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Join us Across the Counter from Zach Lee known for the 'Help My Unbelief' Podcast and Matt Hogan, recognized for his work with the Carolina Panthers podcast.
In this OTC Episode:
• Zach's story is not your typical testimony; it's a revelation of a calling that transcends traditional broadcasting, purposed to resonate with the hearts of both believers and non-believers. We traverse the landscape of divine communication, scriptural alignment, and the Holy Spirit's influence on our faith journeys, aiming to build a bridge over the chasm that often separates divergent worldviews.
• We dissect how to hear from God through Elihu's perspective from the Book of Job. The discourse takes a turn towards the philosophical, questioning the impossibility of deceit and sin in the nature of the divine, and ventures into the terrain of human predictability, reflecting on my past life as a police officer to untangle the intricacies of divine foreknowledge. We approach these deep waters not with the intent to argue, but to foster comprehension and share personal insights on the delicate dance of conversion within our spiritual practices.
• We round off our conversation with a candid examination of spiritual experiences, discussing the importance of authentic faith encounters in one's spiritual walk.
Connect with Across the Counter:
Instagram: @acrossthecounterpod
Website: www.atcpodcast.com
Listen to the Help my Unbelief Podcast anywhere you get good podcasts!
Beliefs espoused by the guests of ATC are not necessarily the beliefs and convictions of ATC.
That said the intent of our podcast is to listen, remain curious and never fear failure in the discovery life giving truth. Many people we ardently disagree with have been our greatest teachers.
00:00 - Unique Christian Ministry Conversations
10:27 - Discussion on God's Nature and Truth
17:10 - Debating God's Foreknowledge and Human Predictability
32:03 - Exploring Faith and Extraterrestrial Life
37:49 - Bible Verses and Spiritual Experiences
42:40 - Showing Love to Unbelievers Helps
Hi, this is Grant Lockridge and I'm here with Matt Hogan and Zach Lee. Matt Hogan's the guy for the podcast of the Carolina Panthers, so he's a he's a massive deal hanging out with a small guys over here. Zach Lee is the guy from the help my unbelief podcast. It's a pretty cool thing that basically they are a podcast specifically designed for the non-believer, which I thought was really cool. They interview a Prishtian witch and Norse Pagan and all sorts of things. So he's kind of a counterpart to our podcast of where, somewhat designed for someone who's around the Christian space and he's designed for the non-believer. So this is an off the cuff episode. So I just wanted to kind of talk about whatever. But, zach, tell me a little bit about what you're doing now, kind of how you got started and all that jazz.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you don't mind, I'm going to be crazy and spiritual, just like I am on my show, Like I'm just going to be. I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Bro, if it's honesty, we're out, by the way, like we don't want honesty on this thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't like that, Okay, get rid of it. So everything was normal and I created my podcast and and that's it. No, I'm kidding Truthfully, like when I anything that I've ever done before, like that I've created, and stuff like that, like I put my, my energy, my brain power into it, my will into it. But what's been cool about this situation, this podcast, this ministry we call it a ministry now we're ministering to people is the name of the podcast. Everything came directly from God. I sat on the name of this show for a year before I even came up with the concept. Like I felt God gave me the the help man believe podcast, the name. And and then, a year later, I was running around the park and I felt like the Holy spirit told me to take my headphones off and just walk, just with nothing. And I said okay, and I started walking and I heard God tell me the Christian podcast designed for the unbeliever. And that's when I started thinking. I was like, wow, like in sales, when you're in sales, you, you have to find a hole in a market to be on line. If there's no buyers for something, there's not a hole in the market, then you're just joining a rat race with everybody else and I didn't just want to start another Christian podcast. You know I wanted to find a hole and I figured, like churches, christian media, k love music everything is designed for a person that already believes in God. It's literally specifically designed for a person that believes in God, and then it helps bring them you know, bring the disciple, them further into it. And so I wanted to create an environment that was designed for something that someone that didn't believe in God at all and make it comfortable in there. So we created this show.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome man. So how do you know that something's from God, like? How do you know that it's not kind of like? Oh, I thought about this. How are you sure that, like hey, that came directly from God?
Speaker 2:So since I was a kid, I've been communicating with God and it's a, it's a gift of the Holy Spirit and it's it's a. It's hard to explain because it's different. Like I, I'm always, I'm always sure. When it's God, like whenever it's my thoughts, like when it's the Holy Spirit, it's always something that's what do they call that Edifying where it brings you up and it encourages you and helps build you and it helps grow you. Whenever it's Satan, it brings you down, it tears you down, it tries to make you causes doubt, chaos, stuff like that, and but whenever it's the Holy Spirit, you just know and then God usually confirms it. And then also, you want to make sure that it never goes against scripture. If something goes against scripture, then you know it's not going to go against. You know it's not from God as well.
Speaker 1:So that's solid. If it doesn't align with scripture, that's. That's a win right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you always. You always go back to scripture and I mean do you, do you have a relationship with the Holy Spirit? Do you believe like the Holy Spirit still communicates with us to this day?
Speaker 1:I do it just for me. I'm always kind of like in the middle of the most camps that I found myself in in Christianity. So I've heard about some wild stuff and I've seen some wild stuff that it's almost borderline Pentecostal I'm probably more not traditional because I'm not like Catholic but I'm non-denom, but, yeah, probably more in the camp that, like you know, you can definitely hear from the Holy Spirit. I think that that's valid, but for me I thought I thought it was kind of cool of what you said, that you knew it was from God, which is kind of aligns with scripture of like my sheep will hear my voice, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I thought that was kind of cool. Trust me, I'm an insecure little kid and everything in me wants to, wants to take credit for this thing because I think it's going to be pretty cool. I think it's one of the most unique ministries in the world. But I can't. I wish I could explain, I wish I could articulate properly how I knew it was God, but all I know is I've been, I've been communicating with God since I was a little kid. I genuinely believe, and it almost always comes at night. And if you look in, I think Job 33, it talks about how God talks to people. I really believe God talks to us. You know, of course, there was the burning bush and the and the, you know the Mount of Transfiguration and and in the lake where Jesus was baptized, where it seems like God may have been audible in those moments. But I believe, for the most part, god has still talks to us in our spirit, the same way that he did back then as well. So, and I believe that's biblical, I wish I had a Bible on me to read Job 33 to you, but Dude, I'll.
Speaker 1:I'll slap some Job 33 while I'm finding it. You got anything, matt? Well, I was just. I'm a little.
Speaker 3:I'm coming in a little raw so I apologize, but you talk about your ministry being incredibly unique. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Assuming I know nothing, because I actually don't grant, I was hanging out with Grant today. Invited me on to the show I love. Grant today invited me on, so I figured why not? So I'd love to hear a little bit more about what you guys are doing.
Speaker 2:OK, do you know what Christian apologetics is?
Speaker 3:I can infer, but I don't know the actual translation. But I could probably make a guess.
Speaker 2:So let me just kind of just put it in layman's term that Christian apologists are basically Christians that go out and they get in debates with unbelievers. They debate unbelievers and they really tear them down. Like there's this guy named Jeff Durbin that really goes out and just refutes people, which I think there's a place for that right. But we are the opposite of Christian apologists. We don't listen to refute. We do not listen to people's stories to refute them. Most apologists are literally writing down things that they're saying and coming up with rebuttals, as the person's saying, and we didn't look at that as a valid way of listening and trying to understand someone. So we genuinely listen and it makes us uncomfortable and Christians uncomfortable. It's like you should have called them out, you should have done this and you should have done that and told them that they were doing wrong. And I was like bro, they know, they know that if what you believe in is true is wrong. So we create this platform, this space of where we listen. We listen to people, we listen to their beliefs and we treat them with love and then at the very end of the show, we do something called the rounds to where all of us get to say something and closing, and then the guest gets to have the final say and we'll go around the room and we'll just, you know, tell them. We'll tell them about Christ and tell them why we, why we value a relationship with him, why we think he's the only way, and then, you know, thank them for coming on and not trying to devalue their story, and then we really try to build relationships with him. Like I was telling Grant a little while ago, the guy that does my social media, he's an atheist and I love the guy. I love him. He was just with me today. He was having some issues in his personal life and he called me and told me about it and he lives a couple hours away and I opened my house up to him and he came down and stayed with me a couple days. He came, helped me with my roofs that I was telling you I was doing. He actually witnessed me fall off the roof and laughed. So typical atheist. You know what I mean. But I love the guy. I love the guy, I'm close with him and I genuinely believe he'll come to know Christ someday. But that's not why I hang out with him either. I don't know. He wrote me this note the other day and it was really encouraging. It's right here in my visor. He actually wrote it to me yesterday. He said, zach, you said you were going to be a preacher. He said you're the best preacher I've ever had. Do not give up. And so I think what we're doing is it's working and I definitely don't consider myself a preacher. I've got a long ways to go before I get there but I think, if our goal is truly to get people to know Christ, I think, going the route that Christians normally go, I don't think we're on the right track. And that's what we're doing. We're actually aiming to turn the person into believing in God.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's fair, I love it. So Job 33, this is Eli Hu, which is isn't that the young guy that's like crazy awesome, like when he comes into seeing and Job, like he's the guy that actually speaks truth, and friends kind of suck the whole time. And then that comes in and he's like, all right, this guy's got something good to say. So, yeah, so Job 33, you just want me to read the whole chapter. What are we after?
Speaker 2:Well, because it'll talk about how, an example of how God talks to us, and so you can stop after we kind of get over that. But I'm just saying general, cause I don't know the exact verse, so I know it's Job 33.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll edit it. We'll cut out the Bible verses that aren't needed you know which is which makes sense. No, I'm just kidding. We're not gonna cut it anyway. We never cut anything. All right, but now hear my speech, o Job, and listen to all my words. Behold, I opened my mouth. The tongue in my mouth speaks. My words declare the uprightness of my heart and what my lips know. They speak sincerely. The spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Answer me, if you can Set your words in order before me. Take your stand. Behold, I am toward God as you are. I too was pinched off from a piece of clay. Behold, no fear of me need terrify you. My pressure will not be heavy upon you. Surely you have spoken in my ears and I have heard the sound of your words. You say I am pure, without transgression, I am clean and there's no inequity in me. Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me as his enemy. He puts my feet in the stocks and watches all my paths. Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you, for God is greater than man. Why do you contend against him, saying he will answer none of man's words? For God speaks in one way and in two. The man does not perceive it In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men while they slumber on their beds. Then he opens the years of men and terrifies them with warnings that he may turn aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man. I think that that kind of that was enough. It's got another I don't know 20 verses, but that was probably the part you were talking about, I guess.
Speaker 2:If we're gonna talk about the Bible, I should probably get a little more honed in on verses and stuff, because that was a really long ways down there so I apologize. But yeah, he talks to us in dreams and visions. He talked to us in dreams and visions and he still does that to this day. Man, I genuinely believe that. I mean, there's only two options Either I am bat crazy or he's really talking to me, you know, and I don't think I'm crazy.
Speaker 1:So he's a Pentecostal. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:I think I am considered Pentecostal, I think I am Assemblies of God. I think I am.
Speaker 1:Do you believe that God can actually do things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course oh then he's Pentecostal.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah Like miracles and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean literally in my mind. I mean God can literally do anything. This is a really probably cruddy example, but this is something that I say all the time is that he could just make the universe into like a burrito, like he could do anything, Like that's a silly example, but like we don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Like he can't do anything.
Speaker 1:Ooh, he can't sin. Is that what you were gonna go with? He can't lie. He can't lie.
Speaker 2:He can't lie. He wouldn't be our perfect creator. He can't lie, he can't. He can't sin. God can't make a square circle, so you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:You don't think that he has the ability to lie and he chooses not to, or you think that he physically couldn't.
Speaker 2:I don't think he can. Like he would consume. It says in the Bible that he's an all-consuming fire, right? So any person that's ever lied once, he would consume them in their presence, because he can't even be near it. So there's not even sin. There is no sin in him. The concept of sin was created by us, right? So, yeah, I don't think he can. I don't think he can. I don't even think the concept of sin is even. I don't think it's even an option.
Speaker 1:No, so you don't think that God created sin?
Speaker 2:No, maybe God created an environment where sin could happen. What do you believe?
Speaker 1:I'm just asking questions, bro. I'm just having a good time over here.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm trying to see. What other belief would there be?
Speaker 1:I mean there's the belief that, you know, god created a world where bad things can happen and that he put the fruit in the garden. So clearly he gave humans the option to be able to sin and God created all the heavenly beings. So he created the devil and the devil fell. And either you believe that he knows everything and is in charge of everything, and if you believe that he knows everything and is in charge of everything, then that logically would bring you to he created the devil and logically knew that the devil would rebel and created humans and logically knew that humans would rebel and eat the fruit and thus in the creation of all those things, basically God would have been the one to create sin. That would be the opposite argument of that.
Speaker 2:That's a good question. Can he lie, can he sin and chooses not to? I know Jesus did, because Jesus was tempted with sin and I'm sure he was in his human body that he wanted to sin and didn't and made the choice not to. But that was from a human perspective, though, that's in a human body. He experienced everything we experienced and didn't. But could God?
Speaker 1:That's just more for fun. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:I don't think we'll ever have the answer to that, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if we did, I probably wouldn't sleep well at night.
Speaker 2:Right, let me ask, let me bring up a question for you, something I think about, because I'm a podcast host.
Speaker 1:He's asking us questions now.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, hold on, hold on, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got to get this thought out. So check this out. I've thought of this before because I get I get asked this by atheists a lot. They're like, okay, well, does God know the future, exactly what's going to happen in the future? And it sounds like he does. It's pretty logical to think that God knows everything in the future, because what Jesus said about Peter that he was going to, you know, deny him three times before the rooster crowed and stuff like that. But I thought about something like when I used to be a police officer, right, and whenever I was a police officer in the beginning I was like man, I love this job because you never know what's going to happen. There's something different happen every day. People said different stuff and then after a couple years, people started the saying the same stuff over and over again and it got to the point where whenever I was in certain scenarios, I would knew what those people would say before they said it. And it got to where humans were pretty predictable, you know, and I've always wondered if it was, if God was like that, but on, like steroids, if God maybe didn't really know what's happened. But since he created us and he knows us so infinitely and perfectly that he knows what we're going to do, because he created us and we're just predictable, and his mind is so much bigger than ours Because, you got to think, we don't even use but 10% of our own brains. So how much smarter is God than us? You know what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:My thoughts would be do you believe he's all powerful or do you not? Yeah, if you believe he's all powerful, that means literally all power, Like that's everything he could literally do to me, anything Like. If he's all powerful, that means he knows the future. That means he knows the past. That means he knows everything, that every like that could ever exist, and he can create anything and it could destroy anything and he can build anything and he can all powerful. Literally means you can do literally whatever you want. But the good thing about God is that his character is good, Because just because God is an all powerful being doesn't mean that he's like a good God. That's why, you know, a lot of the people in the Old Testament didn't have a problem believing in God. They had a problem believing that God was more powerful than other gods and they had a problem believing that God was good. So you know, we don't really struggle with that one. I mean other cultures do, but in America, you know, it's kind of the thing of like does the God of the Bible exist or does he not? And that wasn't really a question in the Old World. It was like which God is the best? And you know the creation story, kind of bops, everything, and they say that, like God is, you know the Elohim of Elohim, so like he's the spiritual being above spiritual beings, like everything came from that. So yeah, to me you know all. You either believe he's all powerful or you don't, and there's not a lot of in between. So if you believe he's all powerful, you wouldn't think that he would know the future.
Speaker 2:He has to know. He has to know, yeah.
Speaker 1:At least to me. I mean, you know, this is more of a fun conversation because I know neither one of us cared to debate. I love, I love debating, by the way, big, big fan of debating. But on this podcast, what you said I thought was super valuable because we interview a lot of people that are kind of like touchy, that aren't you know if we debated them they would. They would go as hard as they possibly could in the opposite direction. And our goal is to listen to understand. To listen to like we don't want to listen to respond Like. We want to listen to understand and, even if it makes us seem stupid, we want to ask questions that like we're genuinely curious about, and not like trying to lead them down a certain path of like hey, if we can lead them to this, I bet you that would be a good episode. It's like I want to know. I want to know who Zach Lee is. I don't know what that is going on and not like how to lead you down a path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the same. That's the same with me, because I was thinking about this today, actually, like because it's weird that like one of my goals isn't to convert, like all these people, that I have these, all these unbelievers in my life, because I'm a very goal oriented person and I thought, is that bad? Should my heart be in the place where I want to convert them, which, because I do? I want them to convert. Trust me, I do. I have a serious burden for the unbeliever right, but it's so hard to leave atheism that they're not leaving in droves because of our ministry. Whenever we may plant that seed, it's going to take a while to grow that seed and then, not to mention, if they do end up converting back, they're going to have to tell their friends and they're going to have to go delete all those videos that they've posted. It's a whole thing. It's really hard to transfer over. So it's a big thought process. We're not getting people to leave in droves, so, but it does it. I'm patient with it. You know, I think more. So I want to say this that I trust God, that God has a plan with this ministry, and I don't sit there and worry about it all the time whether a person's going to convert, you know, but I don't know where I was going with that. I'm a spaz, dude. I'm a spaz, that's fair.
Speaker 1:What you got man.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I'm just enjoying listening so far.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the goal of this podcast.
Speaker 3:Maybe what's one of the crazier perspectives you've interviewed, Not in terms of objectively crazy, but from where you are relative to your perspective. What is one of the more out there sort of person perspectives you've interviewed where it's really been challenging to either agree with them or sympathize with them, what's just been a really out there interview you've had.
Speaker 2:Two of them come to mind. Two of them come to mind, whatever you asked that question specifically. We've had some crazy moments on the show, but as far as perspectives go, I think number one would be the Christian witch, because and I wish I could go back. In fact, I need to reach out to her because I wish I could go back and apologize to her because we did not treat her like help. My unbelief does. If anybody wants to watch that episode, it's Christian witch, sarah, I believe, and it's probably in the middle of the episode. Somewhere she said some stuff that I wasn't prepared for, and nothing about what she was saying was lining up with what the word Christian? We just had a really hard time with that one, because most of the time we go and prepare no one we're going to disagree. We knew that she practiced witchcraft and we knew we disagreed with that, but we did not know that she was going to say that. Witches say they work with entities. That's what all witches say. They work with something, they work with Thor, odin, they work with Apollos, hades or they work with all these different. But when she said that Jesus was not the only way to heaven, that he was a God and that she works with Lucifer, meaning who Christians believe is our enemy call him the enemy multiple times in Scripture that she works hand in hand with him. Sometimes that means she has tools, like summoning tools and candles, and she does seances and things that she does to summon the spirit of Satan to aid her into doing something in her everyday life. She works with this entity, satan, our enemy. That was one that was very a perspective that was very, very crazy and hard to hear, but I do wish we could go back and treat her a little differently.
Speaker 3:Christian witch kind of sounds like an oxymoron.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what everybody, that's what we thought, and just some of the details kind of threw us off. Then we had a person who claimed to communicate with aliens and she felt like it was her, her job to help aid the meeting of aliens and humans.
Speaker 1:That's wild. So you hear that and what do you do with that? You're hearing that and immediately, like I'm sure a light goes off and you're like first thought is like they're crazy, Right, At least that would be my first thought. Also, you want to hear them out, right? Maybe there are aliens, maybe there are aliens that are trying to communicate with people and you want to hear her out. But it's really hard to go in without your own biases and your own thoughts to be like, hey, aliens don't exist. If it was aliens, it'd be demons or whatever you believe. But maybe you think aliens don't exist and you would go in with your own bias and still subconsciously try to convert them, so to speak, to your own ideology. So that would be like that's something that I've struggled with of like you know, you hear some crazy interviews and you're like, okay, they deconstructed because the church treated them bad. Well, if the church treated them bad, that's not an accurate representation of Jesus. If you go to the church and you look at the church and you're say, hey, which, it is Jesus's prayer, right, and you know John 17, the whole unity prayer, like I want them to be so unified that people would look and say that I'm the son of God, basically, which is awesome, but like that's his prayer, that doesn't. He went like the church will be this, like constantly you know unbelievers or deconstructionists or whoever look at the church and you're like that doesn't reflect Jesus. And I think us as Christians would be like we're trying our best, right, like we believe Jesus is the son of God. And you can look at my life and see that things have changed. But my goal is that we both look to Jesus. My goal isn't, hey, look at Grant, and then we go like hang out and it's like I'm so awesome. It's like, hey, let's both look to Jesus together. Maybe I'm farther than along than you, maybe I'm not, but let's look to Jesus together At least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think when you do that, I think we can put everything else aside and not worry about it, unless you're doing something that's going to cause you to, like, die or something that's going to hurt you, and then I can step in on that, but as long as we're focused on Jesus. But yeah, like what I try to do when I'm interviewing these people, because obviously those thoughts come up in my head I'm trying to decide because, like I said, I used to be a police officer and I've investigated crimes, and trying to get to decide if people were lying to me was a big part of that job. And so I'm obviously looking into whether I think this person's telling me the truth or not, and I'm looking at a lot of clues. But I always have to assume that the person's telling the truth. I have to take that road. If I'm not, then I'm going to be trying to poke holes in their story the whole time. If I thought they were lying to me and I know they lied on air I probably would call it out pretty quick, because I'm not going to just sit there and interview like an open liar. The thing with the alien communicator lady was that normally when you get people talking about stuff, that is that out there. There's some other cues in there too, Like you can go to their profile and there's some other wild stuff happening there. But she just reports on current events and she's just a very normal middle-aged woman and doesn't really talk about the alien communication a whole lot. And then came on the show.
Speaker 3:I'm not leading with that. If that was my thing, that would be like I communicate with ET and stuff.
Speaker 2:What made my stomach turn is when she said that she believed that it was her job, that there was one main alien that is using her to help merge humans and aliens. And I'm like, if this girl is telling the truth, if she's telling the truth, then those are 100% Demons, that those, those things are on our side because she's speaking to them Spiritually. And she said on two occasions they actually came to her house and like spoke to her in person, like physically. So I mean, I don't, I don't know, dude.
Speaker 3:My wife. We're talking about this the other day because I don't even remember why, but we've talked about this before. Actually, if it was proven that aliens existed like if you, whatever evidence it took, just assume that happened and it was proven they are real what would that do For your faith? I just I'm curious. I'm not saying it would in mine or anything, but I just think.
Speaker 2:I'll go first. I'll go first.
Speaker 3:I get left out of the Bible. That's kind of a head scratcher to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd love to hear his is easy because he's already come up with an answer because he talked to the alien. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I I currently I've currently talked to aliens right now. Hold on, hey, come here. No, I'm kidding, yeah. The weird name is like she gave him name something like Julius or something, and my alien, his name is just Jim. You know what I mean. So American?
Speaker 1:are you making fun of the alien people?
Speaker 2:No, no. But so I watched this movie. I watched this movie a long time ago, I can't remember. It was made by a couple atheists and they, at the end of the movie, they drew the conclusion that like, oh, aliens do exist, christianity's fake, christianity's fake. And they drew that conclusion that Christianity was fake based off that. But what was I saying, jim? We're talking about Jim.
Speaker 1:And then, oh, aliens make you leave the faith on her. Percent of the time is what you were saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never. I never understood why. I never understood why, like, why can't aliens be real and Christianity true at the same time? I don't know, I don't know why that can't. If I, if I could be presented with something I've never even, I don't even know.
Speaker 3:Like for me, the questions I would have and I'm again, I'm not saying I would walk away from my faith, I would just be like well, what does salvation look like from where? From from their planet? Did they have a Jesus? Was it the same as mine, where they taught about the Bible? Do they need the Bible? Did these people? Are they under the same rules as us? Do they sin? Do they not sin? Are they spiritual beings? Are they demons? I would have so many questions and I would find it so Like. I know there are things like some things that are more modern, like the legalization of marijuana that's left out of the Bible but that makes sense because that's like a no one could have really predicted that. But I feel like something is big. Is Other beings not being in the Bible? That's a head scratcher for me. I would have questions. I'm not saying I'd walk away, but I would. I would have a whole new avenue to explore my faith and be like why the heck Was this not provided any information?
Speaker 2:Well, now, satan knows what to do to get you to. Here's what I'll tell you. That's it, which that's a huge deal, but hey.
Speaker 3:If somebody's going to fake that, that's incredible good for them that deserve.
Speaker 2:Jim, you're not allowed at the Carolina Panther guys house. Okay, he's gonna deconstruct if we, if you, go over there. But no, like I don't know, I don't, I don't really know, but here's, here's what I do know is that God can't lie, but the US government can, and Satan, yeah, and I know Satan. Satan devises, tricks and plans every single day to get us to doubt our faith and to not believe. I know that for sure, and so I would assume instantly, if that happened, that someone was trying to trick me. Right, unless Some, some way, somehow I can see for myself. I'm gonna continue in my faith, I'm gonna continue my race and I'm gonna continue leaving my life, live in my life until somebody, until I die. Really, at the end of the day, I've decided, I have decided the song, I've decided to follow Jesus and I've decided to Die that way, and so there's nothing that can pluck me out of it.
Speaker 1:That's the right answer. So here's, that's the right answer. Here's my answer. So Do you think that if you believe in evolution, it gets rid of Christianity? No, like, you know what I mean. Like there are plenty of people that are like the six-day creation is nonsense and it's gotta be evolution, and it's like, okay, well, if it is evolution, does that disprove God? Right? No, and I'm, yeah, I'm on that team of like, if it is evolution which, if, if great evidence comes out that it is evolution which I think there's already pretty reasonable evidence but if great evidence comes out that it is a hundred percent of evolution, then it's just like man, god works in really cool ways, like he created a system and and that's really cool, like God's awesome, he created a thing like that. To me, so with the alien thing, it's like it. To me, it depends on one. What kind of aliens? Because if it's like, like a me on Mars, yeah, that's I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:Like they prove that.
Speaker 1:It's like if it's like a grant, but he's like on Mars and I know it's a really dumb hypothetical no it's a good. It's enough to cuff, bro.
Speaker 3:We could say anything and like just a regular the green, and they just say, hey, how's it going? They're just yeah, this is my planet.
Speaker 2:But hold on a second. Didn't in Genesis, chapter 11, didn't the story of the Tower of Babel? Okay, larry corrected me on this, but I always thought that the people of the Tower of Babel Are you familiar with the Bible story, by the way? Yeah, okay, so they were building a tower right to either escape another flood or To build a tower to reach God. One of the two right, I can't remember which one, but I thought they were building a tower to reach God. Well, god saw that they were gonna get it done, and so he stopped them and separated them to all different parts of the world and changed their languages up. Because when they work together, then they saw that they could do a bunch of stuff, you know, and that leads me to believe that Civilization was highly civilized at one point. And if they could build something to reach God or Whatever, or even escape a flood that God could bring, then why couldn't someone else build something to Travel across planets, you know? And but if God here's the thing if God didn't want them there, he could stop them, right? Yeah, you know. So I don't know it. I know that if aliens show up here, then God allowed it. That would be the weird part for me is like why are you allowing this?
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, for sure, I would definitely, I would. Just, I don't know it would be, it would be very different.
Speaker 1:This is not. It would. Genesis, genesis 11, verse 6, is, to me, one of the scariest Bible verses. There is. Okay, and it says and the Lord said behold, they are one people and they all have one language and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. That that's scary, nothing that they propose to do. They were saying they this is obviously in the Tower of Babel situation, but like that's a scary verse, man, like if humans all came together and we could do what.
Speaker 2:What could be achieved right?
Speaker 1:Like nothing that we propose to do, at least in that time, which, obviously, when you read, when you read the Bible, to not be dumb you got to keep it in context and you got to read it in the culture, so you can't read it to you know, america. Now it's like whatever we can do is a civilization we can go do. They were saying whatever they proposed to do in that time they could do because they were together. So what they were proposing to do was build the Tower of Babel, which to me could be symbology, could be, you know, building an actual tower to God. It could be, you know, a metaphor of something else. I'm not sure, you know. That's just kind of how I read things, with kind of open hands. I'm not just like they're building a tower and we could go find it in archaeology and there it is, it could be right. But you know, I kind of try to read it with open, open hands and not be like, true, if they don't find the Ark or if they don't find the Tower of Babel, or if they don't find Solomon's temple, you know, that's not gonna just like to wreck me, it's like okay, and those, those fake videos of the Ark and stuff is not doing, not doing. But it's like, and it literally says exactly how he built it and what it was made out of, and it's like if that would still cooking right now. Like that's not, yeah, that's wild. Like it, the Ark should not be around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he didn't get it.
Speaker 1:He didn't get it for blows, that's for sure, that's for sure around, like maybe like the footprint of it or maybe you know some sort of Residue of you know something that lasted a long time, I don't know, but like, if the Ark is just like sitting there on the top of a mountain, it's like that's nonsense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it is silly, for sure I have. I have one more, one more one. That was that I want to add to that two list that I gave you of an idea. We interviewed another girl named Dakota Lee and she claims to visit, visit heaven at will. You know, she, whenever we, whenever we were interviewing her, she really put it in a way that that we were starting to kind of like maybe, maybe, maybe she does have like this spiritual gift and stuff like that. And then the day after we interviewed her, she posted videos saying that there's a Starbucks in heaven and I was like, ah man, you had me, you had me. You know, like you had me, you had me going. Her message about her, a message about what she saw up there and stuff like that it was, it was so good. And she, she gets attacked a lot. She gets attacked by Christians a lot, which I Think there needs to be some of that. You know, I think there needs to be some of that like refuting and stuff like that. But she gets beat up and you know, we just wanted to give the opportunity to hear her out and she, she did a good job on the show. I Was definitely curious. I felt uncomfortable. The whole that shows especially. I felt uncomfortable because I do not want to put some of that lies Ups on there. And then you know Larry and Mark, they both, they both kind of um, they it seemed like they were believing her a little bit. And then and then I saw that video and I told Mark Mark about the Starbucks and he said I'm out the next day but yeah, that was another coffee in heaven, like at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe there's coffee shops, but it's not gonna be freaking Starbucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what they need a wild hog up there right.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what that is. But what is that? It's a coffee shop. I think I wonder where you from.
Speaker 2:Oklahoma.
Speaker 1:Oklahoma. Do they have a lot of wild hogs in there, I think?
Speaker 2:so wild hogs is what it's called. I'm gonna be very disappointed if that's not the name. I'm pretty sure it's wild hog, though I want to Google it, but I'll Google it later.
Speaker 1:Any final thoughts, anything that you want to share with our listener base that you're like. You guys got to hear this I.
Speaker 2:Want to. I want to say this to Christians, because you probably have mainly a Christian audience, right? Yeah, at least Christian or Christian-seeking yeah yeah, I want to say this that I Think I think the way we treat unbelievers Helps, and whether they are going to believe Someday or not. I'm not asking you to entertain their beliefs, I'm not asking you to hold hands with them, I'm not asking you to To agree with them, but I think by showing them more love and lending a listening, listening ear will really help out with people Coming to know Christ, and I really think that's the goal and I truly believe that most Christians that that's the goal. So, if you ever have a witch come up to you and Wants to buy you, have a coffee shop, let's say coffee shop, since we're on that and they want to buy your coffee and it's a pagan witch and it make you feel uncomfortable, let them know you're a Christian and sell them their coffee and hear them out. Anyway, you don't know what kind of seed that's gonna plant. Don't be freaked out and scared. Or a Satanist, you know, don't we? Don't be so freaked out. Treat them with love and respect and I promise you that seed that you plant that day it's gonna go a lot further than if you were to be scared and refute them and be mean.
Speaker 1:So Well, that's awesome man. Well, thanks so much for being on. Thanks for listening to the across the counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.
