Music.
I'm Pastor Luke. I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut podcast where we have uncut, honest conversations about faith,
life, ministry.
And today, we are finally having our first ever mailbag episode.
Mailbag episode, yep.
So we've got a list of questions. We're going to just kind of take them as they kind of sit and see where that kind of takes
We'll see if we get through all of them or probably not. Yeah, probably not
we'll see if maybe they take us down an interesting Avenue or not, but,
Cameron do you feel like There's one there that you saw that you wanted to start with or do you just want to start that top one?
I mean, I guess we can just there's you know without trying to make one question more important than the other we can just kind
Of start at the top and all right take the go through the list So so the first one is about your sabbatical. So yeah, it says Cameron
Can you reflect on your sabbatical? Did you have?
Have any encounters with God.
You know, a little background first, maybe if you weren't aware or don't cut a conduit or
have just been listening or whatever. I took my first, I'll call it my first real sabbatical.
In 18 years of full-time ministry this past summer. So about 12 to 14 weeks,
weeks, something like that. I was off for most of the summer, most of July, August,
September and like the first week or two of October.
About three months.
Yeah. And the purpose of the sabbatical was to get a little bit of space away from the.
Daily tasks of ministry, I guess what you could call the grind of ministry. A lot of people don't
always... They romanticize it. They romanticize ministry and work in churches as being just 100%
percent, spirit-filled, full of miracles every day, like the most incredible job that you
could ever possibly have.
And I'm not saying it's not a great job. I mean, I like the job, but it's not that.
I love my job, but it's also just a lot of hard work.
When you've been pastoring long enough, if you're not incredibly self-aware
and incredibly intentional right from the get-go, you end up carrying a lot emotionally with you.
Things that you don't always deal with right away or that you don't process through.
You have a lot of very difficult experiences.
I've been with people on the worst days of their lives. Yeah.
Also been with people on the best days of their lives. I've been at gravesides and I've been at the front of the sanctuary for a wedding.
And all of the experiences in between.
And then you have... You're still your own person and you have your own family things that you go through
and insecurities and fears and anxieties and all of that.
So sabbatical is an opportunity and it really is a gift, honestly.
It's a gift that my church was able to and willing to give to me.
They've become more common in people helping professions in recent years, haven't they?
Sabbaticals, like I think they used to be kind of primarily just a unique thing to the past,
but the world and outside of this, like people are becoming to recognize.
That seasons of longer breaks than a long weekend
are occasionally needed for like.
Recalibration. Yeah.
Yeah, to give some space to refresh and renew and recalibrate and all the RE words,
then the only other place that I see them,
maybe semi-regularly is in the academic world where maybe a professor is given a sabbatical
for a semester, but that's almost always a working sabbatical.
They're given a sabbatical from their teaching load so that they can go and write a book
or whatever the case may be.
I did not write any books on my sabbatical. What I did was I just got out of the,
I got out of the every day, every week rhythm of Just Link.
Churning out sermons and counseling people and leading staff and just the everyday,
the everyday of work and pastoral ministry. And I got the opportunity to spend some extended time
with my family, especially over the summer months when my kids are off school, five kids at home.
My wife, we have a little farm that we manage and run. And as a family, we were able to do some
things that we don't normally get the opportunity to do, both financially and time and stuff like
that. We took an extended family vacation where we were gone for a week and a half, 10 days,
almost two weeks, where we drove to Hershey, Pennsylvania and spent a day at Hershey Park.
And then we got a hotel and kids did the pool thing and then traveled to Washington, DC
and we walked around the concrete jungle on the hottest day of the summer with five kids.
It was so much fun. Uh... Uh...
And then stayed there the night again and then we went down to Myrtle Beach,
and spent, you know, almost a week on the beach, which was really life-giving.
Got an opportunity to do a counseling intensive with my counselor down in the Louisville, Kentucky area.
Which was really helpful and I think long-term beneficial to me, encouraging, but also just helping me to process,
through some of the things that I've carried with me, not just in ministry, but throughout my whole life.
You know, you go into, as part of our like policy here at Conduit, we do have a sabbatical
policy as part of our employee handbook. And so as part of that policy.
I'm required to submit a sabbatical proposal, which gives here are the stated purposes or
the hopes for the sabbatical.
So I did that and a lot of it was around feeling renewed and restored and refreshed and revived
and recalibrated and all of that.
And I'm not gonna say that none of those things happened or those things didn't happen
because there was a lot of that in that time away.
But I think as it happens with most of life, you go into something with an expectation,
you go into marriage with an expectation, you go into parenting with an expectation,
you go into a new job field with an expectation.
I know how it's gonna be. or at least I hope this is how it's gonna be.
And then you get into it and you realize that for whatever set of circumstances,
reality is not what the anticipation or expectation was.
And that was somewhat true of me for sabbatical. I felt like it was going to be just completely restorative.
And what I experienced was that God was eager, I think, to get me in a space where I slowed
down a little bit on the day-to-day so that I was more keenly aware of the things that
he was trying to reveal in my life that I was unwilling because of my pace to sit with
long enough to become.
Primary realities for me. Yeah. So all of those words like refreshing, renewing, restoring,
recalibrating all the RE words, you know, really kind of sat to the side of a different RE word,
which is revealing, like God, God, God needed to reveal some things to me, primarily around,
you know, the relationship with my kids and my own upbringing and my own relationship with my parents.
And my expectations of myself around my family and our kids' lives and their own histories.
I think some people here, maybe many people know that we have five kids. They're all adopted and
four of them are adopted out of the foster care system. And so there are some complexities to
life and parenting for the line hearts that are, you know, maybe not everyone will have
experienced before, but that were really important for me to see and to work with.
So I think sometimes the assumption is that a pastor is going to come out of sabbatical
with some having come to some really significant conclusions. And I feel like sabbatical led me
to a place of introducing me to,
a new family rhythm or a new family perspective. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, if I can share just my reflections of- Right, because you certainly had a big role
in the sabbatical as well. Yeah. You made it possible for me to do this, so.
Yeah, I mean, it was a, that was, you know, that's a whole other like stepping into it as like a,
stepping in for my first time as acting as like a senior pastor without any safety rails, as it were.
You know, I wasn't calling you up and saying, like, hey, Cam, what do you think about this?
Right. You know, which like I love doing now. I just walk over to your office and ask you a question if I'm like, you know, a little unsure about a decision or something.
But there was an interesting, it's just different.
Like that was the only way I really could like kind of articulate it was I remember coming in
that first week when you were off and you were on sabbatical and I was just like, oh, like I'm the backstop.
Like I'm where the book ends a little bit. Not that I was by any means alone.
I had the staff team and I had lots of support from people, but there is a certain weight,
that is just emotionally there. That's hard to describe unless you've kind of carried that.
But I think one of the things that, and this applies to anyone who's listening,
not just pastors who have the ability to take sabbaticals, but I think the temptation is to
think that a sabbatical or a vacation or a particular singular event will,
be the bandaid that fixes an unhealthy rhythm of day to day. Sure. Right. So like if, and I'm not
telling you anything, I don't think you know. Um, like I know, you know that cause we talk about it
here, like at staff and like constantly reminding each other, we need to be taking weekly Sabbaths.
We need to be living with inside of our, our bodily earthly, emotional, mental limits.
And if we're not, no, like if we are consistently pushing into the red, we're revving our RPMs up
there and we're constantly living in the red, no,
sabbatical will be long enough to fix that.
Nope. And like that's, and so, same thing for anyone who's listening, whether you take sabbaticals or
not, you just regular vacations or long weekends.
If you are consistently living in the red, like Like there are days, weeks where you're gonna have to push into the red a little bit to get
things done. But if you're living in the red all the time, like what at least what I've,
I think has happened to me is like when I live in the red for a long time and then I get a bit of
a break, I get sick. Yep. It's kind of what happened like the last couple of times I got sick on my
honeymoon. And I don't think, I think some of that was due in part to just how frantic my life was
up until the wedding.
Yeah, well, it's not. It's.
And that's not even really a mystery to modern biology or medicine is that when you push and push and push
and push and push, you often have to draw,
off of hormonal increases like adrenaline.
Like your body produces adrenaline to keep up with the emotional, mental and physical pace that you're pushing yourself through.
And so you're upping your threshold of response because adrenaline is not meant to live on.
Right. Adrenaline is meant to be fight or flight responsive, right?
But when you're constantly living in a place of adrenaline overload and then get a break,
all of that adrenaline dumps out of your system and your physical body dysregulates so much,
that it actually physically becomes sick.
And I describe it sometimes in like, when you go to your dentist and everyone knows.
Double hygiene. Last time I went to the dentist,
the hygienist would ever started flossing my teeth and my gum started to bleed.
She's like, so how often are you flossing?
And I was like, well, I mean, at least every time I eat popcorn.
And what happens, you like, okay, you know you're going to the dentist
and so you brush your teeth extra long that morning. Yeah. Right?
If you save up all of your teeth brushing,
Until a half hour before your dentist appointment your teeth aren't actually going to be clean
No, right. You need to be brushing them every single day,
And it's the same with Sabbath You know there needs to be a regular consistent rhythm of rest in order for health.
To be maintained and and And while, are we commanded to take Sabbath?
Yes, we are. We are commanded to take Sabbath. And I think that the command to take Sabbath
often makes it something that we do begrudgingly.
Yep. Because no one likes to be told even from the Lord God,
you must do something.
Yeah. that is a theological biblical interpretation pet peeve. Yeah. Okay. So people like to make a
distinction between the ceremonial law and the Old Testament and the moral law. And the simplest
way to make that distinction is to say, well, the moral law is the 10 commandments and the,
ceremonial law is all the other stuff in Leviticus and stuff. Except, so they say all the 10
commandments apply except for the one about Sabbath. Yeah.
Right. And I'm like, that is bad. Theological technique. Horrible. It's not like if, if you're going to accept that as a genuine division,
which I think is somewhat dubious, but if you're going to,
you cannot just say, well, all the 10 commandments, except for the one, I think,
isn't it right. You might as well just say, listen, I'm not going to listen to this commandment because I think God is encouraging laziness,
right? By taking a day off. But like in Jesus' life, in Jesus' ministry, he was found to say,
you know, that Sabbath is a gift. Like it is a gift from God.
He certainly doesn't teach us to be slaves to it. No, but it's not like we like, um, we are not, we are not slaves to Sabbath.
Right. Sabbath is a gift that we get to enjoy. Man was not made, um, for Sabbath,
but the Sabbath was made for man.
Right.
Um, so, but going back to, you know, like going back to the conversation on sabbatical, like I, I...
You know, responding to like the way that you felt when I was gone.
I want to say like there is, I don't know how to say it other than to say I feel a little
vindicated by hearing you say that because there's always, there is this sense or this
feeling of weight. Like I carry the weight. That's not to say that I have an unhealthy,
I think we all journey into unhealthy thought patterns, right?
It's not to say that I fully believe that the continuance of ministry here depends on the mantle of the pastor.
That's not what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is that the reality is that when God places that mantle or that calling,
or that position on someone is not insignificant.
And there are often, not often, there is an invisible to the rest of the world
and invisible to the rest of the people.
Weight of responsibility and accountability and attack that comes upon you and pressure,
that we don't often afford our pastors the grace.
Or our prayers that indicate that we see and understand that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, just to again emphasize what you just said, like my, my role didn't change massively.
I wasn't doing anything I had never done before.
Like the way we kind of operate, there's a lot of things that cross between our desks, right?
And so there will be things that you'll toss over to me and vice versa.
So it wasn't like I was like, oh my gosh, I've never done any of this before,
or I don't know how to do it.
Or there was, there was a fair amount of continuity between how my job looked while you were here
when you were gone, it was just this, like.
Emotional spiritual weight that was different. I hadn't figured out how to get took me a bit and
I still hadn't really figured it out. But it was like, how do I carry this? Right? Well,
yeah, and like, and not by myself and not independent of Christ. And how do I manage that?
And it was such a shock to my system for the first couple of weeks, you could ask,
I need to ask those close to me, like did Luke feel the difference?
Like they would say, yeah, we saw like Luke felt different. There was an adjustment period there for sure.
I definitely had not gotten entirely used to it by the time you came back.
Yeah. Yeah. It makes me feel really grateful that we get to do ministry together because before you
were here, there was a period of time here, maybe 18 months or so where there wasn't another pastor on staff.
Not that I didn't have support, great support, great team here, but that there's a weight
of calling that exists there.
And it's interesting because the reverse was also true for me in the first month of my
my sabbatical or so, it was really difficult to not wake up.
In the middle of the night feeling like, oh my gosh, like got a sermon to write or got like this person to like
to pray for or, you know, like there was this,
it took me a while to, for lack of a better term, detox from the responsibility.
And which is why, at least I can only speak for our field, that if you're out there and you're,
for some reason you're from a different church or you're a pastor or, you know,
and you're considering a sabbatical for your pastor or for someone on your team or whatever,
that you need to understand that short sabbaticals.
Really are, I would say, almost a waste of time in your resources because it's going to take
a significant period of time to.
For that person that's on the sabbatical to take a deep breath and enter into the formative parts of
what the sabbatical sets out to do. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, I think this is an apt quote,
and I'm going to butcher it because I don't know it by heart, but there's a desert father, a monk,
who said that like when going into a retreat of silence, at first you lock yourself like in your
room in silence. And at first, it takes a while for the noise of the world to retreat and to
recede, to stop hearing the noise of the world. And then after that, it takes a while for the noise
of yourself, your own voice to recede. And then it takes a while for the noise of the enemy
to retreat and to recede. And then finally we can hear the gentle, small whisper of the Lord.
And his whole point being is that like, it's not as simple as going and retreating.
And thinking that like, okay, I've gotten to a secluded place, I've taken some time off and
immediately I'm going to be connecting with the Lord. It's a slow removal of the noise.
It's kind of like if you leave a really noisy concert and your ears are still ringing. Yep
it's like that right it's gonna take a little bit for your ears to stop ringing for you to be able to,
Re-acclimate in order to reprocess and receive what the Lord has for you So yep, yeah agreed. I feel that,
Okay, how's it?
Probably keep going about good. Yeah, I got I got more questions to follow up with but okay
What's the next mailbag question? You're not see, okay?
Okay. So...
All right, so this one, I'll summarize this one because it was a little bit longer and it's got
some specifics to it. But the essential part of this is that somebody wrote into us asking some
questions about how to maybe handle or what to think about and how to handle a situation in which
they felt they were encountering maybe something supernatural or something maybe named as a ghost
in like a place that they frequent.
And so, yeah.
I'm eager to see what Pastor Luke has to say about this.
Well, you know, because I'm going to be honest with you,
this is a tricky one for me.
It's tricky. So like, OK, so let me start super general. Yeah, because I think ghosts came up,
in like conversation with my wife.
My wife was like, do you do you believe in ghosts? I was like, wow, that's an interesting question.
Well, the only thing I can think of, so, you know, we have a very popular when I say the word ghost,
we think of everything from Scooby Doo to poltergeist Casper Casper, right, like friendly,
ghost friendly, right? Like, you know, so we have a gazillion associations from pop culture,
and secular media around what a ghost is. Right. I mean, like, yeah, oh my gosh, Dan Aykroyd and.
Bill Murray. Ghostbusters. Who you gonna call? Right? Right. We have a gazillion things that
pop into our minds. I'm like sitting here and thinking, all right, what does the Bible have
anything to say on this topic? The only thing that I can think of is there's a small story that's
often not talked about is when King Saul gets a diviner, comes and the prophet Samuel is dead,
comes to Samuel's grave and then kind of brings Samuel back from the dead, not back from the dead,
but talks to his ghost. I would have to go back and look at the passage to see exactly the language
around it. But he ends up talking with Samuel beyond the grave. And then Samuel kind of essentially
just rebukes him from beyond the grave. What are you doing? Why are you talking to me right now?
He just kind of yells at him, which was kind of Samuel's thing with Saul.
That's the only thing I can think of that even approaches the classical understanding of ghosts
that we have. Yeah, did you find the passage? Yeah. So it's the first Samuel, chapter 28.
He goes to the witch of Endor, Saul goes to the witch of Endor.
Find me a woman who is a medium so I may go and inquire of her.
Saul disguises himself and he says to her, consult a spirit for me, he said,
and bring up for me the one I name.
And she replies, surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land.
Why have you set a trap for me to bring about my death?
Then he goes on to say,
so they're gonna call up a spirit. I see a spirit coming up out of the ground.
What does he look like? Saul asked. An old man wearing a robe is coming out, she said.
Then Saul knew it was Samuel and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.
Samuel said to Saul, so it seems to be like there was some, was it actually Samuel?
Who knows, was it a deceiving spirit? Right, right. You don't know.
Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?
I'm in great distress. The Philistines are fighting against me.
So I've called on you to tell me what to do. Samuel said, why do you consult me
now that the Lord has turned away from you become your enemy. He essentially cast judgment on him for, you know, his continued disobedience
from the Lord.
Typical Samuel.
Yep. Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground filled with fear because of Samuel's
words. That's like probably one of the only things that we see.
It's like the only thing that approaches the traditional understanding of ghosts.
Yeah, there certainly is a significant biblical history and evidence of obviously,
I guess what you could call the supernatural.
Yes. Which would be just like not the natural, not natural things. Non-natural.
The presence of evil spirits and the demonic, the presence of angels. Sometimes angels are
distinguished from messengers from God. And Satan himself being a fallen angel, but being the prince
of the air or the devil or and so there I would we're certainly not saying that there
There is no evidence for supernatural.
Well, this is the way I, so whenever we come to topics like this, right, I'm always dubious.
This kind of falls into a category of like, so if you were to say, like if you were to
say, Luke, I found this book that summarizes and explains and teaches all the things that
the Bible has to say about demons and the supernatural and the occult, and you bring
me this massive book, I will say something is wrong because the Bible doesn't say that much about it.
The book should not be that bit. Yep. Yep. So there's a number of topics that like,
and this being one of them where people love to expand and expound and speculate.
And create a, an illusion of knowledge and certainty around when in which the Bible actually,
says in teaches very little. Yeah. Um,
And so that gives me, like that gives some groundwork.
And so I'm not interested in, and the Bible obviously was not interested in giving us
a full understanding of the spiritual realm, of the roles of angels, the demons, like the
Bible's not all that concerned with expounding and teaching us that.
And so I take that and receive that as a bit of just like a, the Lord has kind of said,
you don't really need to know this that much.
Like, know that I am God.
Christ conquers these things, right? And that you should not intentionally go and explore and,
seek these things out. Yeah. You're certainly going to encounter them. Yeah. You know, you're,
it's not that, you know, we're not saying put horse blinders on and refuse to talk about or
think about or see that there's anything supernatural going on around you. Right. No,
you do want to be aware of that. Yes, you do want to know that that occurs. Certainly,
a significant ministry of Jesus was the exorcism of demons that he sent out at the very least,
the first apostles and disciples to do the same. Right. Yeah. It's not clear whether or not that
that ministry extends into the generations.
Right. Right. Yep.
And so the evidence is absolutely there.
That we are to be aware of the schemes of the enemy who prowls around us like a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour.
But even that is not an illusion to him continually attacking us with a demon around every corner. Yep. Right?
So I think that the, if you're gonna talk about the supernatural in the realm of,
does it like, does it exist?
Yes, of course it exists, but we need to weight it properly against the other things that we know.
We need to weight what is unclear in scripture against what is perfectly clear in scripture, right?
And what is unclear in scripture is...
Demonology, angelology even. What is perfectly clear in scripture is that Jesus Christ,
whom we have by faith, his Holy Spirit indwelling in us,
is ultimate authority on every creature above the earth.
And below the earth and in the earth, right? And that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.
And that our security in the midst of the supernatural is not on our own authority,
or not because we have a tremendous understanding of how to speak to a demon,
but that because Jesus is the authority and Jesus dwells in us by faith.
Yes. So, yeah, it's, I guess to like move to some practical advice, we kind of answer, I know that we answered this, the person who answered this question specifically outside of the context of the podcast.
So let's just not worry about that. But let's just kind of give some general generalized advice, not specifically directed towards that situation.
I feel like we already addressed that off camera off. Sure.
I would say like, well, at first I just affirm that real things don't look like Hollywood.
Yeah, that's like Hollywood is Hollywood.
I would, I think like if I were to give, if someone were to say like, oh, I'm experiencing
something like I think my general advice would be ensure that it's not.
Just ensure that it's not something else or something ordinary, right?
Like I think fear might take hold in the midst of an uncertainty or a nervous or a scary experience.
Like let's just, like let's not immediately assume that it's a spiritual demonic thing.
If it's pertinent, ignore it and kind of move on would be, I think, some advice. I think.
Obviously, that has to be applied super situational. But just don't seek these things out.
Like if and I wouldn't want to give a whole lot of fear and air time to something that doesn't
need it or doesn't require it. So yeah, I would, I think that to kind of speak along the same lines,
I think that one of the things that has been discouraging or concerning to me in the church
is that there is a line of thinking or a line of thought that any negative thing
that you encounter or circumstance that you are under is the result of the demon
of something or a flu yeah the demon the demon or the spirit of the spirit of
anxiety or the spirit of depression yes is upon me and I I need to exercise that
demon from my life and as soon as I... I've encountered that. Right, sure, we all
have. Right, or the reason that I'm sick is because the enemy is attacking me.
Yes.
That, I mean, like the reality is that line of thinking is we just don't see that in scripture.
No. It's just not there.
Right. Right. And so we can say what we, you can say what you want about what you believe,
the reason I have a cough and a cold as well. It's the enemy attacking you because he doesn't
want you to preach this Sunday. Yeah.
He wants you to have a cough instead of preaching.
Could also just be equally that you haven't been taking Sabbath,
you've been running yourself ragged.
I haven't been eating well, or it's cold season, or like all, it could be that.
It's that little kid that came up and sneezed on my face.
Right, so I think that we, similar to what you said about the, you know,
six volume book on demonology,
we need to be honest with what we see in scripture what we don't. And we just don't see that type of understanding of the work of the demonic or the
supernatural in scripture. That everything that goes wrong in our life is the result of an attack
by the enemy or the imposition of an evil spirit upon us. It's just not there. Pray about it and
take some cold medicine.
Right, you know, yeah, 100%. Yeah.
Like, or in a situation where like, let's say, like the person who wrote in this question
had a situation that they were experiencing in the physical location that they were at,
where maybe some, they don't know how lights got on and off or whatever, or was even feeling internally,
a sense of spiritual oppression.
Yeah. which I would say is a...
Much more legitimate like Okay, then the lights flickered it must be a demon, right?
But the sense of like right the Spirit of God or the Spirit in me is Sensing,
feeling Experiencing something that darkness. Yeah, and it is like a darkness or a heaviness. It's not a
a nervousness or a fear necessarily, those things might be present,
but at least in my experience, it's a feeling that is not easily equated
with something else we've experienced.
Exactly, it is decidedly dark.
Yes. And I have experienced this before, I've experienced it with people before,
I've experienced it in places before,
where I walked into a place, there were people there, And there was this sense of like, there is evil in this room for sure.
Yes. Or in this place.
And in those moments, um, it's been, at least in my experience, um, there has not
been any fear, like there's been darkness and heaviness, but no fear.
Why?
Yeah. The reason I don't think at least you know this is kind of conjecture based on what's not here, right?
Right it word we're moved into the space of you and I's personal experience, right?
The reason that there was no fear was not because the thing wasn't real.
The reason that there was no fear was that it was very, very, very real, but that the Spirit of
Jesus Christ within me has authority over the Spirit of whatever was in the room. And so there
is no need to fear. Fear not, right? Because there literally is nothing to fear. I do not fear demons.
Why? Because I stand firmly on the biblical witness that Jesus Christ, who lives in me
by faith through His Holy Spirit, has all authority over those things. I do not fear
that. I do not fear that at all because I do not feel like I need to because I believe
Jesus is with me. Jesus is in me. And so there have been times where I have in a physical place.
Literally spoken the name of Jesus out loud or have spoken the authority of Jesus into the room.
Right? I have asked demons to leave or spiritual darkness to leave in the name of Jesus, right?
I have read scripture over people and in places where there was obvious demonic activity.
As a proclamation of the authority that they do not have. Right.
And it's in those moments where it's been really, really clear that the Lord, that, you know,
that it's, we're not, that while we may wrestle with flesh and blood, Right.
Or we don't wrestle, like that we wrestle against the principalities and rulers of the air,
that in the supernatural realm, there is no question who the authority is.
Like there is no, like demons aren't walking around thinking that they run everything.
They know. And the proclamation of that truth is often the only thing, or is often the thing,
just the thing that needs to happen. I feel like, again, we're in the land of conjecture,
and personal experiences that I think that the primary weapon that the enemy and the spiritual
forces of wickedness and darkness has against us is the weapon of deception. That Satan is the
father of lies, though scripture says that when he speaks, he only speaks. It is his native tongue
to speak and deceit. So when he speaks, he speaks, you need to be afraid of me. You need to fear.
You need to, you know, like everything is like deceit, deceit, deceit, deceit, deceit. Right? So
when you begin to speak, how do you defeat deceit or lies? You speak the truth.
Right? You speak the truth, the truth of God's word, the truth of God's promises,
the truth of Jesus' authority, right? So...
Spiritual forces of darkness are walking around, floating around, flying around, whatever they're
doing, crawling around, trying to convince you, me, all of us that we need to fear them,
that they have more power than they have, and that they are around every single bush,
Yeah. And every single sickness and every single infirmity.
Yeah. Right?
Yeah. You know, I've seen, I've watched my share of horror movies, right? And like the Exorcist
being probably the most famous and infamous one. And the climax of that movie is priests in a room
with a demon and they're just constantly incanting. And you get this really dramatized version of like
an exorcist where you get it's like oh it's like a push it's a pull it's like this fight.
If that that's not no like that's hollywood dramatization of course it is well because if
you even just look at the truth of scripture what is like god if you know first john god is light,
yeah in him there is no darkness at all other places it describes the spiritual uh spiritual
forces of wickedness as the spirits of darkness the forces of darkness now when you walk into
to a dark room and you turn on the light switch.
There is no like epic battle between the light and the dark.
Nope. When the light enters the room, the dark is gone, period, end of sentence,
immediately and without question, right?
There's not gonna be like, in the end of time, right when Jesus comes back, right?
Like famous art is depicted as this epic battle where like Hollywood,
Like they're gonna fight, they're gonna be on the battlefield and it's gonna be like this, like you said,
push and pull and tug and like,
and Jesus is eventually gonna come out victorious over the forces of darkness. like.
Not at all the depiction that we actually see in scripture, or what we know about the authority of Jesus already,
which is, the battle has already been decided.
Satan has already lost.
There will not be an epic battle.
It will be only the victorious one returning to finally stomp the head of the great serpent,
right? And none that have been entrusted to the Lord will be lost, right? So it's not some like,
oh, the darkness may gain some ground in the sphere of the light.
Yeah. It's not. No.
Right. No. Yeah. It's often quoted, but I think it's often quoted for good reason quote from CS Lewis regarding
this topic is like the temptation is either to completely ignore the spiritual realm and the
demonic or to overly fixate on it.
Yep. So like, I guess the summarize, like that would be my summarizing is just like, don't fixate on it.
If you find yourself where you feel like there's this back and forth battle, get,
some help maybe, but in the name of Jesus, I command you to leave.
Yep.
Cause like that's not your something, something's happening there.
Yep. You might not, maybe you're not battling a demon. would be my first question, you know, if, if you feel like there's just this constant back and forth and then, or then maybe you just need the face and help of others, but also to just not, I don't, don't unnecessarily fixate on it, but don't be naive about it either.
Sure. Would be the, the summarization, I guess that advice.
Advice. Well, I mean, where does that leave us for we we're so what we're at
50 minutes. Well I think let's see what else we have here in this mailbag but.
How about we answer the last one just kind of that last one just as a you know, we'll tie we'll tie a bow on the
This episode this last question. Is there an appropriate or inappropriate time to give someone, you know a Bible I,
Mean simple answer is,
No
If you feel listening to them come back. If you feel led to, then I think it's an appropriate time
to give someone a Bible. Now, the more complex answer of that is, do so in a... I gave a
Bible to a co-worker many years ago, and to me, a Bible is a Bible, right? So, me carrying
Bible around public does not make me uncomfortable, but it made them uncomfortable. So retrospectively,
I would have given it to them in a slightly more discreet way because they felt very uncomfortable
holding a Bible in their place of work or where others might see them. So just to generally say,
Like, just, you know, be...
Nice about it or common sense about it. Just like don't like publicly declare to and give them a Bible in front of a bunch of people or at a,
inopportune time or something like that.
Yeah, I think like I Can just see the comments on this already. I can just I,
I don't know. Like I will. Because here's the thing. We don't need to over complicate it.
Right. But, but, but, but super Christians and I, I say that pejoratively, um, um, you know,
super Christians will be like, how could you ever say that there's an inappropriate time to
give someone the word of God? Like that's not what we're saying. Right. But like, but, but listen,
Okay, like let's say as a for instance, how about this, I was recently with a family.
That does not attend church regularly, does not necessarily have like a, they would not
necessarily proclaim themselves to be like have a deep sense of faithfulness, they don't attend
church. I have relationship with them and one of their loved ones passed away suddenly and tragically.
Yes. And I was asked to come down to the hospital to be with them in the room with their loved one,
as he was deceased. As they processed the first stage of their grief, as they said goodbye,
by as their family came in to see him and to say goodbye as well. And I'm standing there
as a harbinger of hope and promise and faith. And I could have walked in that room with,
the stack of Bibles.
Yeah. And said, this is the perfect time. I just want to give you this. Right. Right. Now,
do I think that they would benefit in their walk with Jesus by having a Bible?
Of course I do. Sure. Like duh. Yeah. Right? At the bedside of their suddenly deceased
loved one, is it an appropriate time to have like a shove it in their face? This is what
you need. I would say in a manner of pastoral discernment and gentleness that that is not
the appropriate time. So the question is there ever an appropriate or inappropriate time
to give someone a Bible is I understand the question, but I would say well it's always
appropriate to give someone a Bible. There are times where I feel like it's inappropriate.
So it's got to both. There's also a spirit in which I could imagine you're talking with someone and they're massively
depressed. Well, here's a Bible.
What am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to do with that? Like, that is kind of... So, I guess what I would say is that
maybe the inappropriate way a Bible can be given is in a band-aid or like a kind of the same way
we would give somebody some Tylenol. Because you give someone Tylenol and then you step away.
Right? The better thing I would say, particularly say you have someone who is kind of closed off to
faith or maybe antagonistic or you're just not sure. You could come up to the person and say,
hey, I follow Jesus and my faith means a lot to me. And I read the Bible and it has benefited
me in so many different ways. I think it's a really powerful book that God uses to speak to me.
And I really appreciate who you are and I want to gift that to you in a in a loving way like I
is this a gift that you would be open to receiving from me like no not giving you an expectation that
you have to like that's the thing about gifting books right just in general expectation of
reading expectation like I'm not giving you the expectation you need to read the whole thing or
or that you need to read so much of it.
I just simply wanna make sure that you have one. I maybe wanna give you a nice one or something
because it means something special to me and I wanna gift it to you.
And if they're receptive to that, 110%, give them that Bible.
If they're like, I really appreciate the Jesuit, I really would rather you not.
Right? That I could see that as a really good way of approaching an uncertain situation.
Yeah. Or just even when you bring the Bible, just like, don't just say, here, I wanted you to have
this, like, put it inside of a context of a relationship you have with them. And if you
really want to, like, be the positive version of super Christian, offer to read it with them.
Yes. Yeah. Like, like just say, Hey, like walk with them. Yeah. I put a, I put a bark mark starting
in Matthew. Yeah. Like, would you want to get together in like a week and just talk about the
first three chapters? Yeah. Like, I mean, talk about it. Listen, this is not a saying.
We want to be abundantly clear. We're not pastors who are telling you to not give by exactly.
We don't hate the Gideons. Right. Okay? The Gideons are great.
The Gideons are amazing. Right? Amazing organization. Just like... It...
It's just not that simple. Yeah. I guess we're...
It feels a little bit silly because it is that simple.
But we're just kind of drilling down on maybe some of the...
I feel like we're socially coaching. Yeah. We're coaching people in like the dimension of...
Maybe evangelism or discipleship that takes place in context and relationship, not just
in here's the information that you need to get better.
And it's in this book, just read the book. Right.
So you might be hearing this and you might be saying, well, duh, like that's no brainer
that you would do that in such and such way.
It's not self evident. It's not self evident to everybody.
I've seen it done that way. If I probably thought really hard about it, I've probably done it that
way myself when I was a younger believer. Yep, 100%. So we don't want to overcomplicate it.
And our first answer to the question remains, yes, please go give them a Bible.
And listen, if you're listening to this podcast or you're watching it and you need a Bible,
you want a Bible, or you have someone that you want to give a Bible to, but you don't have one
to give to them. We've got them here. We have Bibles specifically. The whole cabinet is full
of Bibles right here. We have got boxes full of Bibles upstairs just for that purpose. So let us
give those to you. So, well, I think we've probably covered enough for this first mailbag.
Come back to this with plenty more to talk about and I think it's some of those other questions
that we left unanswered so if we didn't get to yours it's not because we didn't like it it's just
we ran out of time. Right and we'll put the we'll of course put the we should make a note in
in post to put the mailbag number at the beginning of this video as well so in case you
haven't made it through this whole video and wondering what we're talking about to know that
that we're talking about our mailbag here
at the Uncut Podcast, which is just a way that we hope to be able to interact with you,
and maybe talk about some of the things that are important with you.
So if you're listening, you can text in any questions that you have to 716-201-0507.
And of course, if you're watching online or watching on YouTube, we'll put those numbers
in the show notes as well, or in the notes in the Google and Apple Podcasts as well.
But anyway, thanks.
Music.