[00:00:00] Doug: When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, you brood of Vipers. 

[00:00:08] Jesse: Salty..

[00:00:09] Doug: Yeah, boy, that's the way you open up a conversation is that you brood of Vipers

[00:00:23] Jesse: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast on this beautiful Thursday morning, we are so excited you're here to join us. The Salty Pastor Podcast is all about teaching you how to think for yourself. There's so much information available to us in this modern day and age. And some of it's good, some of it's bad and half the time we don't know which is which, and we're just trying to figure it out as we go.

So this podcast is here to help you grow in your faith. And growing your ability to critically think for yourself so that you're not just blindly following what the media, the politicians, or even other religious leaders may be saying, but instead you're growing your own faith and you have your own beliefs,

that you are confident in. That you were allowed to share and confident in sharing with other people. So we can't do this without our very own Salty Pastor himself, Dr. Douglas Peake. 

[00:01:14] Doug: Welcome and greetings everyone. And this is about you and your faith. It's about how you can sharpen it, how you can be more courageous and confident how you can think critically and navigate the complexity of this world. It's all about the scripture. We start with the scripture. We end with the scripture. It's these biblical principles. Dig into and we discover, and then we try to figure out, you know, the various ways in which to apply them.

So very excited. 

[00:01:42] Jesse: So we are currently in our series, get up and go. And, um, this week's kind of focus in this series. That's kind of just, it's touching on very practical applications. Um, they're not necessarily harmonious as far as themes. But they are harmonious in the fact that they're all practical ways to activate your faith, um, after kind of a time in the country, in the world where everything's shut down.

So, um, this week we're focusing on what exactly is repentance. Um, on Tuesday we talked a little bit about. You know, the worldview of repentance for the most part is, oh, I got called into the principal's office, God's upset with me. I need to go say, sorry, but what we're talking about biblically, when the Bibles talks about repentant, it's really just an, it's a turning around of, of your views and your actions.

It's not just a, I'm sorry, I won't do it again. It's a, I'm running away from this former life, this former thing of sin and I am choosing to change how I view it and how I act about it and just a massive turning in your life. Whether it's a little thing of, I'm not going to swear as much, or it's a big thing, you know, it could be anything coming out of sex work or it could be out of anything, 

[00:02:58] Doug: Anything addictions or bad habits, bad mindsets, bad beliefs.

It's just, it's not just saying, wow, I need to turn away from that. But it's actually pursuing, you're turning towards something and you're pursuing something new. 

[00:03:11] Jesse: You're not running aimlessly, which was the last sermon you gave was about running aimlessly. You're running towards something. So today I kind of wanted to take these biblical principles of repentance.

We have a better understanding of what real biblical repentance is, and I want to take it into our personal life. 

[00:03:27] Doug: Yeah. 

[00:03:28] Jesse: Our family life. 

[00:03:29] Doug: Okay. 

[00:03:29] Jesse: And then let's talk about the world in general, which, I mean, that's going to be a whole thing, but I'm thinking you're up to it. 

[00:03:35] Doug: So well, let's get to a personally, I think that's the first place where repentance is.

Uh, the biblical principle is directed towards the discussion of repentance is always about you as an individual. And the teaching of repentance is about you as an individual, what it does in you. And I would go so far as to say, based on what we studied on Tuesday with Paul's description of repentance in Philippians chapter three, where he says I had all these things.

Valued me and affirmed me as a person. I counted them all, but rubbish. And now I only want to know Christ. And so I'm pressing on towards that call. And so that's a good idea of what repentance is, is that I used to value the stuff. I no longer value it. I made a decision to consider it rubbish. And then I want now to know Jesus, and I'm going to press on towards this new thing.

So I'm going to pursue it. And that's the complete concept of. Repentance. And there's no transformational faith without repentance, you know, all theologians, all scholars and preachers, uh, who follow biblical Christianity adhere to this principle. They all say repentance is necessary. For authentic salvation and transformation.

However, authentic repentance is rarely defined in the way that Paul defined it in Philippians. According to Paul repentance is obviously turning away and turning towards. So if we look at that and try to apply it to our lives personally, we can start asking ourselves questions and start with questions about where you feel you are at.

Like, do you lack courage in your life? Well, then ask yourself, have I turned in, away from the things that I used to value that I thought brought me courage and didn't. And now am I pursuing and striving towards the image of Christ in me? Because if I pursue the image of Christ and me, I automatically will become a more courageous and confident persons.

That's called repentance. Uh, let's say you discussed it's you're, you're struggling with insecurity. Okay. And you can practice repentance and strive towards your new identity in Christ. So it's not just saying, I'm tired of being insecure. I'm not going to be insecure anymore. So that's a turning away from. Right?

You have to develop that whole new mindset, which has a new set of values. And new set of principles of who Christ says you are, and then you need to strive after, you know, Paul says there, uh, in Philippians, this one thing I do, I forget what lies behind and I strive towards the upper call to win the prize.

So that's repentance, uh, You may have an addiction. You may have a bad habit. You may have a cycle of emotional anxiety or depression that you can't seem to break. Well practice repentance by striving towards something new. This is why, uh, John the Baptist, you know, it says that he was the forerunner of Christ. And he went through, out the land with a baptism of repentance, and this gives us a really better understanding of repentance. So he sees the Pharisees and listen to what he says to them in Matthew chapter three, about the nature of repentance. He says when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, You brood of Vipers.

[00:07:14] Jesse: Salty.

[00:07:15] Doug: Boy. That's the way you open up a conversation. Is " you brood of Vipers" who warned you to flee from the coming wrath, produce fruit in keeping with repentance. So do not think you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. In other words, relying on the past. I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham.

The ax is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So what he's saying is produce fruit that is in alignment with repentance. So what is he actually saying? He's saying, look, you guys say you don't need to improve. You don't need to strive towards anything because you're, Abraham's your father and your, you know, all the Ru rules and you're already following them.

So what he's saying is being a moralist is not enough defining yourself by all the things you don't do. Well, I don't drink, I don't smoke and I don't go with girls who do. So I just don't do, I guess it's actually, I don't smoke and I don't chew or go with girls who do 

[00:08:20] Jesse: Yes. 

[00:08:20] Doug: That, that rhymes better. Doesn't it?

[00:08:22] Jesse: Yep. 

[00:08:23] Doug: But what happens is you see a lot of people think Christianity is simply a moralist code of what you don't do, but there's no power transformation in that morality is critically important in Christianity, but it's a relationship with the living God. And as you pursue it, All of these fruit begins to manifest itself in your life.

And that's where transformation comes from. 

[00:08:49] Jesse: And I think the, the thing that keeps hitting me as we discuss this this week, it's really been that it's an active lifestyle of repentance. It's not a, I went and I did an apology to God one time, and now I'm all good. I'm you know, Jesus is bloods over me. I'm all good.

I'm, you know, clear to my sins. It's, it's an active part of a lifestyle. It's, you're, you're chasing, you're moving, you're propelling. We talked a lot about propulsion on Tuesday. It's like, it's active. It's how you're moving and growing in that way. And I mean, John's even, you know, like you need to, if the ax is coming, you need to be going right.

And so it's not, it needs to have. Fruit bearing. I mean, even the act of fruit bearing that is an action, right? That's not something that just passively happens. The tree, we think it just sort of appears, but the tree is putting forth energy. It's eating and nourishing itself to produce that fruit. And it should be the same thing with us.

[00:09:51] Doug: Yeah. And as an individual, if you're pursuing repentance, you will bear the fruit of the spirit in your life. And if your faith is dying on the vine and it's drying up and all that kind of stuff, it's because you're not practicing repentance. You're not chasing after you're not propelling yourself towards the thing.

So, you know, like people get up and go to the gym every day, you know, physically they're practicing repentance. People who dig in and say, man, I want to know more about God. I want to discover more about them. I want to discover what the point and purpose of my life is. I want to know how to be a better person.

I want to have a bigger impact in people's lives. I want to be an agent of love and change and transformation. I want to bear. I want to be more kind. I want to be more intentional. You know, everybody has a list of all these things that they want to be, and they don't have any idea that repentance is the process.

In which those things are fruit of your life. So we don't become more loving by just saying, I'm going to be more loving. I'm going to stop being hateful and I'll be more love. It doesn't work that way. It's a, the wellspring of life is Jesus Christ. So the more I pursue him, right. Which is practicing repentance, I've turned away from the old things.

Now I'm pursuing Jesus wholeheartedly a hundred percent. Guess what? All this fruit starts just popping up automatically in my life. And one of the big things of fruit is I produce or propel myself and pursuing Jesus is love. You see? So that's how it works. And a lot of people have never drawn that connection on a personal level and their spiritual growth before.

[00:11:27] Jesse: So we we've kind of covered the personal aspect. I mean, we've, we've hit some at some points on it. Let's chat about what repentance looks like in a family. 

[00:11:39] Doug: Well, this is, this is where I think once you go beyond the individual practice, repentance is that the efficacy of your family is contingent upon the husband and the wife pursuing repentance as individuals.

Right. And what happens is then their family, can pursue repentance or practice repentance. And what that means is it's a turning towards something. Uh, uh, you can't be a moralist and have a healthy family. See a moralistic approach to family is okay, this is our family, and this is what we don't do. We're not going to do that.

We're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. And then you just kind of leave it. Right. See that that's a moralist approach to a family. What you want is you want to repentance approach to a family. And that is, is that this is our family mission statement. These are our family goals. This is what we want to have happen in the lives of our children.

When, when Kim and I first started having kids, my oldest is 26 and my middle child is 25. And then my youngest is 16. And yeah, that is a bit of a gap that is true. But what we did is before our first child was born. We didn't know if we were going to have a boy or a girl, you know, gender reveal was on the day they were born.

Right. Then I think back then you could, you know, they could do a test and tell you, but you know, you had to go in for a special thing or something, but we didn't do any of that. We just said, well, we're going to just find out whatever God blesses us with on the day. And, but what we did is we read and we read and read.

And when we really thought, and Kim and I talked extensively about. What, what do we want to instill within our children? What are our, what's our mission statement as parents. 

[00:13:31] Jesse: Right. 

[00:13:31] Doug: You know, uh, what's our goal. And so if you want to practice repentance in your family, it's not what you don't do. It's what you do do.

So I know every seven year old who listens to this, they're going, oh, daddy just said, do-do how funny? No, but it's, it's really an essence that it's not what we don't do. It's what we are doing. In other words, every time we make an investment in our family, you know, our family is going to travel together.

We're going to have fun together. Uh, we want to be close to each other. Well, that doesn't happen by accident. We want our kids to do well in school. That doesn't happen by accident. We want our kids to have strong values that doesn't happen naturally, or by accident. It requires a mission statement, a vision of where you want to go as parents in your family, and every day that you're investing towards that, you're practicing repentance.

See you, I'm repenting. I'm turning towards my, uh, God's mission for my family and I'm going to do it. And that that's, what's really, really important. And that's why our world is falling apart because nobody practices repentance in their family anymore. I mean, our world is unraveling. Uh, I was reading just recently some research, uh, there's a Harvard study that came out in 2018.

And there's a gal by the name of Erica Commissar. She's written some books and she's a psychoanalyst. She has a huge practice and she works with kids and she says, look, here's something that's really interesting is that depression and anxiety are increasing among children and adolescents, and this is born out pre COVID.

The biggest, everything was down cancer rates going down, heart disease going down, you know, all these types of things the medical community can deal with. But the one thing that was going up and up and up by huge margins is depression and anxiety among children and the suicide rate has been increasing and then COVID happened.

And then it just went through the roof. And this is what's really interesting. She doesn't say that she's a religious this person at all, but she says, I can tell you that the reason why depression and anxiety among children is so much more common today is because of the declining interest in God and religion.

She says, I see the consequences of this in my practice every day. And a Harvard study shows that children who attend religious services at least once per week. They scored higher on psychological wellbeing measurement and had lower risks of mental illness. So when you take your kids to church every single week, you know what you're doing, you are investing not only in their eternity and in the quality of abundant living in Christ right now, but you are also strengthening them psychologically and you are, uh, basically building a hedge of protection.

You're protecting them from mental illness. You see, and what's really fascinating is she says that, uh, if you take your kids weekly to religious services, you will find higher rates of volunteerism, lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation and kids will develop a sense of purpose. The number one cause of depression and anxiety among kids is nihilism.

Meaning. They don't have any sense of purpose. They don't have any idea of why they are here. She actually goes on to say that, uh, from a purely psychological point of view, this is not a good trend. Nihilism. The belief in nothing is a rich fertilizer for anxiety and the pressure. And she goes, you know, what's really funny.

Right now, our society over the last, uh, two decades has over a 20% decrease in attendance to religious services. Every week. So this is, what's really important to understand if you're a grandparent or you're a parent you're listening to this, you didn't understand this. And that is, is that parents make choices.

And one of the choices that I know over the years, 25 years here is that, uh, travel teams for sports are really, really big. And a lot of parents want their kids on travel teams and they go, cause man, that's going to be great. Maybe it'll be the next, you know, Ken Griffey Jr. Or, you know, Michael Jordan or something like that, you know, that'd be great, which is.

Uh, if, if they have that proclivity, but what they do is they join these things and they travel every weekend. So the kids never go to church. You know, their kids don't grow up with any type of religious exposure, any type of church life. And they say, well, we believe in God and all this kind of stuff. And then what happens is those kids, 99% of them graduate from high school and have no opportunity play sports beyond that.

And then they go to college and then their lives are wrecked by the university. Totally wrecked. And they, their, their, their parents, you know, are calling me on the phone and they're saying my kids got all this anxiety and depression, you know, he started smoking marijuana and he's all this he says, I don't believe in God, he's so depressed.

And it just totally destroys their lives. And, uh, That's because you raise your kids without practicing repentance. And so do you have to show up on a Sunday morning at a church service? Well, that's optimum, find one you can do. If you're going to do it digitally online, you can do it now. Traveling. It's just a thing.

This is what our family does. We don't care. We're getting up early, we're doing it, you know, and we do it together and we talk about. Or you can find, you know, something on a Wednesday night or do something like that. But it's fascinating. What she says in this report is, and this is what's really interesting.

She says, I have a lot of atheists who come to me seeking me out because she's an expert in her field and they go, I don't believe in God, how do I help my kids? And you know what she tells atheists "fake it". Take them to church and pretend you believe in God, if you love your kids, fake it. 

[00:19:54] Jesse: Interesting. 

[00:19:55] Doug: Isn't that fascinating?

So what does that tell you is that repentance is pursuing something it's moving towards something, propelling you towards something. And she's saying that even if you don't believe in God, you should propel yourself towards God anyway, for the well being of your children. So do you have a family cover?

This is what I would ask everyone. Do you have a family mission statement you should write. So that, you know what you are striving for and you need to pick things bigger than get my kids through school and gainfully employed, you know? So there's a low bar. That's a low bar. You need to set a higher bar for your kids.

And guess what, when you do that, you are strengthening them. They will be more courageous and competent. Build with convictions, there'll be psychologically strong. And then when the attacks of anxiety and depression and all these things, try to come at your kids, they are psychologically prepared with the defenses that you have developed within them, them, because they are bearing the fruit in accordance with repentance.

See exactly what John told the Pharisees. So. 

[00:21:08] Jesse: The biggest point you are making right now is, is as a family, we need to be practicing repentance. Yes, it's, it's a game changer in how you'll be able to raise your kids, how your, your lives with your spouse are going to work. All of that. It matters in, in really increasing the opportunities for you to have a healthy fruit bearing life is, is practicing as, as a family now.

Talk to me about let's go thousand foot view. What does this look like in our world? What can we do? Cause I mean, we're, we're working, you know, inside out, we have to start at our own personal level. We have to be practicing repentance. Then our family, it has a mission statement of, this is how we are going to live.

This is what we are going to do. What does it look like? How do you, how does our nation. Repent. 

[00:22:02] Doug: Well, that's really interesting because there are two really loud voices right now, calling America to repent. And it's really fascinating. And that is, is that there is a group of, uh, Christians who believe America needs to repent.

And they're like, we need to repent from taking God out of schools. We need to repent, uh, for, you know, all of the excesses of America, morally, you know, like pornography and drug addiction. We need to repent of all that, that we've ignored God. And, uh, that's the way our nation will be saved. And I think it's really important to understand is that I think that these people who say these things are well-intentioned, but they make a mistake in conflating the promises to old Testament, Israel with the contemporary American nation today.

The best way for America to do well and move on to really prosper in the future is for as many people as possible. And this is an upstream issue is as individuals come to God and repent because the promises of the covenant in the old Testament were replaced by the promises of the new covenant. Hence the term New Testament in Jesus Christ.

And so, uh, That that's, that's something that's really, really important is that we should work upstream and that's how we can ensure that America will continue on. But I believe America is only going to continue on based on the efficacy and the quality of the decisions that are made by its leaders. And if America, which so many of those of Americans have turned away from attending church kids aren't raised that way anymore and stuff.

They elect people and these people are loopy, doopy, you know, saying and doing all these crazy things. And, and so I think that's important to understand. Now the other side of it is there's another group of people and these are social theorists who say the same thing, but means something completely different when they talk about repentance.

And this comes out in critical race theory, which postulates that America has not repented of its original sin of slavery. Uh, Charlemagne the God is a talk show guy, a big time influencer back east. Uh, he has a huge following and he said on, uh, uh, Bill Maher's show, he says that slavery is America's original sin.

And until they pay reparative reparations to every, uh, descendant of a slave, then they have not repented of their sin. There's a false history out that won a Pulitzer prize called the 1619 projects. And it stated that the reason why the American revolution was fought was to maintain the institution of slavery.

Of course, this is completely false. Uh, these people claim that Christianity is part of the problem. They call Christianity white supremacy. Now here's the facts. According to time magazine, they have an article titled white supremacy runs deep in white American Christianity, and they say for the vast majority of American history. Christian ministers have spoken with passion and vigor in favor of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

This is false. This is false. Can you go out and find, you know, two or 3% of the nut jobs out there that said that? Yeah, but when you look at it aggregate, you know, the reason why we don't have slavery in the America in America is because of the church, the Christian Church, the Protestant. Christian Church.

And so that's why, uh, here's another article from the public religion research Institute. This guy named Robert Jones wrote a book it's called white supremacy, shaped American Christianity. He says that the theology of Christianity is deeply embedded in the DNA. Influencing their theology on salvation pub.

And so they say even the south, the south theology of salvation, the doctrine of salvation is white supremacy. Jay Taylor who's a scholar does a lot of work with some institutes, indigenous people institutes. He says the Christian Patriot branch of white supremacy has its legal and philosophical roots.

In other words, the thing that causes all of this Christian White supremacy is property rights. And state's rights from the constitution of the United States of America. You see, they believe that the constitution is a document of white supremacy at Vanderbilt university. There was a student who has docked points on a quiz for rejecting the statement.

The constitution was designed to perpetuate white supremacy and protect the institution of slavery. He said, this is false. And he was graded. Uh, he, uh, was knocked down points because it was his professor. Who's propagating a false hood misinformation and he says, no, and he's doc. So this is why universities are destroying young people.

And if you send a young person, uh, where that has not been grounded in what they believe and why they believe it's not just their faith that gets wrecked. The very foundation of our country gets wrecked. So. This is really interesting. This might shock you Stanford law. One of the leading law schools in the United States of America.

I mean, if you can go to Stanford law, you're guaranteed.

[00:27:52] Jesse: Basically 

[00:27:53] Doug: You are setup.

Yeah. In 2021, they had a course for their law students titled the white supremacists constitution. That's that's yeah, clock course. Number 7, 0 0 8. Isn't that amazing? So here you have a group of people who are saying that Christianity is white supremacy.

America is white supremacy. The constitution is right supremacy. And until we repent of that, we're never going to be a free and equitable society. But basically what they define repentance as is that. We're going to tear down the free market economics. We're going to tear down the protections that individuals have in the constitution.

We're going to get rid of free speech and the freedom of religion. We're going to get rid of private property ownership. We are going to get rid of the justice system and essence what they also do. And this is coming out more and more to the surfaces. They want to get rid of Christianity and churches.

Because they see it as a part of the problem. So the government wants to dictate what religion you're allowed to pursue or not. If it doesn't fit with what they say, then you get deep platformed. And I mean, this is basic. Communism is how this works. You see what they demand is completely unjust. And because it's unjust, it's evil.

Let me say that again. What they demand is unjust. Therefore, what they demand is evil injustice is evil. There's no two ways around it. The American system of justice was not created by our founding fathers, our founding fathers. Didn't sit in a room and go, Hmm, why don't we think is justice? And what do we want to do to perpetuate our own power?

They didn't do that. What they did is something so incredible that no one has ever really done before in the founding of the nation. And that is. Let's adopt the best definition of justice that we know is out there in the best definition of true justice comes from what is known as a Judeo-Christian philosophy.

And this philosophical position on justice was developed over 1500 years or more than that probably 1700 years when they started digging into this and its best work was done. After the Protestant reformation, the key elements of it were this, that philosophy is number one, a definition of what it means to be a human being.

You see that simple definition, all men are created equal and endowed by God, their creator with unalienable rights, meaning. These are given by God, they transcend government. The second one was a definition of what is justice. How do you treat people equally based on the fact that they all have equal rights.

And then finally, what is the process for dispensing justice? How do we, how do you make, you know, the state has to make an accusation. They have to charge you and then. Innocent until what proven guilty. So they have to prove you're guilty and they, and they have to prove you're guilty in front of what a jury of your peers, peers.

So they focused on the how to dispense justice to make it as fair as possible. What's really interesting is that these ideas were articulated almost a hundred years before they were brought into the constitution by a philosopher by the name of John Locke. Listen to what John Lock wrote. In the late 16 hundreds, he said men being as has been said by nature, all free, all equal and independent, no one can put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent.

So what he's saying is by nature, you are free and equal and independent, and no one can take you out of that estate out of that position. Without your consent. See, and you look at our judicial system, you know, the cops can't enter into your house with what, without your consent. Right. You know, the military cannot come and put soldiers in your house period with, you can say, Hey, come stay with me.

I'd like to feed you a good meal, but they can't mandate that you see all of these things are apart, but they, they were written by John Locke. And what's really interesting is, you know what, John Locke also. You said this, the Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God, on the children of men.

It is, it has God for its author salvation for its end and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere, nothing too much and nothing wanting. Is that interesting. So the fi one of the philosophers that developed that idea of justice came from John Locke that influenced our founding fathers.

And what, what influenced him the Bible you see? So what does all this mean from repentance standpoint? It means that everyone agrees that slavery was unjust, but should the Northern states who were abolitionists. And fought a civil war, the most deadliest war in American history. More Americans died in the civil war than they did World War Two and World War One.

Should they, those people repent and turn away for their struggle for justice for all. Should we do that? Should we say that the Northern states. 

[00:33:40] Jesse: The ones who were against it. Yeah. 

[00:33:42] Doug: Should, should they repent? 

[00:33:43] Jesse: Yeah, apparently, 

[00:33:45] Doug: Apparently, because if slavery is him, is the original sin, according to 1619 project and an all America is bad, then all of the Northern states that fought against slavery and won, they should repent of that.

[00:33:59] Jesse: Yeah. 

[00:34:00] Doug: Well, I'm sorry if you believe this and you argue this with you're an idiot. I know that salt,

[00:34:09] Jesse: A little salty pastor. 

[00:34:11] Doug: But you are. 

[00:34:12] Jesse: But they need to be, they need to, you're 

[00:34:14] Doug: a total idiot. You have zero intellectual 

[00:34:16] Jesse: utilizing critical thinking. 

[00:34:17] Doug: You're so ideological. You're, you know, if you talk to a person like that, you're throwing your pearls before swine, you see that the northerns efforts brought about an expansion of the original principles of justice, the Northern.

The union fought to expand the original principles of justice. The reason why the south seceded from the union to start their own nation is because they saw in the Congress. The Northern states had won the debate and were passing laws, outlawing slavery. Right. And so they were like, well, we just want to succeed and do our own thing.

And the north said, no, cause this is an abomination before God. And so how in the world, can you say that what they did and expanding the original principles of justice with any intellectual honesty that the Northern states who fought in the civil war should repair. You see that doesn't make any sense.

Repentance at its core is a turning away from, and then turning towards a new mindset and what the north did when they fought the civil war as a nation is they were turning towards, uh, Liberty and justice for all. And they were willing to fight to keep that going. You see, I hope we never repent. Uh, I guess no I'll put it this way, in my opinion, that is repentance.

You see, they turned away from what was wrong and they pursued with all their effort what was right. And that in and of itself is repentance. Repentance. Yeah. So I think that's kind of how I would see it from a national level, but in the end, It should begin with you and me as individuals, that's the upstream work and then it should be a regular practice in our families.

And only then do I think that we're going to see our nation kind of turn and get back on track. 

[00:36:21] Jesse: Well, this was a bit of a longer episode, but I think this is something that's super important that we understand, and we get some, some handles on and really getting a feel for what true repentance is and what it looks like in these three different venues.

And so, yeah, we really appreciate you sharing those thoughts with us, Pastor Doug. Um, we encourage you guys to make sure you tune in on Sunday. Uh, pastor Doug, we'll kind of wrap up this little series on repentance, um, during his sermon. And you can watch that live on YouTube or@foothills.org. And we just encourage you guys to have conversations about these things.

There's these are very important things. These can be sensitive things, but you need to have these conversations because if all you do is just listen to what the media is telling you to do, or some random YouTuber, or, you know, there's tons of podcasts outside of us too. And they're all telling you to do different things.

You have to use your brain. And you have to decide what is critically thought through your beliefs and the way you think. And the only way you can do that is by having discussions, sitting in a room by yourself, it's not going to get you there. Even just listening to this podcast by itself is not going to get you there.

You have to have a conversation. You have to. Yeah. Interact and really challenge what you're thinking so that you can decide. This is what I believe. So we think you guys so much for joining us. We hope to see you on Sunday here in beautiful Boise, Idaho at Foothills Christian Church 

[00:37:43] Doug: Blessings.