigating his revealed truth, and the other is investigating his creation through scientific method. And so it's just interesting to me. So I think that what we should do is we should pursue healing through the church, pursue healing through Christian healers, through prayer, through Christian counseling. I would advise those things before doing that, and then just go get a real massage,
Tammy Brown:like Well, that's what I was gonna say is, you know, I went to physical therapy last year with a Christian doctor. And he had me as part of like, I would go in and learn different exercises. I was having huge issue with my shoulder Right. Without his rotator cuff. We were doing all the things.
Tammy Brown:And on my fourth or fifth session, he said, are you ready for today's session? And he actually gave me a meditation to walk through.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And
Tammy Brown:it took about thirty minutes. I didn't like fifteen because I'm not a good student. But you had to sort of go through each part of your body and your mind, how you're feeling about it, pray like a release through it. And so for this, I'm like, what? I don't know why maybe someone wouldn't do something like that because there there is science to say that people get better through prayer, then it it's like a medical thing that I'm telling this so not medically.
Tammy Brown:I'm so sorry everybody, not a doctor. But it was pretty it was pretty healing for me. And I did find that as soon as because what happens is your body feels a real pain that your brain thinks is there because of stress and all those. So I think the blockages can be real, and the pain that you can be feeling in your body is real. They're saying energy, I guess, in this kind of a deal.
Tammy Brown:But I don't know that I want someone else's energy to heal that for me. I want the Lord to heal that for me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Amen.
Tammy Brown:And so And
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I just don't think
Tammy Brown:It's an interest it's interesting ground.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I think that I heard it's supposed to relieve stress, trauma, and emotional wounds. There may be some benefit there. I would just encourage you to pursue a Christian healer. That's what I would say.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because again, we know the power that evil spirits have, we just don't. You know, the Bible is not an exhaustive resource on all the gifts and skills of the spiritual world. I mean, the Apostle Paul, like, just kind of throws out in Ephesians six, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against power and principalities of the heavenly realms, of the unseen world. And then he kind of moves on from there and then says, put on spiritual armor, you know, but he doesn't really define clearly, you know, those things are. So we need to be aware of it, but we just, it's the fog, so we got to be really careful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So my advice, you asked me for my advice. My advice as your pastor, I say no, I wouldn't do it. And I don't mean to put anybody down who's done it. Yeah. You know, I just answer these questions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:This is not Sir, can you keep this one This is not a witch hunt. No pun intended. This is just a question that was asked, and I'm giving an honest answer as your pastor.
Tammy Brown:So That's good. That's good. It is it is kinda unchartered territory for what that is, and it was actually hard to find a lot online about it. Yeah. And it was just it's interesting.
Tammy Brown:So okay. Next question comes from Mark in Granteris. Are angel numbers biblical? He says, I only know that in Revelation thirteen eighteen, it mentions that mark the mark of the beast, which is six six six. But also, there is a footnote on the bottom of the page that says, some manuscripts read six one six.
Tammy Brown:I would like to know what you think and if I should believe in their meanings or not. Thank you, and I love this podcast.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Oh, man. Thank you so much, Mark. Great question. So the first question, are angel numbers biblical? No.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That is kind of a made up science to look for clues in scripture. So if you're saying, what is an angel number? It's 111222333444555666, right? So it's the repetitive number three times in a row. And so that's the idea for it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so what happens is, is people are looking for hidden mysteries within the text. And so one of the things that you need to understand that makes Christianity so different in the first century is religions kept their worship and their beliefs secret. So we have some people at our church, they come from a religion that's called Druze. These are great people in our church, I love them so much. You hear a lot about this religion because they're kind of sandwiched in between Syria and Israel.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so Druze are people that live on the hills of Syria and Israel. Some are inside Israel with the annexation of the West Bank, not the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and some are still in Syria, And you know, so they're in the news because some say we want to join Israel. You know, I'm not making a statement pro or against that, but in that religion, they intentionally do not teach their children what they believe. Now that sounds crazy to us. Why wouldn't you teach your kids what you believe?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The Druze religion's an old religion, and that's how many of the ancient world religions are. Christianity's very different. The Gospel of John says, These things have been written to you so that you may know the Son of God and believe in Him and have eternal life. Christianity is the exact opposite. Christianity is the revealing of God's mystery.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It is the revealing of God's word. It is the revealing of God's truth. And so there's no secrets in it. Now we're to get to Revelation in a second. It's not written in code.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So to run around in the Bible and say, okay, I'm going to look for all these numbers, and I'm going to find this hidden code, I think is very dangerous and very unwise. The Bible is written so that you may know. Not so that you may find, okay? It's not a hunting trip. It's not hide and seek, it's God revealing his truth to you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now let's go to the book of Revelation, and I'm going to contradict what I just said. The book of Revelation is intentionally written in code, right? I just said the Bible's not written in code. The book of Revelation is written in code. Here's my best assessment of the book of Revelation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The church is experiencing enormous persecution. They're being hunted down. They're being killed. They're being fed to lions in the arena in Rome, in the great amphitheater. What's it called?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Nobody knows.
Tammy Brown:The Colosseum. The Colosseum?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Jeez, everyone. I thought
Tammy Brown:it was too easy. Like, it's gotta be something different.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:No, so they're being lit as torches in the Colosseum. They're dying. And this psychotic emperor, his name is Nero, is so bad, I mean, so bad, not only does he kill Christians, eventually Rome turns on him. And he flees, but Rome's coming after him, and we don't know for sure, but we think he died by suicide by slitting his own throat. Okay, why does that matter?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because the church is experiencing great persecution, and so when you read Revelation, right, it speaks against Babylon, the city on seven hills. Well, Rome is a city on seven hills. Babylon is code for Rome. So John doesn't want to come out and say, we're against Rome, and Rome is this great, you know, whore, excuse my language, who's pursuing us and trying to kill us, because he's writing in code because Christians are already being hunted. Some theologians, Mark, think that six sixty six is grammatia, which is using numbers in code to reveal something that only you would know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So if you use Hebrew I'm saying that word wrong, Hebrew gematria, which is using numbers as letters, it's using numbers to interpret letters. And so Hebrew's a unique language because in English we have the alphabet and then we have numbers, right? They're different. In Hebrew, you just have an alphabet and the alphabet spells the numbers. So it works really well.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But in Hebrew gramatria, the number six sixty six is the word. That's what it means. So here's where it gets even deeper. So why six sixteen? Different manuscripts.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If you use numerology in Hebrew, you get six sixty six, in Latin, I think it's and you get six sixteen. Wow. So in some of the earliest manuscripts, it does not read six sixty six, but reads six sixteen. Now, is that true? I don't know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, I can't go back and ask John, in heaven I can ask him. Obviously there are a thousand opinions on this, people, you know, Revelation is the most challenging book to understand, people have all kinds of opinions on this. Some people, you know, believe that six sixty six is the correct translation, some people believe that six sixteen is, some people believe that it's a scribal error, so when the copyist is writing down, he just makes the mistake, instead of writing six sixty six, he writes six sixteen. The truth is, you know, we don't know. I think there's a good case that it is talking about Nero, and then when you look at the mark of the beast, his head is wounded.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There was a myth circulating amongst Christians that Nero faked his death, that Nero didn't die, or that when he was, you know, the wound of the head, when he cut his throat, that he somehow was going to come back again and persecute them. We don't know, but that's one of the understandings. So when you read Revelation, here's the danger that we get in. Modern day Christians read the book of Revelation and think it's all about now, right? What's happening in China?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What's happening with Syria? What's happening in Damascus? And they read it like it's the New York Times. That's just not the way to read Revelation. It was written for a church running for their lives, okay?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It wasn't the New York Times, it was the Roman Times. Every single thing that you read in Revelation had a meaning for them, to those people in that situation. It was written to comfort them. They were experiencing tribulation. They were experiencing extinction.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:People had lost their heads for their faith. That's why there's a specific verse in there. What about these people who have sacrificed their lives for the faith? What's gonna happen to them? They're gonna receive a special honor.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:These aren't made up people to them. They're their friends, their family that died for their faith. And so we do a great disservice by making Revelation all about us, and we don't read it and making it all about them. And when you open the book of Revelation, the first six chapters are letters to churches, challenging them. Those churches no longer exist, warning them, hey guys, you've lost your first love.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You've wandered away. You know, these things are happening. And then the book of Revelation, right, ends with a new heaven and a new earth. All things will be made right. Listen to this, all tears will be wiped away.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:A new Jerusalem will descend, a greater city than Rome. That was very comforting to a first century Christian who saw loved ones carted off, sold into slavery, husbands fed to lions, wives burned as torches. I mean, we just can't, we can't fathom that. So the first century church would have thought they were living in the great tribulation. They would have thought that, not that it is to come.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so we have to be very, very careful when we read that, that we don't make it all about us in our day. Now, do I believe that it is prophetic? Do I believe that it has something to say for our day? Is it painting a broad picture of the end times? Of course.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And that's what makes revelation so difficult. It meant something for them and for us. And that's why there's so much disagreement on what it means. And a healthy pastor and an honest pastor will present his or her view, but they will not present it as the view. And you gotta be very, very careful when somebody comes at you with the book of Revelation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:This is how controversial Revelation was. When Martin Luther pulled away from the Catholic church, there were two books of the Bible that he didn't want in our Bible. You wanna know what they were? Revelation. And James.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:James, because salvation by works passage. He was afraid that the church would misunderstand that, and he was so, so saved by grace, and grace alone. When you read James, James is like, You have faith? Great. I'll show you my faith by my works.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, James says, We are not saved by faith alone. Are saved by faith and works, right? And so that's a whole another podcast to unpack that. But he wanted those two out. Thank God he didn't win.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We kept the same 27 books that the Catholic church had. We did remove the pseudo epigraphical books, the seven books that they have in the Catholic Bible that I think we talked about in the last episode, But what I would say is angel numbers are not a good thing to get into. It's just something that I would just say, look.
Tammy Brown:There's just so much other
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:things Yeah, there's just so much real truth in the Bible that you need to know, I just wouldn't get into the numbers thing. But there are instances like six sixty six or six sixteen, where it is communicating something. And I mean, some pastors and theologians, I'm trying to think about, my mind is blanking on, Grudem. Wayne Grudem is probably the most popular systematic theologian in America today. Wayne Grudem believes that six sixty six is not a title, but an admonition of the fall of humanity.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So the perfect number would be seven seven seven. So six six six is man's attempt to achieve God's perfection, and we've fallen short. And so for him, it symbolizes the fall of man, and not necessarily a person or a beast. The beast is a figurative thing, maybe pointing to how human beings have fallen in it. John MacArthur, another conservative, and I'm just mentioning people that I could think of off the top of my head, says that six sixty six represents the unholy trinity in Revelation, which would be Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So which go against God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. And so he sees it as Satan's attempt to rival God's throne. Could-
Tammy Brown:Dude, I'm learning so
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:much to They could both be right, they could both be wrong. And what I'm saying about this is these are two people that I respect, and at the end of the day, I don't know. Here's what I know, how does revelation end? Jesus is coming, the spirit and the church say, Lord Jesus, come. Like, so that's the ending.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The climax of scripture is the king is returning, And when he comes, he brings a new city with him. He brings a new earth with him. He brings a new heaven. All things are restored, and the connection that is broken between heaven and earth is restored. So think about that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's like it's restored, and it's going to be a beautiful thing. So Mark, great question. Great can talk about trials. Yeah.
Tammy Brown:And I learned so much myself. Yeah. So that was fantastic. Thank you. That's not the kind of thing that's just like coming up over dinner together.
Tammy Brown:No. Yeah. This is really great for me to
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:see
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:prep
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:for
Tammy Brown:We
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:have been having some good conversations with our son. Our son is a Christian studies major. Mhmm. And so it's been fun to be able to have some of these conversations, you know, with him. So we had one about the ending of Mark the other night.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That was fun.
Tammy Brown:That's right. Yeah. And I like to say stuff and too from my son and my husband.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Tim's like, how do you know that? I'm like, this is my job. So I've been doing this for almost thirty years.
Tammy Brown:Alright. Lord. Okay. This last question for today comes from Kristen in Rancho Cucamonga, California. She says this, as a Hispanic who is Christian, I've seen my grandparents use sage to cleanse their houses.
Tammy Brown:What effects could that have on them spiritually? Is there any truth to the relationship between sage and spiritual cleansing? Should sage be avoided by people who follow Jesus entirely?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So Kristen, thank you so much for this question. I know.
Tammy Brown:That's a really good question.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so, you know, for all my white people listening, I love what she says as a Hispanic who is a Christian. So we all come from cultures. I was just talking with our preaching team to talk about how every culture influences preaching, every culture influences interpretation. And we all have to understand that the way we're raised, the ethnic background that we come from clouds, and that includes me, whitey tighty, our interpretation of scripture. And we have to be so, so careful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We were talking about N. T. Wright and his take on Revelation, and it's so different. And what I said to the team was, it always amazes me. You know, I think oftentimes I think of The UK and America as very much the same.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So we're all, well, we're not all white, but mostly white, you know, cultures, but very, very different, and that affects his interpretation of scripture. And I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm just saying the way that he approaches scripture is very different from the way that American theologians approach scripture. And so, and that's, you know, one white guy criticizing, and I'm not criticizing in a negative way, but comparing, that's one white, and I'm not a theologian, but one white pastor criticizing and comparing another one. So all of our cultures affect this, Black culture, Asian culture. You know, I was just talking to a young Asian pastor who said that an older Asian pastor, Korean pastor got in trouble for slapping a younger Asian pastor.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was like, that's not in the Bible. But he said, but that is their culture. I was like, woah, I didn't know that. So
Tammy Brown:It still feels wrong.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, no, it feels wrong. But we come at it from an American culture, you know, where every individual has worth, we don't come from a hierarchical culture where you value seniors so much above yourself that that would be appropriate, you know? But in American context it's different. So anyways, so as a Hispanic Christian, so I've seen my grandparents use sage to cleanse their houses. And so what I would want to press into, Kristen, is does your Hispanic family have indigenous roots?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So what do I mean by that? Indigenous is a word we use to define American Indians, Polynesians. So like if you're Polynesian from an island. So oftentimes indigenous peoples engage in witchcraft. So it's a part of the way that they engage.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so as a white Westerner, right? And so this was true for me and you, fifteen hundred years ago when Christianity came to Ireland, so Tammy and I's relatives were in Ireland, right? We're worshiping our ancestors, we're practicing witchcraft, we live in mud huts. So think about when we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, what did St.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Patrick eradicate from Ireland? Do you guys know? Snakes? Snakes. Snakes.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There are no snakes in Ireland. What he eradicated was witchcraft and indigenous worship. So he brought the gospel to Ireland and he got them out of child sacrifice and all the bizarre things that indigenous peoples do, right? So Romans talks about that God has, excuse me, the book of Acts talks about when Paul's preaching in Athens, that God has allowed human beings to worship as they saw fit for a period of time, but he's bringing everyone under Christ now. So St.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Patrick eliminates indigenous worship from people. You remember when you and I were in Peru Years ago, and we were in that Catholic church, and I don't know if you remember this, but we were in Peru, we were outside of Lima, and this guy's just going off on Christianity and all the terrible things that they had done. And you know me, I'd had enough. And I'm like, yeah, let's get back to the days where we sacrificed 100,000 virgins on Friday. The good old days.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because I lost my mind. Now, did Roman Catholics do bad things? Yes. Did they sacrifice a hundred thousand virgins cutting their hearts open, pulling their heart out on an altar? No, they did not do that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And that was, you know, Inca worship. So
Tammy Brown:I always love when we're out somewhere and you'd like get like that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, I lost my mind. So I was not a good guest, but I just was like, this is ridiculous. So, you know, indigenous worship has some things that as Christians, we just don't think about. So witchcraft is a normal part of worship around the world. Even when in Deuteronomy, I said, I think it says Deuteronomy 18 ten-twelve, even in that verse, it says, do not practice witchcraft.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So what was happening in the promised land? Witchcraft. It was happening, and God says, don't do that. But that is a part of cultures that have not been exposed to the gospel. So here's what happens in Hispanic cultures.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Catholicism comes in, it's forced. People are not converted. They're just like, Hey, I don't know if you guys know, we're all Catholic. And if you're not Catholic, you know, you're in trouble. So they never convert, and so they keep their indigenous practices.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so oftentimes in Mexico, in places in South And Central America, they've never really completely converted to Catholicism, they kind of married their old practices with their new practices. And so we see this in Latino Catholic cultures. And it's not that the priest would never say do this, but the people practice this because they never Like what God is saying in Deuteronomy eighteen twelve, he said, you don't do this. There needs to be a severing of what you were in order to become what I've called you to be. And that's true for every Christian everywhere.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Jesus doesn't want to be a part of your life, he wants to be the Lord of your life. So I would say sage is a practice of indigenous worship, ridding spirits, cleansing houses. It's witchcraft, it's necromancy. It comes from that. It's not a biblical thing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You don't need sage to clean a house. You need Jesus, right? You need Jesus. When I go over to a house, if they think there's a demon or there's something unhealthy or a ghost or whatever, I pray the name of Jesus. I pray the blood of Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He is Lord of all. He is King of Kings. Every knee will bow, every little tongue will confess. And the demonic realm has to answer to Jesus. And so that's why I do that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I would not engage in that. You know, and I don't use a cross. I I don't use a cross, you like you see in the movies. I I don't do that. So go ahead.
Tammy Brown:I was gonna say, can you talk to like, take this a little bit differently. So out of just like that culture, but Sage is being sold in like darling little boutiques everywhere I mean, I know so many young adults just see it or and they see people on TikTok like, oh, I'm I need to burn some sage to get rid of this batter energy. Like, it's become so pop culture. So you described a lot of like some history of it or where it's rooted from, but now to just maybe young adults that are like, oh, I thought it was just like it gets rid of bad energy. Right?
Tammy Brown:We've talked a lot
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:about energy. Energy spirit. It's it's the same term. Spirit is the biblical word. Energy is the new age word.
Tammy Brown:It's just that new age thing is so enmeshed in our culture right now that it's just seen like
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right.
Tammy Brown:Like just a part of like, I'm getting groceries, I'm getting sage at the store, and a new shirt.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Know? Let me tell you what a demon is not afraid of. Shrubbery burning. Like, they're just, it's just not. Like, you know what I'm saying?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Oh my gosh, we're burning wheat. They don't care. Like, they think that's a joke. And they may appease you to manipulate you, and understand that. Devil, here's how Jesus defines the devil.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's a liar. Every word he says is a liar. It's because it's who he is. It's true with who he is, and so demons might respond to that to just suck you in because there's only one thing that can kick them out. It's the name of Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's the blood of Jesus. It's the truth of Jesus. When Jesus encounters demons, they ask him, is this the time where we get our butts kicked? That's what they ask. Is this the moment?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like, is this where we get slaughtered?
Tammy Brown:They didn't say actual that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:No, don't say butts kicked. So they say, is this the day of judgment? So, and when you think about Legion on the Sea of Galilee, they use the language, please cast us out into the pigs. They understand that he has total authority to drive them out. They make a request, send us into the pigs.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And he's like, sure. And then the pigs go crazy and jump off the cliff and drown.
Tammy Brown:So if we were going into someone's house, which people have invited us to do before, like I got a new house, can you go come over and pray in it?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes.
Tammy Brown:You and I have lived in a house once that we would say
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes.
Tammy Brown:When we moved into it, it felt like there like there was a darkness in the house. Yeah. Like there was a demonic Yeah. Spirit in the house and we prayed over it. But we would say we pray the name of Jesus over it.
Tammy Brown:So what would you say to that? Like, if someone was like, hey, I I feel this thing in the house. Mhmm. Like, how how do they engage that?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So what I what we do is we we we pray in the name of Jesus. We ask him to kick out whatever is there, and then we anoint the house with oil. And so the symbol of that is, right, like if I have a glass, so in the Old Testament, right, so I'm holding up a coffee cup, for those of who are listening, You think about the utensils in the temple. It's just a cup until it's anointed with oil.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And then when it's anointed with oil, it is something that belongs in the temple, and it is holy to the Lord. Same thing happens when there's a king. David's just a shepherd boy until he's anointed. And he's anointed by Samuel, and in that moment, he's the king of Israel. And so it symbolizes the transfer of power from God to whatever you're asking him to bless.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so the reason I use oil is there is clear biblical verses where oil is used to anoint things. So on Easter Sunday, a young lady, and please don't bombard me with this, I can't do this for everybody, but a young lady said, I got a new car, would you bless it? Sure. We walked out, and I prayed over her car, and I prayed that nothing would happen in this car with her or anybody else that was sinful or harmful.
Tammy Brown:Okay. But could she have done that without you?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Sure.
Tammy Brown:Don't be, So to any person, like when you're saying don't bombard me with that, that'd be a lot of cars. Yes. But like, if that's something that any of us wish to happen, then we could do it ourselves.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, I would say invite your small group over. So you need to involve community. You know, we worship a tri unity God. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He's never been alone.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so we can't worship a communal God in isolation, so we invite community in, invite your family over, pray over the house, you know, send things out. You know, I don't want porn in this house. I don't want things that, you know, are ungodly in this house. And you just say that, and you ask the Lord to bless this house. There's a famous verse in Joshua, and it says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so that's a great verse to utilize for the blessing of the house. I think that that's so important. And so the anointing of oil, just remember, the power's not in the oil, the power is in Jesus. And so we are asking him to do a work. So great question.
Tammy Brown:That's so good. Well, that's all our questions for today.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Great questions. As
Tammy Brown:always, if this episode and these questions were meaningful for you, or maybe they brought someone to mind to you that were like, you know who's asked me this question or who struggle with that? Send this to them so that maybe this can help them on their own journey towards what it looks like to follow Jesus and answer some of the questions they have. And if this episode was sent to you, you need to know that someone loves you and cares about you, and that's just a special thing. So if you have questions similar to these or any question that you have, we'd love to give Matt the hard questions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Today was not easy.
Tammy Brown:I just hear like, that's very interesting. But if you have questions, please send those in to sandals church dot com slash the debrief. Again, like this, share subscribe to it so you don't miss one of these episodes, but we are so grateful for you, and we'll see you next time.
Scott Schutte:Thanks for checking out this episode. If you'd like to support this podcast, you can donate at sandalschurch.com/support. This podcast is a way for pastor Matt Brown to answer your questions about topics like the Bible, God, relationships, and culture. Like pastor Matt often says on the show, a podcast is not a pastor. If you'd like prayer or need to speak with someone about a specific situation you were going through, you can email us at help@sandalschurch.com.
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