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Pastor Matt Brown, Justin Pardee and Stephanie Keen talk through questions submitted by small group leaders about demons, paying attention to what you worship and the difference between demonic influence and possession. (Yeah, this one gets a little intense.) Guest worship pastor Travis Ryan from LifePoint Church sits down with Justin to discuss what having faith really looks like.
Real faith. Real life. Hosted by Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown of Sandals Church, The Debrief Podcast goes beyond Sunday conversations—diving into the questions, stories, and struggles that shape who we are. Thoughtful. Honest. Unfiltered.
Go go go go go go go go. I'll try that in my car a few times before I come back here. Go go go go go.
Matt Brown:I think I'm naturally a base, but I'm too uptight to let it flow freely.
Justin Pardee:Man. That's I I love you for so many reasons. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to episode three or seven of The Debrief at Sandals Church. I'm your host, Justin Party.
Justin Pardee:I'm hanging out today with Travis Ryan. What's up, Travis? Hey, man. Travis Ryan was hanging out with us here this weekend at Main Campus leading us in worship. And we're gonna jump into q and a with pastor Matt in a second.
Justin Pardee:But Travis, I just wanted to really kinda debrief the message and the sermon a little bit with you. Yeah. So this last weekend, pastor Matt was leading us through Luke chapter eight. And the bulk of the story that he was sharing with us, because there's a lot in Luke eight, was from this passage in verses 40 through 56. And ultimately, he shared with us kind of these two stories of, a guy whose daughter was sick and dying, and Jesus came to heal her.
Justin Pardee:And then this lady who interrupted that moment, and she reached out and touched Jesus because she was sick. Pretty cool weekend. Obviously, Pastor Brown was talking about evil spirits and all kinds of stuff. Man, from all of this, what part of the message really stuck out to you, maybe challenged you the most?
Dan Crowley:Yeah. One thing as he was talking and kind of going through the whole passage and, you know, the first thing that stuck out to me was the whole aspect, daughter, your faith has made you well. And that was the woman who had the discharge that Matt was talking awkward moment, right? But that was a real issue and a real problem. And so, but she came to Jesus and I just was thinking about, okay, how do I come to Jesus?
Dan Crowley:You know, what am I bringing to Him? You know, what issues or problems and that kind of stuff. And she just, just to touch, just to reach out and touch the hem, right? The garment of Jesus was enough to heal her. And Jesus obviously notices this moment and He says, I feel my power leaving, which is like, that's weird.
Dan Crowley:Like a superhero or something like that. And then, and he responds to her and he says, Yeah, daughter, your faith has made you well. And I feel like, in my own life, you know, where's my faith lacking?
Matt Brown:And I think so many times I find myself in a comfort zone.
Dan Crowley:I want to be comfortable. Don't talk to me. I mean, most of you know, us, right? I mean, it's kind of like when you go to church, you know, you're standing right next to someone you've never even met before. And you go to your happy place if you're an introvert, right?
Dan Crowley:It's like, please extrovert, don't talk to me.
Justin Pardee:I hate the part where they say, turn to your neighbor.
Dan Crowley:Yeah, and you're just like, Oh my gosh, that's the worst thing. And so the struggle is real. Right. And, but that whole aspect of stepping outside of our comfort zone, and anytime you see Jesus, or when He meets us, right? I mean, it's always outside of our comfort zone.
Dan Crowley:Yeah, He does meet us where we are. But He's always calling us out. He's calling for more. And I feel like in this whole in these two stories that happen at both times, daughter, your faith has made you well. And then, so that was the story of the older woman.
Dan Crowley:And then the story of the daughter, right, who died. And Jesus says, Do not fear, only believe and she will be well. And I feel like there's something really interesting about us as humans and our lack of belief and our lack of faith. And dude, I'm the same boat, man, you know, Jesus is calling me out saying, Come on, meet me out here. And I love the bravery and the faith of the woman just saying, Hey, I'm gonna just to touch just a part of the garment of Jesus was enough to heal her completely.
Dan Crowley:That's amazing.
Justin Pardee:You know what? I'm totally reminded of actually what happened in my community group last week, where at the very end, one of the ladies who's in our group, she just, like, said really acknowledged, like, I'm I wanna press forward into faith, I just I I wanna continue to grab onto that faith, and I'm totally reminded of that in the same thing and and how Jesus totally honors that, you know? Yeah. I loved Matt pointed out that a lot of us think that maybe Jesus is too busy or working on bigger problems like world peace and politics and
Matt Brown:Yeah.
Justin Pardee:You know, terrorism and all that kind of stuff around the world to pay attention to the the little bits and pieces of our lives that are And I love that Jesus stopped in that moment and just like totally paid attention to her as well. You know, you're you're a dad. How many kids do you have?
Dan Crowley:I have three children.
Justin Pardee:Three children and
Dan Crowley:Two boys and one girl.
Justin Pardee:Awesome. Yeah. I feel like it's it's a real fatherly moment that Jesus has there. I mean, he even calls her daughter Totally. But he just stops and totally pays attention
Dan Crowley:Yeah.
Justin Pardee:Right there. And yeah, get like gives the full attention to that lady.
Dan Crowley:Absolutely. Yeah, I think the other thing that Matt said, it was interesting, you know, obviously, in that time, in that era, you know, the class, right, the class system where women would stand with just kind of low, low bottom tier, along with children even. So, and here Jesus just meets, I mean, all throughout, right, the New Testament, you see Jesus meeting with the lower class. And, you know, man, we're found in the lower class. And here he just wants to he wants to encounter and have relationship with us.
Dan Crowley:I just love that, man.
Justin Pardee:That's so cool. And so one of the things Matt said, I loved at the end, because he was talking about this idea of us having, like, bodies are containers of our spirit. And ultimately, spirit is either gonna go to hell for eternity or to be with God. And I love the the distinction that pastor Matt was drawing there between like heaven and paradise. And a lot of folks, pastor Matt was saying, have this idea that heaven is gonna be like our hobbies forever.
Justin Pardee:Where the reality is that's not the case. What ultimately, where we get to go from here is paradise and being with Jesus forever. So it's less about stuff that we're gonna do, ultimately more about being with Jesus forever. Yeah. And as we close service here at main campus, you let us in a song called You Hold It All.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. And you wrote that song. It's one of your songs. And I love Yeah. One of the lines just towards the end or maybe some middle I don't know.
Justin Pardee:I'm sorry. It's your song. You sing it somewhere in love one the lines that you sang somewhere in that song. We just talked about every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every language and you're it really that to me feels like a song that even just the idea that God holds everything. Feels like it's accepting that reality or looking to that.
Justin Pardee:Am I? Does that seem right at all?
Dan Crowley:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the reality that, you know, at the end, right, of all of our lives, we will be either held by the hand of the Lord in His presence forever, every nation, right, every tongue, every language, and, or we'll be separated from that. And I just love how Jesus is constantly just saying, Hey, I want to hold your spirit. I want you to be with me. And so absolutely that that song very much so is talking about that.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. That was just a really cool way to end the service. I I loved it, man. That was awesome. And I could tell like our our church really did.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. Well, dude, thanks so much for coming on here. Appreciate you being on the debrief with us. It was awesome having you out here as well joining us for the weekend. Now, people can find you online.
Justin Pardee:It's travisryanmusic.com?
Dan Crowley:Travisryanmusic.com. I'm on the the tweeter as they as they say right now. I'm on Twitter. It's just travis ryan, Instagram, travis ryan, you know. Sounds good.
Dan Crowley:Totally.
Justin Pardee:Just put one first name after another person
Dan Crowley:in the space too. I'm kidding.
Justin Pardee:Dude, we can't hate on Myspace. That's literally how I met my wife.
Dan Crowley:Is really?
Justin Pardee:Wow. That's how I sealed the deal with a pretty powerful Myspace message.
Dan Crowley:Was Tom your friend? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Justin Pardee:He was, in my top eight for sure. He's in my top eight. Well, guys, Travis has got a ton of incredible music. Definitely go hit up his website this week and, support him. We appreciate you coming out here, debriefing, and let's jump into some q and a with pastor Matt.
Dan Crowley:Hey, guys. This is Stephanie. We're about to hop into our q and a time with pastor Matt, but I just wanna take a second to thank those of you who have been sending in questions from your community groups. That is the primary way we are getting questions in front of pastor Matt is having community group leaders submit those. We have a big focus on groups here at Samuels Church.
Dan Crowley:We're a big church, but our desire is to feel like a family, and groups is really where that gets to happen. So our desire for this podcast is to help equip your group so we can answer some of the questions that are coming up there and get some more information out there. So if you'd like to submit questions, go ahead and send those over to your community group leader. And if you're a community group leader who doesn't know how to submit a question, reach out to our group team. They'll help you know how to get those sent in, and we will get those here on the podcast.
Dan Crowley:So let's go ahead and get started.
Justin Pardee:Well, alright, guys. Let's jump into some q and a with pastor Matt. Once again, we got Stephanie back here hanging out with us.
Dan Crowley:What's up, guys?
Justin Pardee:Now before we jump into the q and a, pastor Matt, I got some great news I wanna share with you. I was on iTunes last night looking for the debrief on there. Three great things that are really awesome. Number one, when we launched the show, if you typed in the debrief into podcasts, we were the third result. Now now we are the second result.
Justin Pardee:We're
Matt Brown:number three.
Justin Pardee:We're number three. No. This gets better. We're the second result there. We also I was in the Christianity section of the iTunes podcast directory, and we are right there on the homepage in the new and noteworthy section.
Matt Brown:Right on.
Justin Pardee:So that is super awesome. And New and noteworthy.
Dan Crowley:Both new and noteworthy.
Justin Pardee:Exactly. It
Dan Crowley:feels right.
Justin Pardee:I would say we were for sure new. I don't know the technical definition of noteworthy, but I'm I'm sure that we qualify. And that definitely comes from all of you guys who have been, leaving us ratings and reviews in the iTunes, directory. So, seriously, thank you to you guys for helping us get higher up in the search results and landing on that new page. That was awesome.
Justin Pardee:Also, I was clicking around and there is the top 100 Christianity podcast. I mean, are you ready for this?
Matt Brown:Yes.
Justin Pardee:We are number 86.
Matt Brown:Wow. Of course, we
Justin Pardee:are. Exactly.
Matt Brown:Go on people. Help us out.
Justin Pardee:Well, I'm pretty excited because last night when I compiled this stat, were number 92. So Yeah. We just made a six unit jump in about twelve hours.
Dan Crowley:So if I could do math, I could tell you in about how long maybe we could be number one.
Justin Pardee:Exactly. Joel Osteen's number one, and I think there is
Matt Brown:no I am way nowhere near as handsome, and I can't smile as good as he can.
Justin Pardee:Oh, no. Refute both of
Matt Brown:the Seriously, if I was Colgate if I was Colgate, I would hire him as my spokesperson. The guy is the most beautiful smile in the history of the world.
Justin Pardee:That is that's true.
Dan Crowley:It's true. It's pretty nice.
Matt Brown:Colgate Crest, one of them.
Justin Pardee:And just either one
Dan Crowley:You let them duke it out, you know.
Justin Pardee:Or maybe somebody could just, like, creeping in the behind of the toilet, like, the toothpaste scene, like Arm and Hammer. You guys need to push over the top. Get Joel Osteen on
Matt Brown:the don't think Arm and Hammer can afford Joel Osteen. Alright. We love you, Joel.
Justin Pardee:Okay. Let's jump into some q and a. This is great. We got a whole bunch of questions coming in from groups. Thank you guys for sending these in.
Justin Pardee:So we're gonna go back a couple of weeks. I love this question from Grace in Jesse's group. Let me read six thirteen. At daybreak, Jesus called together all of his disciples and chose 12 of them to be his apostles. So Grace was just asking, what were the reasons, if there were any, for Jesus choosing the 12 apostles, specifically them?
Matt Brown:Yeah. So in the Old Testament, there's 12 tribes of Israel. And so, what he is, I think, mirroring is a new calling, new movement, a new covenant. And so, the original covenant is with the 12 tribes of Israel and under the Mosaic covenant. And those are the sons of Jacob whose name is later changed to Israel.
Matt Brown:And so, I think Jesus is mirroring that saying he's starting something new. And so, the original 12 tribes of Israel, their calling was always to be a light to the nations, to reach the nations. And there were periods of Israel's history where they were very successful. Jonah was successful. You know, there's many many, you know, prophets in the old testament who cry out that Israel's to be light for all the nations.
Matt Brown:Isaiah specifically says that God has a desire for those who are far away to come close.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:That's why Jesus gets so upset in the New Testament when he rids the temple of the sales people. It wasn't because he didn't like things being sold in the temple, it's because they were doing it in the area of the Gentiles. And Isaiah specifically says, my house shall be called a house of prayer, which is what Jesus quotes. And that passage is about allowing non Jewish people to approach God. Because God's heart is not just for the Jewish people, it's for all people.
Matt Brown:And so Jesus, I think is is mirroring that. And and we see that specifically, right, when Judas betrays Jesus and subsequently commit suicide and dies, one of the first things that the disciples do after they receive the holy spirit, and we'll get to this when we get into acts is, they say we have to replace Judas because in their mind and their thinking and they don't tell us specifically why, but they believe they're supposed to be 12. And so they cast lots and Mattathias, whose name is only mentioned there and then we never really hear from him again, is selected to kind of unify the 12. And so there's an understanding, at least for them at that point that they really are Israel at that point. And they don't fully understand what they are and who they are until Peter has his meeting with Cornelius and they realize that being a Christian doesn't mean you have to be Jewish.
Matt Brown:And that's important. If you are a Jew, stay a Jew, that's great and love Jesus. But if you're a Gentile, you don't need to become Jewish to follow Jesus. So, so that's why he's creating something new and really replacing that missional movement from the old testament where there were 12 tribes.
Dan Crowley:Do we know if he had any reasons for the specific 12 that he chose? Like, do we have any
Justin Pardee:Yeah. He saw Judas Iscariot and said, you That shady guy's
Matt Brown:got talent.
Justin Pardee:You shady, come on over here.
Dan Crowley:No one needs a shady
Matt Brown:guy. Guy. But, know, it says that it says that he spent all night praying. So he had more than 12 to choose from. I mean, ultimately, I think, right, you know, God's sovereign hand was there.
Matt Brown:I mean, Jesus repeatedly tells them, I chose you. So I think there were some things that he saw, you know, and that he appreciated in each and every one of them. You know, obviously, with Matthew, you know, the tax collector, you know, Jesus knew that one day this guy would write his story. And I think Matthew does an amazing job at telling us who the Messiah is. And so, you know, I mean, I can't get into the details of each and every one of them, but he saw something in them.
Matt Brown:Obviously, he saw things in Peter, James and John, the three leaders of the 12. And so, you know, it doesn't tell us why he picked those 12 just that he did and then he prayed about it before he did. So he sought a counsel from God, all night long, it says, before in Luke's gospel before he picked them.
Justin Pardee:Got it. Okay. Let's jump over here. Brianna and Jesse's group asked us a question from Luke chapter seven. Let me just read 36 verses thirty six and thirty seven says, one of the pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him.
Justin Pardee:So Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. And when a certain immoral woman from the city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Now, you basically unpacked that whole story for us in your message last weekend. But the question that was being asked here by Brianna is, did somebody invite her? Like, who invited her
Matt Brown:Yeah.
Justin Pardee:To that dinner party?
Matt Brown:Yeah. She was not invited. She would never have been invited by Simon, the Pharisee. I mean, would have nothing to do with her. Matter of fact, he's disgusted that Jesus has anything to do with her.
Matt Brown:And literally says, if he knew, if he was a prophet, he would know that this woman is unclean and we should be having nothing to do with her. So she she barges in. And so part of the problem with Jesus, right, is always crowd control. It's always an issue with Jesus wherever he is, wherever he's going, whatever he's doing, crowds are a problem just like this week we got into, everybody pressing in and they can't control the crowd. And so a woman sneaks in which again is culturally inappropriate, sneaks in touches him which is unheard of, that's just you don't even touch your own husband in public much less a prophet.
Matt Brown:And she can do that because the crowds, I mean, people are desperate to see Jesus. And so they're willing to go to prison. They're willing to be beaten. They're willing they're willing to take any kind of consequence, any kind of social consequence, even to their own physical detriment just to get to Jesus. And so she barges in.
Matt Brown:And so, you know, Simon opens up his house and people start pouring in. And so, you know, the other gospels say that there was other people there. You know, Lazarus was potentially there. Mary and Martha were there. There was all kinds of people there as well as the disciples.
Matt Brown:And so, right, it got out of hand. It's Jesus said, we're having a party, come over to Simon's house, boom, everybody plugs in. And so we see this even like when Jesus is teaching in the house and there's no room and so they cut a hole in the roof. I mean, are willing to go to shockingly increasing lengths to get to him. I mean, he literally is.
Matt Brown:I mean, you have to think celebrity to the most maximum degree that you can possibly think. I mean, think about a celebrity today where people don't care if they go to prison. They don't care if they're tear gassed. They don't care if they're pinned down. That they just feel that whatever this person is, is not only they are celebrity, but that it is healing simply by touching him.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:So we just have to we we have to think about how popular he is. He becomes so popular that Herod and we're gonna talk about him here pretty soon. Think in the next chapter, King Herod wants to see him. And Herod could care less about Judaism. Mean, he's basically, a Gentile who's claiming to be a Jew, but even he hears about it and he's like, oh my gosh, I wanna see this guy.
Matt Brown:And so Herod is the most powerful person other than Pilate at that time, in Judea. And so he's like, I gotta see this guy because the news just gets to him. So you just have to think, raving parties, like people pouring in, there's no room, houses are destroyed. Having Jesus over is very dangerous to the condition of your household and to your reputation. And so that's why Simon is disgusted and judges him.
Matt Brown:So no, she was not invited, but she didn't care. And Jesus actually seems to welcome people who don't care about the social consequences for following him because I think that's what he calls us to do today. As Christians, we're so concerned about being cool. And Jesus says, look, you need to get over yourself and there are going to be social consequences for following me. And so that's just a part of loving Jesus is not everybody's gonna get it, not everybody's gonna like it.
Justin Pardee:Right. Wow. That's great. Okay. Thank you.
Justin Pardee:We're gonna
Dan Crowley:see I know I'm like still like soaking that in right now.
Justin Pardee:Exactly. Okay. I'm we're gonna jump in into Luke eight, which we just well, I say we just preached on. You just preached on.
Matt Brown:Thank you. Well, maybe you were preaching backstage.
Dan Crowley:We listened.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. Exactly. I listened five times, so that counts. It's no, it doesn't. So we got a bunch of them.
Justin Pardee:Before we get into this awesome topic of demons and evil spirits
Dan Crowley:Yeah.
Matt Brown:I knew everybody was gonna ask about that.
Justin Pardee:Oh, yeah. We got we
Dan Crowley:got a bunch of questions. Okay. Alright. Good.
Justin Pardee:So before we get there, there's one pretty famous section of Luke chapter eight that you did not preach on and skip. You basically obviously, we just didn't have time, is the parable of the farmer scattering seeds. And he basically Jesus is telling the story that the farmer is scattering seeds, and they land on four different types of soils. And Jesus basically says, this is an analogy for the types of people that are hearing my words. And, Mara from Allen's group, she asked this question.
Justin Pardee:Are the soils listed here in the beginning of chapter eight examples of permanent conditions of people's hearts, or do we all experience this at times? She says, I know that metaphorically speaking, every good soil needs tending, but is Jesus speaking about something that's permanent? Right? There's the thorny soil, the rocky soil. Right.
Matt Brown:Well, there's the path. Yeah. So the four soils are the first is the path. The second is the rocky and I'm trying to think what the Thorns Thorns where the thorns grow up and choke out the life. And then the last one obviously is the one that falls on good soil and the other gospel say that person produces a 100 fold fruit, which means they tell other people about Jesus.
Matt Brown:And that's what fruit means in the Bible is producing fruit is sharing the gospel, seeing other souls saved. And so, what I love about Luke's account is he says the person where the seed falls on the good soil will patiently produce fruit. And that certainly was an encouragement for this week. Because sometimes I get discouraged with the results of Sandals Church, the lack of growth, the lack of salvations, you know, and so it just reminds me that, you know, if my heart's in the right place, I'm focused on patiently seeing fruit. And so I think Sandals has been an example of that over the last eighteen years is we've never grown super fast, but we've steadily grown, we've patiently seen fruit.
Matt Brown:So, I think for Jesus, what he's saying is, these are, yes, these are permanent conditions of people's hearts. So he's preaching the gospel. And when he is preaching, when the disciples are preaching, people are interpreting his words in one of four ways. One is they could care less. Right?
Matt Brown:It's a hard soil. He's dropping it. I mean, think about the metaphor of a path, right? That's transitionary. And there's people at Sandals every week.
Matt Brown:They're just there. They got dragged there. Right. They don't know why they're there. Yep.
Matt Brown:They they don't care less. I mean, we're gonna have the Easter weekend. People are just gonna show up and they have no intention. They have zero intention of ever being saved, of ever giving their lives to Christ. They're just there.
Matt Brown:And and the bible says, you know, Satan comes down, takes that seed and it's gone. You know, the next one, right, the rocky soil. There's wounds, there's hurts, there's there's things in our life that are bigger than Jesus and they harden our heart. And one of the things that's the most dangerous to a person is an embittered spirit. And and I see this all the time.
Matt Brown:People are mad at God. People are angry at God. And and they don't get it. And so ultimately, they push God away because of the hardness of their heart. And the last one is just culture life, right?
Matt Brown:The desires of the world, the things that the world says are so important. Those things choke out the kingdom from our life. And so I've seen this man, unfortunately. I've seen people get excited for a while, get involved, and fall away. I've seen it over and over and over again.
Matt Brown:And I have to say this, no one's life is ever better. No one's marriage is ever better. No one's kids are ever better. I mean, I've been doing this for eighteen years. You know, oftentimes, marriage is in divorce, kids have struggles.
Matt Brown:I mean, walking away from God is never a good thing. Having your faith choked out of you for whatever reason. It's not God that's choking it out of you. It's it's the worries and the anxieties of life. So I think that for for Jesus in the sermon, it's permanent conditions.
Matt Brown:I think the reality is those soils like she said fluctuate. And I think that we all have to guard our heart. I mean, sometimes we're just resistant to what God says. You know, I'm not gonna listen. Sometimes I'm wounded, I'm hurt.
Matt Brown:And, you know, the sins in my life, the sins that others have committed against me, those things act as shields and block God's spirit from speaking to me. And so every single week, we come into church, you know, we we hear the sermon. And the first thing that we need to do is we need to tend to the soil. And that's why I think worship is so important. A lot of people don't realize, but when you're not into worship, that's indicative of the soil.
Justin Pardee:And you're talking about like singing songs together?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Singing songs to people. I don't wanna sing songs. You don't wanna praise God? Because people who love God want to praise him.
Matt Brown:Jesus says the rocks want to praise me. Right? A dead spiritless lifeless stone on the ground, if it could would praise him. So if you don't, right, and a rock is more spiritual than you at that point. And and and I'm not saying that every single week, I'm like, oh my gosh, I just wanna sing all day.
Matt Brown:But I've learned that when I don't wanna sing, that's when I need worship. That that's when I need to be there. You know, when I wanna be there and I wanna sing, I probably don't need it. My heart's my heart's ready. But when I'm prideful, arrogant, angry, upset, whatever, you know, those things matter.
Matt Brown:Okay. Then the realities of just finances, life, relationships, those things are all in our minds. You know, you can build a big church by speaking to those issues. A lot of pastors have and and we do that from time to time. But those things dominate us.
Matt Brown:I mean, the reason that we're stressed, the reason that we're anxious is not because we're focused on God. It's because we're focused on ourselves, our lives, our wants, our desires, our needs, and those things choke the love of Jesus out of you. I mean, when you read Jesus, what is he offering physically? Not a lot. You know?
Matt Brown:Right? I don't have a house. I don't have any money. Hey, we got a big crowd of people. That kid's got a lunch.
Matt Brown:Right? I mean, that's Jesus doesn't offer a whole lot in terms of physical financial security. What he offers is eternal peace. And part of that is by quitting, stop worrying about all this other stuff. And so I think in the context of what Jesus is talking about, it's a permanent condition.
Matt Brown:And and I think that what we need to do as Christians is we need to focus sharing the gospel where there's good soil. And for many of us, we go back to the person with the rocks, we go back to the person with the path. Then And we get defeated and we say, well, no one wants to get saved. It's because, well, you're throwing seed on asphalt, bro. You know?
Matt Brown:And that's why it's getting baked out. So find your friends that are open to Jesus, that are open to the gospel. Find the relative who's interested. And a lot of times we wanna pride ourselves on arguing with the hard soil. And what I've learned is I don't have that much time left.
Matt Brown:I'm halfway through my life. I wanna spend my life speaking to, leading, and sharing Jesus with people who want to change. If you don't wanna change, I don't wanna waste my time on you. Because I only have so much time. And so so again, I said that a couple years ago and people got totally offended because I remember this one girl came up to me and she was totally mad.
Matt Brown:She's dating a guy that doesn't love Jesus, which you shouldn't do.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:You know, she's being disobedient, but she's mad at me because I think I'm dispensing wisdom. You know, why not date a guy who loves Jesus, rather than arguing with him every night, you know, that he needs to love this God that you apparently don't think is important enough to break up with him. So it's it's sad. So so yeah. So I think she's wise.
Matt Brown:I think she's dropping some wisdom there. I think that it's both a permanent condition. And as Christians, right, the condition of soil changes based upon how how do we take care of it. So
Dan Crowley:Would you say anything to maybe encourage folks who love someone dearly who seems like they are that hard soil? Like, is there anything you would say to encourage them?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Yeah. I I I would just say, you know, hand them over to God and just say, God, I'm gonna I'm gonna entrust you with this. Because ultimately, you know, the only one that can you know, I I think soil has changed in one of two ways. Primarily, right, the hand of God.
Matt Brown:God can supernaturally come in. But I do not believe that God super seeds the will. I do not believe that God forces people to accept him. I just don't accept that line of theology or that line of thinking. And so I don't believe that God will force anyone to love him, because then it's not love.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:And so, God will woo. I believe that God one of the things that we can pray for, we're gonna talk about demons. We can pray for God to remove the spiritual barriers. We can ask God to bind the demons that are darkening their spirit, their mind, their vision. We we can pray for all of the things.
Matt Brown:I mean, Jesus clearly says, one of the things that happens is the bird comes and takes it, which he says is Satan. Scare the birds away. Pray pray those things away. Mhmm. But ultimately, what we can do is love that person.
Matt Brown:I mean, when you look at how Jesus wooed people to himself, is he loved them. So be the best person you can be. Be the best representative Jesus you can be. And I believe that our behavior I mean, I'm not saying don't speak the truth. You need to you need to actually share the gospel verbally.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:People don't get saved through actions. They're just gonna say, oh, that person is a nice person. But you might be a Buddhist for all they know. Because Buddhists are really nice people. You need to share the gospel.
Matt Brown:But I think the best way to get an audience and gain an audience is to be Christ like. So does that answer your question?
Dan Crowley:No. It does. Thank you.
Justin Pardee:I I wanna go back really quickly because you just talked about tending the good soil as being, something we all need to be really intentional about. And I think you what you're hitting on maybe is where it seems to me like Mara's question was coming from a little bit. What are the strategies for doing that? Here's why. Like, you gave this an example of the singing thing, and I just feel like you punched me a little bit.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. Not on purpose, but, like, to be honest with you, when we have services on the weekend, the time of singing and worship is ultimately where I feel like the least connected or excited about what we're doing there
Dan Crowley:Yeah.
Justin Pardee:During the weekend. What are your how do we Yeah.
Matt Brown:But I
Justin Pardee:would I
Matt Brown:would push back. I've seen you in tears in worship. I I've personally seen you moved to where physically you're shaking. I've seen you cry. I've seen you moved.
Matt Brown:And so so so for you and for me and and for all of us, Stephanie included, right? Sundays is a Sabbath day. And so oftentimes, when you in the Old Testament, who had the hardest hearts? The priests. You know, it was those who worked in the temple ultimately became furthest away.
Matt Brown:And so, when Josiah in first Kings and in Chronicles or second Kings and second Chronicles, when they find the word of God in the temple, he can't find a priest who can read it. So how did their hearts grow hard? They divorced themselves from the word of God. And so I would say the first thing is, is I, you know, today I read Ezekiel chapters one through five, I tried to read five chapters a day that has nothing to do with my sermon, my prep or anything. And so I just read God's word because the Bible says that God's word is sharper than a double edged sword.
Matt Brown:It pierces both the soul and the spirit. It can separate separate what is truly inseparable in Paul's eyes. And so so being in God's word and not just to learn, but to hear from God. God speak to me. Because right, you can I mean, some of the hardest hearts in the world are professors of scripture?
Matt Brown:Some of the meanest people in the world, the biggest critics of Jesus are those who've spent their lives studying it because they believe it's a history book. And the moment that happens, right, you're done. And so for me, with the word of God is living and breathing and God speaks to me. So that's the number one thing. And then I would say is, I have to have a heart every time I read God's word to be obedient.
Matt Brown:Do I want to do this? Oftentimes the answer is no. I don't want to do this. But ought to that's a warning sign, right? It's a warning sign.
Matt Brown:Know, just like if my wife asked me, hey, take out the trash, and I don't want to serve her. That's a warning sign for the condition of my heart towards her. So when God is asking me to do something, specifically, I mean, number one question we need to ask is what is God saying? And the number two question is, what does that mean for me to do? What is He asking me to do with this?
Matt Brown:And so, you know, because obey, right, is all through the Scriptures. And God loves obedience. We need to be obedient and he's close to those who are obedient to him. So so that's what I would say. The number one way is scripture.
Matt Brown:And that's why I'm trying to get people and I had people tell me, I don't like reading one chapter a week. Who gets upset at that? That that right? You just revealed your soil. You just showed me your cards.
Matt Brown:And so, you know, spend some time in God's word. It'll soften your heart.
Justin Pardee:Totally. Okay. Let's shift gears, and we're gonna jump into some conversations about demons, evil spirits. Before we do that, Stephanie, do you have any opening thoughts?
Matt Brown:Yeah. As she takes a drink of water, I can tell.
Dan Crowley:I think my just first question was really like, we're looking at all these things as examples of people who got healed from demons, but how do they get there in the first place?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, my experience with demons, right, I grew up Baptist. And I think there's two types of Christian denominations, you know, one who see Satan everywhere, and then others who see Satan nowhere. And so I grew up in a denomination where we didn't see him anywhere.
Matt Brown:And he wasn't talked about, wasn't understood, really really a non charismatic background. And I think that's dangerous to, you know, pretend that there's not a lion in the grass prowling, because the Bible says there is. The other danger is to blame everything on Satan when the reality is sometimes you're just stupid, and you're making stupid choices. And I think people would love to blame everything on Satan when, you know, you know, if I had an affair with my wife, which I didn't, you know, that'd be convenient, the devil made me do it. I don't think so.
Matt Brown:I'm pretty sure those were my desires, that tempted me and caused me to destroy my character and my marriage and my family. So it's easy to blame, my own wants and needs on the devil. So what I would say is I think you're asking me how do people get
Dan Crowley:Demons, like they talk about people being healed of demons. How
Justin Pardee:did How did they get demons come out of
Matt Brown:her? And so so right, so the clearest passage we have, I think the most explicit passage is found in Ephesians where Paul says, do not let the sun go down on your anger. Why? Lest you give the devil a foothold in your life. And so that word foothold, right, is a place of leverage.
Matt Brown:And so we don't know exactly how this happens. But Paul seems to indicate that the emotion of anger, initially, it's not sin, like anger is a good thing to protect your family, to defend you know, your country. Know, anger is an emotion that God has given us to be used for a short period of time. But I just like I said, it's like anger is like milk. You leave it out, it goes bad.
Matt Brown:Right. Very quickly. And so, anger, you know, if left, you know, inside you gives the devil permission to have a foothold in your life. And so I think that the first thing that allows the enemy in our life is sin. Sexual sin, I think pornography is demonic, and we're giving the enemy permission in our lives.
Matt Brown:I mean, one of the reasons why God is so opposed to sex outside of marriage is because sex is an act of worship. You're either worshiping God when you participate in it, or you're worshiping something else. And so that's why God has so much to say about sex, and why it's so important to Him because how we practice sex, demonstrates how we feel about Him. And so the things that we give our lives to, drugs is another great way, right? So the word for witchcraft in the New Testament is the Greek word pharmakia, which is where we get our English word pharmacy.
Matt Brown:So drugs, it's another way. I was just talking with a person today, matter of fact, who's trying to recover from drugs, and he's telling me he's seeing things, he's seeing demons. He's seeing shadow people. I hear this all the time from people who struggle with meth. They're seeing things and I believe that those things are not just chemical manifestations in their brain, but they're actually seeing things because they're engaging in pharmakia.
Matt Brown:They're engaging in witchcraft, whether they know it or not and they're opening themselves up to stuff. And so as Christians, we need to be very very careful, you know, to the world of Ouija board is just Ouija board. I remember when I was a kid, I was 16 years old, I was at a party. We were playing this game. I'm telling you the stupid thing moved on its own.
Matt Brown:It moved. I did not like it. It terrified me.
Justin Pardee:I
Matt Brown:just think we need to be very very careful. And so I believe that demons have to have legal right to enter your life. Just like the holy spirit will not come upon you without you praying to receive the Lord Jesus Christ into your life. I think that we are born with our spirit. And like I said in the message that we are spiritual containers, and we are we are made to contain an immense spirit, the holy spirit, the heaviest of spirits, right?
Matt Brown:It is God's spirit, God's presence. So with with being made with the ability to contain that spirit, there's room for more. So in Mary Magdalene's case, there were seven other demons that manifested themselves inside her. And then in legion's case, there were thousands. So, know, I think we need to take sin very seriously.
Matt Brown:We need to be careful what we expose ourselves to. We need to be careful what we invite into our lives. Having said that, I think that the message of Luke eight is we don't need to be afraid of demons. We We need to be afraid of what demons are afraid of, and that's God. And, you know, people are always afraid of of seeing a demon.
Matt Brown:And and to me, you know, I I've seen things that I believe were demons, and to me, they're not frightening. What's frightening is what they're afraid of, and that's God. And so what's amazing about Luke eight, right? It's here's legion, thousands of demons. Jesus is not intimidated at all.
Matt Brown:And they wanna know, are you here to torture us? Is it time for our butts to be spiritually kicked? Because they know they don't have a chance. They know something about Jesus that nobody else including his followers know. He's a warrior and he never loses.
Matt Brown:Never. He's the king of kings. He's he's the head of God's army. I mean, this guy, right, is fierce. And we need to understand that there's authority in us as Christians to not be afraid of that.
Matt Brown:And so I believe that healings are a real thing. I believe that people can be delivered from demons, and we need to pray that over them. I think there's a way to do that. But when we pray over people, this is what's so important. In Luke later, Jesus talks about, you can't just go around kicking demons out.
Matt Brown:Because if you don't replace them with something else, I e the holy spirit, they will come back later with more. So we'll talk about that in a couple weeks. But it's not enough just to cast out demons. What what are you what are you filling this space with? And that's why Ephesians says, be filled with the holy spirit.
Matt Brown:Be filled with the Holy Spirit. And that's just so important. So I don't know if I answered the question completely, but I think sin, I think our choices I think the devil comes where he's invited.
Justin Pardee:Okay. Yeah. And then a second ago, you used the phrase, you know, some of these things allow the enemy to or demons to enter our life. Can you help us understand what you mean by that, like, that phrase? Like, how does that work out biblically?
Justin Pardee:What what does the teaching
Matt Brown:Yeah. I think there's I think there's two things. One is, right, demonic influence. I think people are under demonic influence and I think people are demonically possessed. Usually, it's influence.
Matt Brown:There have been very very few occasions in my life where I've seen what I would consider a genuine possession, you know, something that's like, woah, you know, I think people are under demonic influence all the time. I think Christians can come under demonic influence. I do not believe that Christians can be possessed. The Holy Spirit does not share the temple with evil spirits. By definition, I do not believe that, you know, a born again Christian can be possessed.
Matt Brown:And so, you know, God's not going to dwell with that. So
Justin Pardee:Wait, did you did I did you just share a passage of scripture? No. No. Okay. No.
Justin Pardee:I was trying to track with you on that.
Matt Brown:No. No.
Justin Pardee:Can can you help us under can you help it go into more detail on that? Because that was actually a question that we got from Taylor was about, can Christians, genuinely born again Christ follower, be filled with one or more evil spirits?
Matt Brown:No. No, they can't. And so the problem is, right? We don't know who's genuinely born again. We can look for evidence, we can, right?
Matt Brown:So, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, you know, selflessness, you know, the nine fruits of the spirit. The problem is non Christians can manifest those things. I mean, people have the image of God imprinted upon them. And so some people are just nice. You know, they're nice without Jesus.
Matt Brown:They're kind without Jesus. They're they're loving without Jesus. And some Christians with Jesus still aren't loving, still aren't kind. And so ultimately, you know, we we don't know who's born again. I think I think people can know.
Matt Brown:I think you know. You know when you've had an encounter with God, you know when you've been changed. You know when things are different about your thinking, about your feelings.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:You know when things are when you when you have a desire to act differently. And those things are, you know, the manifestation of regeneration. At Sandals Church, we believe that a born again Christian is regenerate. They are changed on the inside. They are different on the inside.
Matt Brown:And so they have a desire and a want to to follow God, to listen to God. They have God's spirit in them. They want to please God because they love Him, not because we're trying to earn anything, but because Christ has earned it for us and we just just love and adore Him. So, let's go back to the difference between influenced and Okay,
Dan Crowley:that was my next question.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So, again, so I think people are influenced by evil spirits all the time.
Justin Pardee:Including genuine believers.
Matt Brown:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the apostle Paul says, right? When you're in a group and someone speaks by the spirit. So he's talking about in a church service, Christians are gathered and a spirit speaks, someone speaks by the spirit. He says, test the spirits, test them.
Matt Brown:Does it line up with scripture? Does it line up with God's word? Does the group as a whole feel like that's the Holy Spirit because, you know, the spirit world, we don't understand the spirit world and people who say they do, I mean, they're lying. They're not being honest. We're stepping into a realm that we see dimly.
Matt Brown:We don't see it clearly. And so we have to be very very careful. I had a woman in our church and I don't wanna jump off on a tangent, but she told me that God's spirit told her that homosexuality is okay. She told me She told me that. And I'm sitting there looking at her.
Matt Brown:I said, well, the spirit who wrote the Bible says differently.
Justin Pardee:So
Matt Brown:she believed and she's convinced people in our church that she was accurate, that she heard from God. I'm telling you, I told her, I said, I think you heard from a spirit, a powerful spirit, a God like spirit. Right? Right. But I don't believe that you heard from Yahweh.
Matt Brown:I don't believe you heard from Jesus, because he's not a God of confusion. And he's not going to say one thing in scripture and then tell you something different. That's ridiculous. But people, good people, people who consider themselves I mean, she she considers herself a Christian, believe she heard from God. I'm telling you, I am telling you she did not hear from God.
Matt Brown:Right. And I believe she's being influenced by the demonic and the demonic speaks. And here's the number one way, how do you know the difference between the holy spirit and a demonic spirit? I think demonic spirits tell us what we wanna hear. Yep.
Matt Brown:I mean, right? What does Satan tempt Jesus with? Everything he wants food, wealth, fame, all those things. Right? If you just worship me, I'll give you everything you want.
Matt Brown:And and and let's talk about that. How do people get possessed? They want. They're not willing to wait. They're not willing to be patient.
Matt Brown:I want to be rich. I want to be married. I want this. I want I I I want to experience this. I want to feel that.
Matt Brown:Man, as soon as our desires, as soon as our worship transitions from God to something else, the devil's there. And he's like, I can make that happen. And that's what he tells Jesus. Right? I can make that happen.
Matt Brown:He has authority. I can give you stuff. I mean, one of the questions we always ask ourselves is why are evil people so blessed? Right?
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:Well Yep. According to Satan, he has some ability to bless. And it's not blessing in the holy sense, it's blessing in the financial sense
Justin Pardee:Yeah.
Matt Brown:In the sexual sense, in the, you know, all kinds of ways that we would want, you know.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. And the reason we're using that word blessed is because our just like perception or ideas of what blessing means are really limited to those physical categories.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So, you know, I think that we need to watch it. So I think that we're all from time to time under influence. There was a time in my life where, I was going through depression and I was going through some darkness. And I went to a fellow pastor, and he told me, man, he said, you were under demonic influence.
Matt Brown:And I was kinda like, what? And he's like, he said, why wouldn't the devil attack you, Matt? He said, you're the shepherd of a large thriving church. To him, it was shocking, that to me, it was shocking that I wouldn't be being influenced. And my issue was, I wasn't living in the freedom of grace.
Matt Brown:I couldn't forgive myself for some things I'd done in college. And I was allowing those sins to just weigh me down. And he just told me, he said, you are being lied to. You are forgiven. And he rebuked that in me and man, I'm telling you, my life was different.
Matt Brown:My life was different. I was under physical spiritual attack. And and I was just stupid. And I knew it the second he said it, I was like, you're right. You're right.
Matt Brown:And so I've experienced that in my own life. And there was when he said it to me, there was a physical change in my life. There was a physical contortion that happened to me. And I don't like I said, I don't believe I was possessed. I believe I was under attack, under attack.
Matt Brown:And he and he commanded them to leave me alone and great guy, he wrote a book called Defeating Dark Angels. His name is Doctor. Charles Kraft. He's a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, and I don't agree with him everywhere theologically. But I can tell you this, he changed my life, man, he opened my eyes.
Matt Brown:So we all need to be aware of this. Marriages can come under attack, our consciousness can come under attack. You know, our thought life, we need to look at those things. Not all depression is demonic attack. But it's not always just chemical.
Matt Brown:And so I would say this, that attack is usually, you know, one of three things. It's spiritual, it's physical, or it's emotional, or it's all three. And so what we have to do as Christians is we have to exercise wisdom in helping people. Cause in a charismatic church, right, you can be depressed, chemically depressed, and they just pray over you and smack your face in the name of Jesus.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:And you're still depressed. And now you feel because it may not have been demonic. It may have just been a chemical issue that you struggle with. And so there may need to be medication that needs to be taken to help that. And we need to not to be ashamed of that.
Justin Pardee:Absolutely. Okay. Okay. So let me ask you this question. You talked about the healing experience you had from coming to an understanding and acceptance of the the influence Yeah.
Justin Pardee:And then rejecting that. Can we help one another in that? Like, every everybody listening to this podcast that's in community groups, can we help one another step into that place? If so, how how do we even do that? Like, Stephanie and I are in group together.
Justin Pardee:How do I help her?
Matt Brown:Right. You know
Dan Crowley:What are trying to say?
Matt Brown:Well Yeah. That you are demonically influenced. No. I I I think that what we need to do is we need to be very careful when you say, you know, using Stephanie as an example, but you know, hey, Steph, I'm just sensing some things in your life that don't match up with God's spirit. Some fears you're sharing, some anxieties you're working through, and I feel like we need to pray through this, specifically.
Matt Brown:You know, and I would just, you know, don't go around slapping people on the head with Jesus, you know, casting out demons. You gotta be very very careful. There's, you know, seven sons of Sceva in the book of Acts that have a really really negative encounter with a demon possession that goes bad. And I love that story, you know, they go in, you know, try to kick out this demon and they they run out naked and beat up and bloody. So you gotta be really really careful with what you're doing because when someone is possessed, it's a dangerous thing.
Matt Brown:I remember the I've had several encounters with what I believe is possession, but one of them was a good friend of mine, who was a great guy at one point. I I I'm assuming he was never born again. That's an assumption I'm making. Because I believe that he was he was and may still be demonically possessed. But we went out to dinner with he and his wife and I didn't know this, but they were going through a divorce, that they weren't sharing that information with us.
Matt Brown:The whole dinner was awkward that night and things just didn't feel right. And I had a dream that night of the dinner, it replayed. And in the dream, his face changed, And a demon's face came forward. And said this, he is mine. Yeah, it was terrifying.
Matt Brown:So of course, what do I do? I get up the next morning freaked out, call him say we gotta have coffee. And I confront him with this. And I'm like, dude, I'm scared for you. And he gets ticked off because what he thinks happened is he thinks that his wife called us and told us what was going on.
Matt Brown:And she didn't. And of course, marriage didn't make it and his life's never been the same. I truly believe that that guy was possessed and may still be I'm not in relationship with him anymore, but it was terrifying. And, you know, I've seen that. And like I said, so possession is right, what's the difference between influence and possession?
Matt Brown:Influence, the person is still in charge, they're being influenced. Possession is they are no longer doing it. An evil spirit is doing it in and through them. And so that's why Legion, Jesus doesn't speak to the naked guy, which I love that story, right? Naked guy is cool.
Matt Brown:Right? He speaks directly. He says, who are you? And he's not speaking to the naked scary guy. He's speaking to the demons that are inside him.
Matt Brown:Because they're controlling him. And so, and again, don't freak out. Jesus completely controls the situation. Sends him into a group of pigs all you animal lovers out there, get over it. So right.
Matt Brown:People are like, oh my gosh, Jesus would never do that. We're just we're so sensitive. We're just gotten so wussy. It's just so sad.
Dan Crowley:Okay. So But to follow-up on that, so let's say you do have somebody in your community group who it seems like they're still clearly in charge, but there is something that's clearly influencing them or weighing them down. How would you suggest kinda going about that conversation or even praying for them?
Matt Brown:Yeah. No. So so for example, let's say let's say you have a like in your group, Stephanie, you have a, a young gal in your church that loves Jesus and all of a sudden she's sleeping with her boyfriend and you know it. And you say, hey, I wanna talk to you about this. And she is completely uninterested in any truth, in anything you're saying, like you're saying truth, she she she or he, you know, Justin will say it some they, you know, whoever it is, they agree with everything you're saying, but they don't care.
Matt Brown:So they're listening to something. Something is speaking to them that has greater influence in their life. And so that's when we need to so and here's the mistake that Christians make is we try to theologically, we try to, you know, in a cognitive way, get them to see the truth. And what we need to do is say, I just really feel like we need to pray because I feel like you are being influenced by something that is not God.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:Because they know everything that you're saying is true. They don't care. That's influence. Possession, call the church. Don't don't handle that on your own.
Matt Brown:You know, I I've seen things go, you know, horribly wrong. You My friend Charles Kraft, one time when he was in a situation, he pointed at a person and said, you need to calm down in the name of Jesus and that person almost bit his finger off. He put his finger in the gal's face. And I said, what'd you learn? He said, don't do that again.
Matt Brown:So he doesn't put his finger in people's faces that he thinks are demonically possessed.
Justin Pardee:Hey, I feel really good because you pointed your finger at me in that example.
Dan Crowley:No. He's pointing at me. Think I'm still on the outs here.
Justin Pardee:Well, I'll pass the test.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Everybody knows that you're the most holy one in the group.
Justin Pardee:Oh, man. Oh, man. Okay. So we were talking about animals and all this stuff. Here's a question from EJ in the, Bockers group.
Matt Brown:First guy question. Thank you.
Justin Pardee:Yes. Could be Aaron Jesse, like, e Aaron with the e again. I don't know. Okay.
Matt Brown:Terry, if you're down. Either
Justin Pardee:way. EJ? Yeah. You're probably okay. Here we go.
Justin Pardee:At the end of the story where the where Jesus Jesus pushes these guys out What? Snooped Jesus. Jesus. Yeah. Exactly.
Justin Pardee:Take take them to church. So the demons go into all these pigs, like Jesus sends them over in there. So here's a question. Can demons ever really be destroyed or do they just find another inhabitant? Yeah.
Matt Brown:Yeah. And so that's key. And so we're gonna get to that later. Until they're imprisoned, yes, they they just go from place to place. And so, Jesus will talk about that, you know, as we move forward in Luke and I I don't wanna get to that yet because we can talk about when we get there.
Matt Brown:But he talks about when you cast out demons from a person and you leave them empty, you don't share the gospel, they don't receive Jesus. It says they'll come back. And so demons are demons are disembodied spirits and we don't we don't understand everything about them. But we know this. It's very clear from the book of revelations that says, as human beings, we will never be disembodied spirits.
Matt Brown:So so there's there's some kind of longing by a spirit to be embodied. They long that they don't have that. We have bodies, we long to be filled with God's Spirit. And so, their longing in their separation from God. And again, I'm speaking in, I'm not sure of this, but I'm sure of this that they long to be embodied somehow, and they're not.
Matt Brown:Why they do that? It's conjecture. So I don't sure I'm not speaking theologically authoritative on that point. But they're longing to be embodied. And so whether it's a human or an animal, they don't want to be a roaming spirit.
Matt Brown:And so, and we don't know why. But, we're not created to be just spirits forever. We're going to have bodies, heavenly bodies. So when God created us, he meant us to be spirits and a body somehow married, you know, united. And those two things are to work together.
Justin Pardee:Right. Man, so that is a whole bunch of stuff.
Matt Brown:That was all seven questions?
Justin Pardee:I don't feel like that was all seven. We hit a bunch, dude. I think we probably ended up on, like, 14 different questions there for sure. That was awesome. Next week, we're gonna be in Luke chapter nine.
Justin Pardee:I imagine from this, we'll probably get some more Luke chapter eight
Matt Brown:Yeah.
Justin Pardee:Demon questions. So that was super great.
Dan Crowley:Or other questions. It doesn't have to
Justin Pardee:Oh, yes. Exactly. That's right. Let's talk about the seeds some more, guys, because this demon stuff's really freaking me out.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Well, yeah. And then that's what I wanna share with people is, you know, healthy fear for a Christian is a healthy fear of God. We don't need to be afraid of the devil. The Bible says greater is he that is in you that is in the world.
Matt Brown:Jesus is never intimidated by the devil ever in any way, shape, or form. The apostle Paul says, we are not unaware of his schemes. You know, so the devil has power, the devil has authority. The devil is, you know, a very very powerful being, but he has nothing compared to God, absolutely nothing. And we need to have confidence in that.
Matt Brown:We need to rest in that. And again, if you're afraid of demons, what I would say is your heart has slipped in your love for God, and you need to just again, refocus on on God's love for you, and God's heart for you and God's desire for you because so so in Luke nine, I'm gonna skip forward. He sends the disciples out with this commandment, preach the gospel and kick demons out and heal people. So he gives them that same authority. He gives them that same authority.
Matt Brown:So we need to entrust that Jesus has placed, you know, he tells Paul, or Paul tells Timothy, that we have not been given a spirit of fear. Not a spirit of timidity. We have been given a spirit of power and self control. And so we need to remember that that we don't have to be afraid of those things. And so, there are certainly situations where I'm like, woah, that was weird.
Matt Brown:Or we need to
Justin Pardee:pray
Matt Brown:and we need to pull back and refigure out what we need to do. But, I don't think we need to be afraid of evil. We need to ask Jesus to deliver us from evil, or the evil one, which you can translate the Lord's prayer that way. So so I just wanna encourage people, you know, hopefully, this podcast won't give you nightmares. You know, again, what Jesus is offering is shalom.
Matt Brown:Peace, peace with him, peace with yourself, peace with others. And that's the beauty of being a Christian. And we don't need to be afraid of this. But we don't need to be we need to be careful that we're not blind to this stuff. Not everything is simply a disease.
Matt Brown:So much of this mental illness, and I think so much of the reason why we're struggling as a society, treating illnesses, mental illnesses is because we're refusing to acknowledge a spiritual component. And I think that's very, very dangerous. And so, there have psychiatrists, famous psychiatrists have come to faith in Christ, because of the presence of demonic things that they've seen in counseling. I can't think of his name right now, but he wrote The Road Less Traveled. He wrote People M the
Justin Pardee:Scott Peck.
Matt Brown:Thank you. Way to pull that up. M Scott Peck, right, became a Christian. He was an atheist, became a Christian because he was a psychologist for the United States Army and he was investigating evil. And so he wrote the book, People of the Lie.
Matt Brown:We're telling ourselves a lie. We're saying evil doesn't exist. It is real. And that's not to say that there aren't real mental illnesses that needed to be treated. Absolutely.
Matt Brown:But here's the thing is, we don't know. We don't know where the spirit ends and the flesh begins. We don't know. And because they were designed to work seamlessly together. Now we're broken, we're all we're all in a fallen state just like our bodies don't work perfectly.
Matt Brown:That union is not perfect. And so my question is, they always say, well, a person that struggles with mental illness sees people that aren't there. And I always say, well, what if they're seeing something we're not seeing? You know, and so I and the assumption, in arrogance is that these crazy people are seeing things that don't exist. Based on What if they are seeing things that exist?
Matt Brown:And that's not in every case in every situation, but I just think again, the medical profession has done not done people struggling with mental illness justice because we're not treating the spirit. What what we need to treat things, you know, and obviously, atheists are never gonna do that. But as Christians, we need to care for the soul. We need to care for the spirit. And so, anyways, I know I'm talking.
Justin Pardee:No, man. This was really great stuff. Thanks for, I mean, all these questions were great. Thank you for those of you guys who wrote in with questions this week. Yeah.
Justin Pardee:Send them, man. Please, if you've got questions that you wanna get on the show, reach out to your community group leader and, they'll get them over to us. And if you're not in a community group, man, you should plug into one. We'd love to help you do that here on the weekends. Thanks, Matt and Stephanie.
Justin Pardee:Appreciate you guys.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Good good community group. I would just say, just like your body was made to contain a spirit, Christians remain made to be in community. And if you're divorcing yourself from Christian community, that's a really unhealthy thing in your life. So I would encourage you, I'm in a small group, I've been in a small group ever since I've been at Sandals Church.
Matt Brown:And I just would encourage you to, if you're not in one, start one or find one, but you're missing out on what God wants to do for you. So thanks for listening. I really love you guys and I'm I'm grateful that you listen. So God bless.
Justin Pardee:Seriously, we also really appreciate all these reviews. Johnny Cortez, Johnny Johnny. Jay Haim, Cherilyn, Allen, Unchewable, all you guys so far.
Matt Brown:Did you say Unchewable?
Justin Pardee:That's that's the guy's name right here in iTunes. He left us a
Matt Brown:Thank you.
Justin Pardee:Five star review. Listen. He said dynamic podcast that reviews the sermon and more. That's it.
Dan Crowley:This seems me. We are
Justin Pardee:the you and more. All those reviews matter. We really appreciate you guys, and we'll be back here next week.
Matt Brown:Yeah. See you.
Justin Pardee:Okay. I gotta tell you guys this story. Back in 2005, I got dumped on a Tuesday and we'd been dating
Dan Crowley:That should be like a country song. Yeah.
Justin Pardee:I'm pretty sure it is. We've been dating for like we've been dating for like seven years. I got dumped on a Tuesday night. I'm like sad, lonely. So I call one of my coworkers up.
Justin Pardee:I was like, dude, I don't know what to do right now. He's like, let's go to the movies. So we go to the movies at like 10:30 at night and we saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I knew what
Matt Brown:you were gonna say.
Justin Pardee:That was the most terrifying movie I ever saw in my horrible life.
Matt Brown:Yep. What was her name?
Justin Pardee:Legion. Oh, oh, yeah. Exactly. And that dude that
Dan Crowley:I refuse to watch
Justin Pardee:that movie. That movie is so terrifying.
Dan Crowley:That movie
Matt Brown:is the best the best was the only thing I didn't like about it was that she wanted to be healed but couldn't. That's the only thing I didn't like. Right. Right. Is that she truly loved God.
Matt Brown:I thought that was lame.
Justin Pardee:The the we were we were so scared and nobody else was in the theater because it was late night. At one point, this the guy who I was with, who is actually now my brother-in-law, he just turns to me and said, we can leave and no one will ever know. And I I looked back at him and I said, we can do this. And I put up the moving armrest in the movie theaters. The first time I ever used that to, like, snuggle up to someone Yeah.
Matt Brown:Was with a dude. Okay. So I wish we I wish we could put this on the podcast because I'm gonna throw Carlos Whitaker under the bus so bad right now. And please tweet him, mock him for the rest of his life. So I went to see the exorcism of Emily Rose with Carlos Whitaker.
Justin Pardee:At loswit on social media. Everybody knows this
Matt Brown:guy. At loswit as whatever. Right. Yeah. Okay.
Matt Brown:He is like a little girl and and I love little
Justin Pardee:girls, but he was the biggest he was In the biggest
Dan Crowley:an an appropriate manner, please.
Matt Brown:Sorry. He was he was the biggest wuss in the world. So we watched that movie. Right? And he he put his feet he wouldn't let his feet touch the floor.
Dan Crowley:Well, no, you don't. You don't. They need to
Matt Brown:be Then called out starts anything cussing with me. Then he pulls his t shirt completely over his face during the movie. It gets better. It gets better. So they're in that scene where there's a trial case and and and and the lawyer yells at the priest and he's all, you're telling me it was Satan?
Matt Brown:And right when he says that, we have an earthquake in Riverside. And he goes,
Justin Pardee:and the whole theater starts shaking and Carlos goes, and like, run dude, runs out of the theater and leaves me in there all by myself.
Matt Brown:And then he comes back in, he's like, you're never gonna tell anybody about that. Right?
Dan Crowley:So Welcome to the Debrief.
Matt Brown:So we get home we get home and my wife's first comment was, oh my gosh. There was a big earthquake and all I could think about was you're watching a demon movie. So I wish I'd shared that in the podcast, man.
Justin Pardee:Oh, man. Well, we live and learn.
Dan Crowley:I'm gonna do Whitaker. Carlos
Matt Brown:Whitaker, I love you, but you wussed out, man.
Justin Pardee:I don't blame him. Me and you both, brother. I'm right
Matt Brown:there with That movie was horrible. Awesome.
Justin Pardee:It's terrifying.
Matt Brown:Oh, that's awesome.
Justin Pardee:Terrifying.
Dan Crowley:Yeah. Still checking out too much to even see it.
Justin Pardee:So