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Dr. Douglas Peake Continues our discussion about Jesus' parents in the present day, by talking about the overwhelming fear the world seems to be gripped with.
Just like Matthew 5:13 says, Christians are the salt of the earth so join us as we find our saltiness on our journey through life together. Listen as Dr. Douglas Peake dives deep into the topics of his sermons each week, breaking down content, discussing evidence, telling stories and speaking into current events using biblical truths and principals.
[00:00:00] Doug: I think the issue of fear is much bigger than in our society today than people want to admit. It was really big then. It's big now. And I don't think human beings have ever really gotten over it.
[00:00:21] Jesse: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you celebrate the Christmas season! Here to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It is the season to be joyful and the goal of the Salty Pastors to help you discover joy.
[00:00:35] Doug: Discover joy, baby.
[00:00:37] Jesse: It is a journey that we are here to coach train and support and encourage you through.
But ultimately it's a journey you have to do and get us here to cheer you on.
[00:00:45] Doug: That's your joy. And we want to help you find your joy.
[00:00:47] Jesse: My name is Jesse Maher. I will be your host for this podcast and we can not do the Salty Pastor Podcast without the Salty Pastor himself, Dr.
Douglas Peake.
[00:00:56] Doug: Hey, it's Christmas.
And I'm feeling the joy.
[00:00:59] Jesse: Me too.
[00:01:00] Doug: That's good.
[00:01:01] Jesse: I used all my high energy in the intro.
[00:01:06] Doug: Yeah. Yeah. I love Christmas because it's really amazing. It's just such a, uh, when you study history and you look at when Jesus was born and you just look at what the Roman empire was doing and the state of the nation of Israel. Look at all of the brutality that existed and right in the midst of all this comes the greatest act of love and joy that changed the world.
So loving Christmas.
[00:01:32] Jesse: Gotta love it. Well, we are in our brand new series titled Jesus is Christmas. That is very important in there, I think. And we're going to be studying all the passages in the Bible that focus on the coming of Jesus, why he came, how he came and what it all means.
[00:01:49] Doug: Yeah, we started with Matthew chapter one and Luke chapter one on Tuesday.
And that was the announcements that the angel made to Joseph and to Mary separately. About what was going to happen in their life. And so we looked biblically into the implications of these announcements. What, what did they mean for Mary? What did it mean for Joseph when they heard this? And then how did they respond to these announcements?
And so these things were, are laying, so to speak, the entire circumstance, the, the construct of what God is about to do. And he chooses Joseph and Mary, you know, this very, very young couple who weren't even married. They were betrothed, which we talked about what that meant. And so these announcements before Jesus was even born are very important to the entire Christmas story.
[00:02:47] Jesse: Well, I mean, we, we talked about this announcement with Mary and Joseph and how important that is, but I mean, I see why it's important then. Cause they're like, Hey, you're having a baby. You should probably know. Right. But
it's like,
uh, What does it mean to us now? I guess we don't, a lot of people don't focus on this announcement.
It's just sort of like, uh, yeah. Then the angel told them, Hey, you're having a baby get over it and get it done.
Then we move on to this.
And then we move on to the manger scene. Right.
[00:03:19] Doug: There's a lot of really great implications for us today. And that is as first and foremost, is that the angel, uh, to Joseph, he says, do not be afraid, for taking Mary as your wife.
Okay. And to Mary, he says fear not. And so I think the issue of fear is much bigger than in our society today than people want to admit. It was really big then, it's big now. And I don't think human beings have ever really gotten over it, you know, in the book, Dune, Frank Herbert calls, fear, the mind killer, and I would even go so
uh, far as to say it's actually the heart killer. Because fear breeds tentativeness. It breeds weakness. A fear is the opposite of conviction. It's the opposite of courage. It's the opposite of confidence. Fear is the opposite of honor. It's the opposite of integrity. Uh, we, today in our society, we desperately need people of character, right?
We need more people of character, not people of low character, or weak character, however, fear stops the development of good character. Children are raised in fear. You know, our society teaches them to fear. I read a statistic just recently that a lot of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are thinking we don't even want to have kids.
And then they said, well, why? And they say, well, because you know, climate change is such a crisis. And it's like, oh my goodness, they in their endeavor to get people to take it seriously. They have raised a generation of people who are scared to death. And then you look, even look at the, the, the biggest, uh, climate change advocates.
And they're talking about a one degree change over the course of a hundred years. So it's like we got a hundred years to figure out how to deal with the problem, but the end result look at COVID, you know, I mean, you can take COVID seriously, you can take the need to be vaccinated seriously, but the propagation of
fear to motivate people it seems to be the primary thing, you know?
[00:05:41] Jesse: Well, and we see that in basically all media and especially in politics, politics, that's the biggest, um, source of recruitment, basically like you should vote for me because if you don't blank will happen, which you should be afraid of both, both sides do it.
Right. It's not this, you know, we don't tell you who to vote for, but you should be looking at the rhetoric and as a communications major, all I see is literal fear-mongering as far as you should vote for my party, cause if you don't then you know what that other party is going to do.
[00:06:12] Doug: The Earth will open up and
swallow
you whole!
[00:06:16] Jesse: Just like all it is is fear-based it's no longer a values based thing.
It's a, well, we are the better choice than what the other people are going to do. It's the, it's the least worst option is basically what they're running on rather than. Hey,
we're, we're here to make...
[00:06:31] Doug: You know,
what's interesting about it because our country's so divided is that sometimes fear is warranted.
You know, when you look at some of these ideologies that we talk about, uh, the implications are horrendous. And, uh, we should, uh, be concerned about the outcome if they're left to their own devices. However, living in fear and being motivated by fear is not a recipe for success, particularly when it comes to joy, no matter what you're facing.
[00:06:57] Jesse: Yeah. I
think there's a difference between being afraid and being concerned, right? Like there's living in fear where you can't even function. Cause I mean, a flight or flight response. Literally locked up or you can be like, oh, I see that on the horizon. I should be aware of it, but I'm not gonna hide in my house.
[00:07:17] Doug: And
if there's something that is concerning, that needs to change, the only way you can change it is if you have courage. You have to have courage and fear is the opposite occurred. Satan loves fear. He propagates fear. I be so bold as a state, that everything that is holding, not just our country back from moving forward in a positive way, uh, I would say everything that's holding every person back in their own life is due to fear. At some level, somewhere in your deepest soul, there is fear and that fear is holding you
back. You see what stops us from living in a more fullness of life and enjoying or living in the joy of who we are created in the image of God and set free from the influences of the taint in this world, uh, what stops us from that? Well, what stops us is second guessing. Uh, the confusion of what's the right thing to do, uh, this there's a lack of commitment.
You see fear causes you not to commit. Uh, there's a lack of taking responsibility for your own trajectory in life. That's fearful. All of this stuff is, uh, uh, as a result of fear, that's being propagated. I think by Satan and in the world today, they even have a name for it. You know, a meme it's called FOMO, you know, fear of missing out.
So people don't want to commit. They don't want to take responsibility. They don't want to. Uh, participate in long-term things that are going to cause them to grow and mature. They don't want to take ownership, uh, for their own existence, but these are necessary qualities. You have to have to survive the brutality of life.
You see, there's this, there's this, uh, mild deception in America and in the world today that life isn't brutal. Right. P, you know, you grow up and, you know, you're, there's always, they got a medicine or a pill to take care of that. And you know, you, you, you know, it's just medicine. They have an app for it, an app for it.
We have all this technology and dah, dah, dah, and that gives us the illusion that we're in control, but we're not. And I think COVID was a great wake up call to everybody in their spirit. Realizing is that in the end, we're not in control in the world is a brutal place. Mother nature has one goal, and that is to kill you.
And we have to, we have to face life, the brutality of life, someone called it, the, uh, the UN how was it? It was the unbearable weight of existing. So just living and being alive is difficult. Right. And guess what, if you're locked in fear. Then you'll never be able to stand up under the weight of existing, of being alive.
But boy, when you discover courage and you discover competence and you conquer fear, then that's when life actually becomes infused with meaning. Fullness and more than anything else, it's about joy. And so I know the salty pastor, I talk about abstract principles or values all the time, right? I'm always talking about those.
Um, and these are what I call upstream ideas. These are the things that are really critical to the quality of your downstream. Life, but I do that because ideas have consequences, ideas have tremendous power and influence your own ideas, influence you in ways. Maybe you never even imagined. This is why I say all the time.
What you believe is one of the most important things about you now? Out of all of the ideologies that are being presented in America right now, the cornucopia of things that you can choose from right now, the predominant amount of them that are being talked about and propagated throughout our world and in our media and in our movies and everything else are designed in an, um, they're based on a preposition, a presupposition where it's designed to create fake.
And people, and like you were saying earlier, you know, there's this, uh, the, the primary motivations of, uh, people trying to get political power over others is fear, you know? And I think what's really interesting is that you see. In the public debate, particularly where there's this desire to create fear among anybody who disagrees with their agenda.
And that is we're going to go out of our way to ruin your life and destroy your life. And a lot of people are like, yeah, it's just not worth it. You know, it's not worth
all right in the news and things of that nature. It's like, you know, they could report the facts of, Hey, we don't really know. And this is just what they're saying, but usually it turns into.
Well, scientists are saying, like, I was talking with Eli and intern in the youth department and he's like, Hey, did you see the news article where they think it's somewhat, um, launched a missile at the shore in Jersey? They found like this giant divot in the floor. And I like looked up the story and it was like a four-foot wide.
Like hole in the sand. And it's like, and they think it was just like a BottleRocket I'm like, so unless North Korea is sending bottle rockets crops, it's like it's, but it's like the news immediately jumped on it and like, it could be, it could be weapon tests.
And it's like, the news media is chicken little, you know, running around this guy is falling.
The sky is falling. The sky is falling because they're trying to generate clicks and that's their business model. That's their incentive incentives, an easy way to get peers, easy way to do it. Yeah. And so I, you know, I think that all of the ideologies in America that are trying to gain more. It are based on the dissemination and the infusement of fear into the body.
Uh, the psyche of Americans, uh, early on though, America was formed, uh, to conquer. You see what we did was well, yes, we have challenges. Yes. It's not perfect. Yes. It never will be perfect because we don't believe in a utopia. So we're going to have to con we can solve our own problems. Well, that's, what's happened, has been lost, and I think there could be no defeating, more defeating mentality.
The more, more, uh, an ideology that will Rob you of joy more than anything else in your life. Then the notion that there's no option to. Change what's going on in your life that you can't overcome it, you can't change it. You can't find a different outcome. You can't influence things. Are you absolutely in control?
No, but you're not a worthless. You're not meaningless
a passenger
on the ride. Flea on the back of a dog, that's hurdling through space. You know, this is not what you are. And I think that what I want to really get at today is that this announcement right for, uh, Joseph and for Mary begins with, Hey, you should not feed.
And on Tuesday, we talked about Joseph had no idea what the details were of the plan. You know, he had no idea. All he knew is that, look, I'm not going to fear. And so he took that as a command and he'd followed through and he did it. And I often talk in our own society. Um, about how people have been trained to think in a certain way, what they are thinking about is not as important as how they are thinking a bout it.
And what I've talked about is called deconstructionism. And what that means is you look at something and you say, well, I'm going to tear it down into its. Parts and find all the flaws in what people don't realize is that that is a presupposition called skepticism. So they look at something and they go, that can't be true.
Right. So I'm going to break it down and try to prove that it's false. Some how it's kind of looking at a painting by, you know, uh, van Gogh or Rembrandt and saying that's not beautiful. And then breaking it down, um,
[00:15:38] Jesse: as brush stroke, isn't perfect. It's not beautiful bleeding here between these
[00:15:42] Doug: oils or whatever, you know, or you say, oh, this song, you know, you look at this song and say, well, it's not a good song because you, you deconstruct it.
And your, your faith can't be real because you can deconstruct it. And. Uh, fallacy in deconstructionism and what the fallacy is is that I break something down into its minutiae, right into very these little tiny things. And then what I can do is I can make a false comparison with something else. Okay. So technically it's a straw man fallacy, and a lot of people are not aware of this.
And so what happens is that, uh, I can always find a comparison where it will prove to be false on some minor level. And then that allows me to reject the entire. Truth claim, which of course is completely false. And so what I'm trying to get at is that people in our society have been taught to think this way.
What is the result? Well, deconstructionism or skepticism breeds, fear. It breeds a fear of truth. It breeds a fear of conviction. It breeds a fear of absolute. You see, and when you fear truth, fear, conviction, fear, absolutes, you were incapable because of the way you're thinking of taking ownership or responsibility for your own life.
You feel 100% because you're filled with fear, like a victim that has no capacity to make any influential change in. Life. And that's where anxiety, depression, confusion come from. This is why young people struggle with a lack of identity. And if you have a lack of identity, here's something that's very important to understand.
You will always have an inability to value yourself. And so the reason I would say that you're struggling, people that are listening to this with anxiety is because of skepticism and deconstructionism, your, your anxiety has taken control because you've been trained to think in a certain way. And a lot of people who go to therapy to get over their anxiety issues are often, uh, Uh, exposed to a new way of thinking.
That's not skepticism or deconstructionism, but it's a different way of thinking. And so that's why we have such a massive increase in anxiety and depression among people today. The reason young men today can't find their way is because of deconstructionism, uh, the skepticism. And that is, is that well, they have been trained that.
To pursue masculine pursuits is offensive to women. Right. And, um, so here here's a side note, uh, to throw to illustrate. Uh, because I deal a lot with relationships, you know, I do a lot of research and a lot of study. And one of the things I do is I research people with contrarian views, meaning ones that are opposed to mine.
And so I listened to this guy, right. And he basically does not have a high opinion of women in general, you know, and he's talking about, so, and then I listened to this other gal. Who's trying to teach guys. How to approach women and flirt with women and stuff like that. And, and so she's so fascinated that she was talking about how guys today have been trained that telling a woman how you feel is offensive or needy.
And so guys won't do it. And she says, I don't know where this idea came from. But it's the dumbest thing in our world today. And guys have got to get over. This is that, you know, what a woman wants is to know. It's like, I want to know what he wants. You know, I want to know what's his ambition, you know, before I can even respond to anything, then I need to know.
And if guys are afraid to say, because guys are like, well, I don't want to come across as needy. And I want to know well saying what you want is actually very attractive tool. You throw it out there and you say, Hey, this is what I want. I want to spend some time with you. I want to get to know you. I want to find out if you'd be a great partner in life it's.
So, because here's something that feminism has done is absolutely destroyed dating. Okay. And what it has done is it has basically, I mean, it's a lot of things, but I want to focus in on this notion is that it has created fear in. Right that I want to approach women. So what happens is you have this huge group of men who are trying to be, uh, attentive to women and what they want right.
And respectful, but they're, they're tentative because it's based on. Well, then that reduces it to a group of guys that have no fear because they don't care. And those guys are called players as they just go out and play, play, play, and play and play, you know what I'm saying? And they denigrate women and disrespect women because their players, they, they, they have no fear.
Right. But they're the ones who get all the date. You know, they get all that attention. Why? Well, because their fear less, but they are completely misguided and they have a poor value system. So one of the things that feminism has done is that it has, uh, trained men not to state what they want in. The second thing that it has done is it has taken the idea that.
Women who are feminine now, there's all different levels of femininity and all that kind of stuff. But what it has done is it has taken away the notion that women are responders, not instigators. And so, you know, one of the things that even the strongest most, you know, achieved woman out there, you know, uh, desires a man that will pursue.
Right. That will show interest, stay focused. He will take responsibility for driving the relationship forward, give her something to respond to. So she's not guessing, you know, if a guy goes in there and says, Hey, this is what I want. You know, this is where I'm going. And then that allows her all this freedom, right.
To think about, well, is that what I want? I don't know if I want that. Do you want that? I don't know. She could talk to her girlfriends about that. She could talk to her mom and her sister-in-law about it, and she could go through all this kind of stuff and it gives her something to respond to. But the problem with dating today, I think it's frustrating women to no end is that they don't have anything to react to.
You know, they don't have cause guys aren't instigating. Right? And so this all comes at its core from the fact that you, you can't value, you cannot share what you want. If you don't value who you are, you can't value who you are. If you have no identity. You see if you have no identity in who you are and you can't find your identity.
If you've been trained to think like a deconstructionist, that's how it works. And so what people have realized is that back in the seventies, maybe the early eighties, we're going to teach everybody in our public educational system, all of our media and all of our movies, all of our journalism, all, everything is all of our politicians are going to teach people how to be skeptics.
This is what we have reaped. We sewed it now we've reaped it. And so when you want to break out of this, the admonition, I believe of the angels to Joseph and Mary are the most powerful words. Fear, not fear, not when you stop fearing, you can discover your identity, who you are in Christ. Because if you're confused about your identity and then you have no idea what your value is, you are gonna constantly go around, fighting in ways to affirm yourself.
Right.
[00:23:54] Jesse: Right. Well, and I think. I mean, we see this so many times throughout the Bible where God's basically telling people to not fear. I'm doing the Bible in a year right now. And I just am finishing, Deuteronomy started Joshua and basically two chapters back to back. God's like, don't be afraid, be strong and courageous I'm with you.
And then Moses dies. Joshua takes over and he basically tells them again, don't be afraid. Be courageous. I am with you, right? And so it's like, there's this constant fear we live with and God knows that. And he goes to tell us so often, I mean, I don't know what the statistics are, but I'm sure these are not the only other three points that he says this, right.
It's probably a consistent themes or the Bible of don't be afraid. I'm with you. We got this, but you have to believe that there's a higher power. And you have to know that he's with you in order for you to overcome this fear. That's why we're seeing so many people that have ran away from religion who are not believing God anymore are constantly living in this state of anxiety and depression and fear, right?
They don't know how to experience joy because the one person, the one thing in this universe that can give them an unsustainable or a sustainable way of going, I can have courage and strength because I don't have to be afraid because God is with me. They've ran from that. And now they're like, why am I always afraid of.
Because you ran away from the thing that gives you strength and gives you joy. So, I mean, I'm sure at this point in time, these people not just marrying Joseph, but the entire country was feeling the same thing. We're afraid things, we don't know what's going on and we don't know what the plan is. And then right in the midst of all this, God comes in and says, do not be afraid.
Yeah, this is going to happen. Jesus is coming and it's going to be great. So it's a proclamation of joy and hope.
[00:25:44] Doug: Yeah. Even in the midst of some of the darkest hours. And, and that's, I think the message that why Jesus is Christmas, Christmas, isn't Christmas, because it's fun because as great music or food or ceremonies or friends and love and generosity, it's not his birthday.
It's not anything. It's all, it's all comes back to one thing. And that is in the darkest hour. Jesus came into the world. So Jesus is Christmas. If you get rid of Jesus, if you get rid of the act of God, that there is a God and he's actively involved in this reality, if you get rid of. Jesus Christ. Then you have no joy.
You have no great feelings. You have no great food. You have no great decorations or you have no great virtues of being generous or kind, or, or, uh, lifting up the broken hearted or the healing, the wounded, or, or caring for the sick. You don't have any of that. And in our society, if I may be so salty has just gone, flipping crazy over this notion that you see this secular notion that you can have all of these great values and virtues and kindness and tolerance and love and compassion and mercy and redemption without Jesus.
That is a boatload of. That's what it is. It's absolute insidious stupidity, because if you take away Jesus, if you take away God, there are no objective morals. There are no objective virtues. There's no objective, kindness or mercy. What you do is you unleash the most brutal, dehumanizing, horrific. Evil mentality that humans have ever adopted.
We saw this in history over and over again. You saw it with the Nazis you saw with the communists. You see it in Venezuela today with the socialists and the dehumanizing way in which they destroy people is evil. And when you take away Jesus, it's not, you're not going to be left with a fun house. What you're going to be left with is mouse a tongues communists or cultural revolution in China where he massacred 50 million of his own.
So this is serious stuff. And so when people say let's keep Jesus and Christmas, you know, I agree wholeheartedly with them, but just saying, Hey, let's do that is not an option. Say we must, we must, uh, abide by this. My very life depends upon it. My psyche depends upon it. My emotional health. Courage my confidence, my strength, my sense of identity, my capacity, to understand my own value and contribution my absolute ability to stand under the weight of what it means to exist in this reality.
All depends on Jesus and him alone.
[00:28:41] Jesse: Well, I think we have. Done quite the stint through this whole ideology. This is just what I was going to say. This is just the beginning of the ending of the series. So we have lots to look forward to, but I mean, in recap, it really is. If you're living in a life of fear, if you're living in a life without gods, then you really are never going to find true joy.
You might find fleeting moments of happiness, correct? That's we're not saying that that doesn't occur in people that don't believe, but real honest, true. Wholehearted spiritual peace and joy only comes from knowing Jesus and really understanding why this holiday exists.
[00:29:22] Doug: Right? 'cause you can't know yourself until, you know, Jesus.
And that's why you have to realize that all of the great stuff that I want, even the fleeting moments of happiness have to be rooted in a true. It is ever unchanging.
[00:29:42] Jesse: Well, we hope you guys join us on Sunday as pastor Doug, um, wraps, uh, star not start, brain's a little fried. I was so excited about joy. Um, but we pray that you will do.
It's for that amazing beginning to this series on Sunday, as we always say, the salty pastor experience is only complete when you listen to Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday's message. They're all meant to go together. They're part of a three-part piece. So make sure you catch that. We're doing a lot of really fun stuff here at foothills over Christmas.
So if you're interested in being involved or getting opportunities to serve or do various things, visit foothills.org/christmas and. Just have a great holiday and really keep your mind focused on why we're here. I mean, we, I think we, we hit it pretty hard today, but you know, Jesus is Christmas. That's the phrase and that's the purpose.
Don't give it up. Thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll see you on Sunday here in beautiful Boise, Idaho.