Bible, Bros & Brew
Bible, Bros, & Brew is all about helping you navigate your relationship with God in practical, real-life ways. Hosts David and Phil dig into scripture—'chopping up the word'—and bring it to life with insights you can actually use every day. And while they’re at it, they share their favorite 'brews'—don’t worry, it’s not booze! Just a solid lineup of classic coffees and teas to keep the conversations flowing.
Bible, Bros & Brew
Breaking the Cycle of Sin | Identifying Hindrances to Your Freedom | Bible, Bros & Brew
As followers of Christ, all of us have experienced the struggle that comes with learning how to break free from sinful habits and activities. While our sins have been paid for through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the residue of the sinful nature still influences our minds in directions that are not always godly or productive. In this episode of Bible, Bros & Brew, David, Lynn and Phil use the scriptures to identify some of the most common hindrances that can threaten or stifle our God-given ability to walk free from sin. If you feel like you've been on the "hamster wheel" of sinning, repenting, and then repeating the same sin over again, we believe that you'll find this episode not only helpful, but spiritually empowering.
gotbrew@biblebros.net
Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of Bible Bros and Bro. Last week we talked about sin in the church and we talked about the prevalence of some of the things that we've been seeing and how it's negatively impacting both individuals as well as the church as a whole, and we had a really heavy but good discussion around sin in the church. And we came from the book of Jude, which I'll read again for us just a little bit later on tonight. But tonight we want to talk a little bit about the things that keep us in sin. You know, we're called to be a peculiar people, a holy nation unto the Lord, and if nobody is going to set the standard, we are. And if you look at the New Testament, so much of the New Testament, with Paul's letters particularly we're encouraging the believers in different cities to set the standard for righteous and good living. But we're at a point now where we're doing just the opposite. We're setting a standard, but it's not a biblical standard, it's not a godly standard and it's not a God-pleasing standard. So tonight we're going to talk some more about that and the things that keep us in the cycle of sin.
Speaker 1:Up next on Bible Bros and Brew. Hey, everybody and welcome back to Bible Bros and Brew. I am David With me tonight. Our special guest is the one and only Len Nestor and, of course, always by my side, because he's my bestie is Philip Rich. We're so glad to be back with you guys.
Speaker 2:This is.
Speaker 1:Philip Rich. We're so glad to be back with you guys tonight for this episode. Hey, do us a favor, as we're getting started, take a moment on whatever application you're listening to or that you are watching this episode on, take a moment to hit that like button, subscribe and hit the notifications. That way, you'll always know when a new episode is coming out or when we're going live and you can just join in the conversation with us. We're going to love to hear from you and we've got a specific question for you later on in the episode that we want to hear from you about Before we get going into tonight's conversation. As always, we believe that it takes a cup of coffee to have and foster good conversation. That's the rule, or tea? So let's find out what's brewing in everybody's cup. Glenn, what are you drinking tonight?
Speaker 3:Tonight I have peach tea and I've added the spiced honey to it, so it's just a nice smooth kind of tea. Works well on a chilly night.
Speaker 1:Nice and it is just a little chilly out there. It got a little cold for real today and it was interesting that it got cold like that.
Speaker 3:And it's going to get colder tomorrow.
Speaker 2:I'm ready for it, yeah man. I am actually on the tea team today as well. I am drinking out of my little Star Wars mug. There you go, baby Grogu. I had to pull up the packet so I remembered exactly what it was. It was a Honey Lavender Stress Relief Tea. Can we see that? There you go. Oh nice, because everybody needs a little relief from their stress.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask, john, is there anything that you want us to talk about with you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm great, I'm great. Now I was going to say is it working?
Speaker 4:His stress is being great, I'm great. Now Is it working? Your stress is being relieved Exactly.
Speaker 2:It really is.
Speaker 1:That lavender is the real deal. Everybody, if you don't know about lavender, get a hold of it, because you can be flipping out, put a little lavender on and all of a sudden be like you know everything's alright.
Speaker 4:Dude. I remember one time this was back with my daughter. Both my daughters used to play basketball for like this homeschool league but anyway. So there was a game where they were just doing bad, I mean the team was just bombing out. So Madison was pretty stressed about everything. So she comes back to the bench and you can tell she was just up in arms. My wife's friend she was a big essential oil woman, everything's essential oils. She had this little vial of lavender with her.
Speaker 1:She called out to my wife.
Speaker 4:She's like hey, steph lavender, she tossed it to her. It was like staff lavender and she like tossed it to her. It was already 10 cc's of lavender stat. You know that whole thing.
Speaker 1:So it was great man, I was cracking up, but that's funny.
Speaker 4:Lavender is the calming uh oil, from what I understand.
Speaker 1:So good stuff. What about you, philip? What are you drinking tonight?
Speaker 4:I am rolling with decaf. I probably should have got caff, because the sleeping has tried to hit me about 10 minutes ago. But yeah, this is the Peregrine Decaf Columbia. It's just such a good decaf man. It's so, so well done, as they do with all of their bean roasting. But I wanted to point out too, I had to break out the Cracker Barrel mug. Let's see how it is.
Speaker 1:This is evidence that you live in one half of the country.
Speaker 4:We won't say which half, but yes, yes and certain states on that coast. So yeah, and certain states on that coast, so yeah, but that's my setup for tonight. How about you, david? What are you drinking?
Speaker 1:well, tonight I am, as usual, trying something a little new. Tonight I am trying, from Red Barn Roasters a little Almond Joy and first of all I had to smell it Roasters a little.
Speaker 2:Almond Joy.
Speaker 1:First of all, I had to smell it to see if it lived up to it, and it does. It smells so good and it actually tastes really really good as well. You get the chocolate that comes through. Hold on one moment, please. You get the whole Almond Joy there. Not so much the coconut that's in it, but a lot of the chocolate and other flavors are there. So it's a really good coffee, which I highly recommend, which you can find at their website and, of course, when we go live with the episode next Tuesday, if you just look in the description, we'll have links to all the coffees and teas that we were drinking tonight. All right, that's what we had in our have in our cups, or, as we say, what will be supporting the conversation.
Speaker 1:Now we'll get into a little bit about what we want to talk about, which is our continued conversation about sin in our church community, and you know I started this conversation off last week by sharing that there have been. You know we talked about the situation in Texas that some of you may be familiar with, where some 14 or so pastors at the time we recorded last week had stepped down or been sat down from their positions in their churches and I thought to myself, wow, that's wild. And then some of it started hitting right at home, in churches that I had previously attended, finding out certain things were happening with people, and it occurred to me that, you know, there's something wrong here, because we're all supposed to be Christian people, we're all supposed to be God's people, so why are we struggling with the way that we live? And there are a couple of reasons for that, and we're going to get into them. But I want to read what Jude says, because I think Jude kind of lays it out very nicely for us and tells us what's going on. It says Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share, but now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. That's such a shocking statement. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Jude 1, 3, and 4. John, go back one verse. You know there's something interesting here. I said one verse, go over one more that God has entrusted. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches. You know, and Philip and Lynn, forgive me for going off script already, we'll circle back around.
Speaker 4:This is how we do it, David Right.
Speaker 1:But you know it's kind of important to note this verse here, where it says people, ungodly people, have wormed their way into your churches. I want to tell you it's no mystery that every church has some.
Speaker 1:The word is literally telling us that these people are worming, and I think it uses the right word worming their way into your churches, saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. They intend to deceive and if you go on through Jude, you see that it talks about more of their deception in the church. I say that because we're often looking for perfect churches Right, and there isn't one and known this because then I would have been less easy, it would have been less, it would have been more difficult to offend me because I would have been aware that there was already even within the church doors. We act like you guys, that the devil doesn't come inside the church doors and try to do anything and that he just waits outside on cars until you come out from the church. But the church is somehow or another, a protected space that he's not allowed to come in.
Speaker 1:Well, if you've ever had teenagers, you know that's a lie. And young adults and the things that have been. I've seen situations where grown adults were having affairs in church parking lots. We've seen situations where people are literally deceiving one another, lying to one another, trying to take advantage of one another in the church and I think I'm also guilty of using this term. Church hurt, right, right, and I think we have to re. We have to re examine the use of the term church hurt, because I think that what we have is a scenario where people are doing the wicked things that this scripture says God already knew they were going to do, and now it's just happening and you just happen to be involved in it. I know that's a little bit of a different start than what we planned, but when you guys see that, what are you thinking? What do you think?
Speaker 3:I think that it's a very appropriate beginning for what we're doing tonight and I think that because Paul addressed that the wrong teachings in the church. Peter addressed the wrong teachings in the church. It was mentioned in Acts as a fact of. This is what's going on in the church and even to the point of the old testament, amos talked about it in chapter 7, where he's talking about the plumb line, because I don't know that pastors or anyone else really initially mean, but they tell a little bit of a lie. And then you know how a plumb line works it hangs straight, but if the building or whatever is crooked, it's very close right here. But the farther away you get or farther down the line you get the farther off the truth you are and you begin to believe those lies.
Speaker 3:And people who follow you believe that because you may have had such a good reputation initially and they are not, we are not. I say they, we are not testing whatever we learn against scripture. We're not holding our leadership accountable, and I think it's just as much on us as it is on those leaders that felt that there was not an accountability group or someone brave enough to say something.
Speaker 1:And you know, when you talk about leadership, you know the Bible clearly talks about people going in and they don't say starting churches, but weaving their way into fellowships. And I'd say, I mean, just think about it. Some of these people who call themselves pastors are not pastors but they've created an opportunity for their financial growth and well-being and for their importance and for them to have power. I forget which of the New Testament books that you know oh, it was Peter that Peter is talking about. You know, be careful of. I think it's Diasthenes who loves to have the preeminence.
Speaker 1:You know he loves to have power. And he wants to be able to tell people they can and can't do things. People do this for various and sundry reasons, which is all the more important that we be spiritually discerning about where we are and what we're doing. What do you think, Phil?
Speaker 4:Well, I'll put it this way. I'm to say like three things at once in my mind here. Second peter says you know it's along the same theme as jude in a lot of ways, like when you read second peter is almost like him and jude were having a conversation together about this. But um, in second peter he said that you know you'll have these people coming in and creeping in. And it's interesting because he's only really addressing what's happening inside the church he's not even talking about. Can you see how horrible these centers are out here, who don't know God? It's mainly talking about folks who are in the church.
Speaker 4:And he says they'll promise you liberty, but they themselves are the servants of corruption. Wow. And then he said you know, these are people who come in and they have great swelling words and they'll make merchandise of you. He says and all these different things to me, man. Anytime you see a leader with selfish motives, that's someone that's not operating under the influence of the Spirit of God. Period, it could be a motive for fame, it could be a motive for money, it could be a motive for power. Any of those things they're not coming from God. Because the Bible says in 1 Peter I think it's actually that same well, no, it's a different chapter. It's 1 Peter, chapter 5, when he talks about how leaders should be feed the flock of God, first of all, that's what they should do. And then he says you know, take the oversight of it, not under compulsion, but willingly. And then he says and be clothed with humility, under compulsion, but willingly.
Speaker 4:And then he says and be clothed with humility and that's something that's sorely lacking with a lot of people in leadership in the church is just basic humility, basic selflessness in their position, in their role, recognizing that they're only in that office to serve others, not to be served you know, I can't help but crack up a little bit when I see I'm talking like it's like Hollywood production Instagram posts or TikTok stuff or whatever, and preachers are, they're getting out of their limo and somebody's holding the door for them, and then somebody is carrying their Bible for them as they slow motion walk to the pulpit and all this kind of stuff, and I'm like you've lost the plot, dude, You've totally lost the plot and.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, you know it's a bad look for the body of Christ. It's a bad look for leaders in the body of Christ to be that way. And the things you mentioned, david, about the different pastors that have kind of had some drama, had some trouble in the past few weeks and months, not only in Texas but honestly all over the country. Most of it deals with some level of selfish motive, like whether it was somebody that you know didn't think that one wife was enough, you know, or somebody else who didn't think that they were getting paid enough so they embezzled money from the church, or whatever the case may be. And it's like if we don't start with that, that sinful impulse to serve self even at the expense of others, if we don't start there, then everything else really doesn't matter. It's going to fall apart eventually anyway. Then everything else really doesn't matter, it's going to fall apart eventually.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you know that's good, phillip, and I don't want anybody to think that. You know we're talking. We've started by talking about leaders, but you know the pew is not without its issues, right, if there are issues up top there are going to be issues in the pew. But sometimes you could have the right people driving a church but still have issues in the pew because you still have that selfish appetite, that selfish drive and desire that leads people down the wrong path. That's right.
Speaker 3:Well, I was just going to say that in the selfish desires. That takes us back to James, where we were talking. You have not because you ask not, you bicker and quarrel because you don't have what you want and all you need to do is ask God. But when you ask God, often you don't get it because you pray with wrong motives to put it on your pleasures. Put it on your pleasures. And when you're talking about being in the pew, a lot of us sit there, we pray, we. You know god, if you don't give me this, then I'm going to do this or that or whatever it is.
Speaker 3:But when you talk about the pew, I think honestly it's probably more important than the leadership. The leadership is important, important. But is it Peter that says see, that you're not deceived Because you are responsible, when you're deceived Because you can ask God, god will give you the wisdom we think about. Or I think about Joshua. God told him not to make a covenant with anybody in the promised land when they went in.
Speaker 3:But then you had these people who dressed up in the dirty clothes and had empty water bottles, had empty all these things, appearing as though they had come a long distance to make a covenant with him. They didn't take it to God and pray about it. Because of that, they made the covenant and found out they lived in the next village over and they had been deceived and because of that they were in a bad relationship. Because they made a covenant before God with them and I think we don't take it to prayer enough to make sure that we are where we need to be or to protect our pastors. We don't pray for them and all the things that come against them.
Speaker 1:So I think, a lot of responsibility is in the pew marty I, I think you're, I think you're right, lynn, and I, I just think there's a call for the pew to be as pure and walk uprightly before God as the pastor.
Speaker 4:Exactly. I think it's unfortunate if there's a mentality in a church that only the pastor is really responsible for living right, you know we can be a sunday christian, that's fine, but you know I'm looking to him to be the one that's the example. Nah, man, we all. You know the bible says work out your own salvation, right fear and trembling it's like every one of us has a responsibility once you become a believer.
Speaker 4:Um, it's like when, uh, david and my former pastor used to say this all the time is is so good. He said, um, when it's cold outside, if you go outside you get chill bumps. If it's 95 degrees and you go outside, you start sweating. He said, if you're born again, you should be showing some signs. Right, and that's the truth, you know. It doesn't mean you're going to be perfect, doesn't mean you're going to get everything right. Everybody, we all, should know by now that's not going to happen. But there should be a tendency or an inclination towards the things and the ways of god, versus just staying how you are and not even, not even trying to to what was the Bible called mortify those things that are of the flesh in your life, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, we've got a little. You can see how we've Part of the problem that we see in the church today, and this is why it all. The Lord warns us. He says he's going to clean house in the church first. Yep, right, but you can see how it's come to a head now because, as we talked about before, there are so many people who are just living wildly that at some point, some of them are living as brute animals and then declaring their christianity, and and that can't be said.
Speaker 1:I wanted to read to you from galatians, uh, chapter five, um, and we're very familiar, we, we're very, very familiar with the fruit of the spirit, right, you know. So we know about love, joy, peace and patience and kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and that the end of that scripture says there is no law against these. That is the lifestyle we're supposed to be appropriate. Yeah, that is the lifestyle we're supposed to be appropriate. However, I want to read the other side of this. What comes before the fruit of the Spirit is, it says in verse 19, when you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear of your sinful nature.
Speaker 2:The results are very clear.
Speaker 1:Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility. I mean, do you realize that there are Christians out there mixing witchcraft in Christianity True and calling it Christ?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Okay, go, stay focused, stay focused. Sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy Can we talk about jealousy at some point? Talk about a nasty little thing that's driving a lot of bad behavior Jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. There's no question here. This is why we can't play with God. His word is very clear and what he says is sure. We keep trying to put our own little slant on it and try to make it unsure and unclear so that we can backdoor our way into heaven without having to go by the way that he intended us for us to come by. It's wild. What do you guys when you hear these? Different, I guess they are fruits of the sinful nature.
Speaker 1:What comes to mind for you guys, Lynn?
Speaker 3:What comes to my mind is I think, as a Christian, we exhibit some of these things. I don't think that it's to say we have to live a perfect life, because I might be envious, I might have an outburst of anger, but it isn't my lifestyle. I know that that's not right. But if I have chosen that I want to be and live in a sinful lifestyle of debauchery and partying and all of the crazy things, and then look at people and say, yeah, I'm a Christian, god loves me, he doesn't care, I can do whatever I want to. That takes us back to the scripture we started with talking about people worming their way in and saying you know you can sin and it doesn't matter. So I think this illustrates the kind of things that you mentioned in the very first verses that you read to that very good bill, okay, um, when I look at the list again, I just see self, self, self, self self all the
Speaker 2:way down.
Speaker 4:And that's the problem, that's the basic problem. And I remember a book by EW Kenyon If you're not familiar with him, he was a minister, a pastor that I think he was probably in his heyday back in the 1800s, like mid 1800s. But this guy left a lot of books. He wrote a lot of books and to me they're just, I mean, it's just like a treasure, a treasure trove that he left us here, man. But one of his books he was talking about the two great forces of mankind, one being love and the other being selfishness. And he was saying that the opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is selfishness. And because selfishness produces hate, you know.
Speaker 4:So when I really started thinking about that, I was like, wow, that makes it very, very clear. You know which direction we should try to. You know, endeavor to go towards as believers. It's the direction of love, not towards selfishness, because selfishness will always, like the Bible says, if you're it says he that's cruel will trouble his own soul. It says he that's cruel will trouble his own soul. You know, there's scriptures all over the place that talk about how doing things from a selfish place will be to your detriment. Really, it's never going to be a good and a good. You're not going to end up in a good place by operating from selfish motive. And when you look at that list of the works of the flesh, it is all everything has to do with serving self. List of the works of the flesh it is all Everything has to do with serving self. And to me, if we don't get that, if we don't start there which I mean, look, anybody at any time can slip into it it's not hard to do.
Speaker 4:I'm speaking from personal experience. When I say this stuff, I don't want to come across like I've arrived and I no longer deal with these things. All of us have temptations to be selfish on a daily basis. It can be something as simple as you know the trash needs to be taken out. You see, it feel it all the way to the top, but you're gonna wait for somebody else to do it because you don't feel like doing it. You know something like that and you and you want to. Just, you know, if you want to practice something on a simple level, bite the bullet and take the trash out. You know just stuff like that. It. It may not seem to be a big thing at the time, but it actually can help you flex those love muscles that need to be developed, you know.
Speaker 1:So, um, I know that might not be the greatest example but, um, yeah, it works, though, and you said something, and well, lynn said something earlier. You know, it's like the concept of being angry. You know, in ephesians, chapter 4, the bible says be angry but sin not. Yeah, right, so in so many of these things, god gives us a way back, but the word also tells us that we need to die daily.
Speaker 4:Yes, which?
Speaker 1:means that we need to daily comb our lives and find out if we have any of these sins in our life here, if you will, and let that stuff come out, but we're not. As Christians, we shouldn't be living in continual sin. We live in continual righteousness and we may sin. It's inevitable. You're going to make mistakes, something may happen and you may go the wrong way. You may handle something the wrong way, but then what we do as believers is we repent of the way that we handled that wrong and we get ourselves back on track, walking with God the way that he intended for us to be. Every time this stuff becomes a problem is when we make a lifestyle habit of sin. Yeah, yeah, and that's where your problem begins.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you it doesn't take long for things to become a lifestyle habit either. So because then you might take and try to create this little wiggle room that says, well, I can go to the club three times and then I won't you know it's stop creating wiggle room for things that don't please God and don't further your life.
Speaker 3:Well, part of going to the club, I mean you can restart your week at any point in time. Oh, this is my third. Oh, today will be the first day of my week. I've got two more times. It's going to be the first and you start again. So you know, when you make that wiggle room, it's so easy to adjust that.
Speaker 3:But you caused me to think about 1 Corinthians 13. I think a lot of times when we accept those lifestyle things that we just talked about that are not of God, it's because we don't love well. And if we can look at 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, please, four through seven, please and the reason I want to show this is because it is the definition of love in action. It's words we understand and we always take that to mean loving other people. It's used in weddings all of the time, but let's think about it in relationship to ourselves.
Speaker 3:If we say, love is patient and kind, it's not jealous, boastful, proud or rude. It doesn't demand its own way. It's not irritable, because I get irritable with myself all the time. It keeps no record of being wrong. I'll let Satan attack me with my past all of the time looking back, and it just mires me down and it causes me to be angry and, you know, lash out. It doesn't rejoice in injustice, but it rejoices when truth wins out. It never gives up, loses faith, it's always hopeful and it endures through every circumstance. And you know, I think that we, as Christians, need to consider this is how God loves us. And the greatest commandment in Mark talks about love your neighbor as yourself. Well, it says first love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul and mind, but then love your neighbor as yourself, and this is the way that we're supposed to love our neighbor. Then are we not supposed to love ourself? And would that not override some of these things that were listed just prior to the fruit of the Spirit?
Speaker 4:That's good, that's good.
Speaker 1:That's really good, lynn, you know. In light of that, I want to take us down a different path. Well, not a different path, but we were talking and thinking about what is it that gets people stuck in a cycle of sin, what keeps them going around and around in circles where they never feel like they can get out of that sin? And so we came up with a couple, but here in a little while. And what do we want to ask you to do is just share in the comments your thoughts. You can share in the comments now if you'd like, or you can do it once you're hearing this live for those of you who are not watching live.
Speaker 1:But those of you who are not watching live, but we want to hear what are some of the things that keep you in the cycle of sin in your life. And I'm going to start with the first one on our list, which is the concept that sin begets sin, in other words, that once you start down this path of sin, then one thing tends to lead to another thing, that leads to another thing and, before you know it, you got all kinds of stuff. You're drinking, and you're drinking turns into drinking and smoking, and you're drinking and smoking turns into getting high, getting high turns into doing some more stuff and before you know it, you're down at wild parties doing all kinds of things that you never intended to do, and you never saw the path of how these things were compounding upon one another and creating this outcome that, ultimately, you're not going to want. Do we have a scripture for that one, guys? I didn't, I didn't. Well, I know, first of all, that we have Go ahead, lynn.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of concepts in there. I think it's in Hosea, where it talked about sowing the wind and reap the whirlwind.
Speaker 2:So you get that.
Speaker 3:And then also, if you think about the concept of sowing and reaping, you never reap exactly what you sow, it's always more. And when you talk about sowing and reaping, what the scripture says, it's 30, 60 or 100 fold. So you can sow that act and be unrepentant, and you're going to earn those kinds of dividends. Act can be unrepentant and you're going to earn those kinds of dividends, so good seed.
Speaker 4:You're going to reap those dividends too, of 30, 60, and a hundred. It's just. But you know it's interesting with the the.
Speaker 4:The concept of spiritual momentum works in both directions. If you're digging into the word, you know practicing the habit of prayer, daily fellowship with God purposefully, you know taking time to soak his word in, speak his word, do the whole thing. You develop spiritual momentum in a good direction and it becomes easier and easier for you to just simply walk out the way that he's told us to walk. But then on the other side, there's also spiritual momentum in the wrong direction where, if you start sinning, you kind of loosen your moral boundaries, uh, and you may even allow guilt or condemnation to kind of make you feel like, well, why bother? You know, why bother, trying to be good anymore, I'm already out here. I've already done wrong five, six, seven times. You know, whatever man, you know.
Speaker 4:Or you can even get to the point of like a nihilistic thing, like well, I'm out here, you know, I'm out here. To this degree, let me just go all the way. You know, whatever it is, and it's like stuff like that man can really mess you up. And because what it does is to me, that's what. When I hear that sin begets sin. That's kind of what goes through my mind. It's like you're you're creating momentum in a bad direction and I can't help but think of this commercial that I saw. You guys may have seen this a long, long time ago. It was this Mormon commercial, like the Latter-day Saints dudes. They had this little thing. It was like the West Side Story kind of thing going on. They were like you tell one lie, you got to tell another, you tell two lies and they cover each other. It was like this whole thing.
Speaker 2:I did not seem that.
Speaker 4:But it was this whole thing with this kid who, I think he broke a vase in his house or something and he lied about it and his parents asked him and he said no, no such, and so broke it or whatever. He made up a story or whatever and next thing you know, now he's having to cover that story up and it kind of kept going on and on. I remember that, I do.
Speaker 3:I do not. I don't remember that one at all, but it made me think of the Christmas story where he learned a bad language.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:The beating on the phone yeah, that was horrible man, but yeah it, it's like it. If you don't ever come clean, you don't ever, you know, move towards repentance. All that it does is starts multiplying in the wrong direction, in a bad way, and next thing you know your deal. Like, like the scripture says, you're dealing with the whirlwind. You may have sown the wind, but do that whirlwind is heading your way. And I remember something. It's funny. I said I remember, but I forgot who said it.
Speaker 4:But basically, the whole idea is, when you sin, you can control whether or not you sin. You know you're not. It's never a thing where you're being moved from a force outside of you that's just making you do this thing. It's always up to you, even if the temptation feels mega strong.
Speaker 4:The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, that there's no temptation taking hold of you. That's not common to human beings. You know, and it said, god is faithful and he will not allow you to be tempted above your ability to fight it off or to escape it. That's 1 Corinthians 10, 13, I believe. And so there's always a way of escape. But if you choose not to take that way of escape when it's there, here's what happens and here's the problem. You cannot control the consequences of that sin. You can control what you do, but you can't control the consequences of what you do. You know, and you may not realize, the ripple effect that you're putting into motion. You know you may have thought it was a one night stand. Oh, you may have thought something else that you know I could kind of get away with this thing, but you don't know all of the other things that are attached to that event. You have no idea.
Speaker 4:And the next thing you know you're heading down a path, and that's where it gets messy man. So to me, sin begets sin. That's kind of where my mind goes with that.
Speaker 3:And you know there's another angle for that sin begets sin, because if you grow up in an alcoholic household, chances are you learn to be alcoholic. You'll teach your children to be alcoholic. True, so it's not only true in my life, but it's true in the lives of those after me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Great. Another verse along that line is Proverbs 26, 11. And Proverbs 26, 11 says as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness goodness that's a, that's just an ugly um that's an ugly picture of just returning to the scene of the crime over and over again.
Speaker 1:It's like eating your own vomit and, god willing, you'll get pulled out of that. Another area that we get stuck in a cycle of sin, or another reason or another thing that keeps us in the cycle of sin, is our biblical ignorance and illiteracy. Now, ignorance and illiteracy are not the same. Anybody want to tackle what?
Speaker 3:the difference between ignorance and illiteracy are not the same. Anybody want to tackle what the difference between ignorance and illiteracy is? I'll throw it out there because I know Phil's the wordsmith and he'll correct where I'm going to get it all. He knows language well, but to me ignorance is. I never knew it was just. I never knew Illiteracy. Is that what the other one was right? Yes, I never read it to find out. I never tried to learn, that's the difference between me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and there's. You know, I remember reading, I think it's in Hebrews it talks about how the high priest would go once a year to offer sacrifices for the sins of the whole nation of Israel, and one of the categories that he was covering was, like sins done out of ignorance. You know, it's pretty fascinating that that's kind of a that was a thing. Yeah, I thought that was pretty fascinating, that that's kind of a that was a thing. Yeah, and so. But now in the New Testament you know Jesus is our high priest.
Speaker 4:It talks about it in Hebrews 4. It talks about it in Hebrews 10. It's all over the place. Even in 1 John 2, it says that if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father. You know, jesus is our advocate now, meaning he'll plead our case and say, father, don't hold this sin against them, because my blood paid for that. One too, you know. But but on the on the back, on the topic of the biblical illiteracy, I thought about that scripture in Hosea four where it says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a true thing, hosea 4, where it says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. That's a true thing. Not knowing what God's word says about something can lead to destruction in that area, whatever it is. If you don't know what God's word says about how to function in a marriage, you can end up with a marriage that falls apart simply because you never learned what God said about marriage in Ephesians 5. You know the whole way. He talked about submitting to one another in the fear of God and so forth. But yeah, john, if you don't mind backing up to the other scripture or maybe I missed it.
Speaker 1:Well, we have verse 5.
Speaker 4:was it joseph four, I believe yeah okay, sorry, john, I totally I mean taking it down the wild goose chase here. Yeah, yeah, we'll see here. In verse six, this is right after he said my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And then he says this to follow it up. He says since you have forgotten the laws of your God, I will forget to bless your children. That's pretty rough, that's serious stuff, man it is, and it's like. Here we see the after effects of not knowing his word or not abiding by what you do know, and it hardly ever turns out good. I can, I can tell you that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, david, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, Lynn, you're good.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say. There are no shortcuts. You know, I don't know how many of us understand Cliff Notes, if they're even still around.
Speaker 3:But cliff notes are a very originated version of the whole book you were supposed to read the book report on and the teacher knew what was left out of those cliff notes and people who would do their book report on that thinking they had gotten a shortcut. And we watch TV, we listen to pastors, we talk to other people, we'll go watch movies and think that we have a shortcut to know what the Bible says.
Speaker 2:But the.
Speaker 3:Bible I don't really know what word to use, but it's a different kind of book because you read it with the author interpreting it to you.
Speaker 3:It's a whole different ballgame than reading any other book or book about the Bible or watching movies. And I told y'all one day when we were talking that when I was much younger I was watching the Ten Commandments movie. The one was Charlton Heston and it went through and I had seen the movie a lot more than I'd read my Bible. So when I got to that passage in Exodus I was reading and I'm like but that's not how it happened in the movie and it's like which one is the authority here?
Speaker 3:And I didn't come to grips that there are things outside of the Bible who don't tell the truth the way the Bible does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that it's important to say this is something I've heard from you, lynn, say because I'm guilty of not, I don't watch a lot of Christian movies and Christian television shows because they make me uncomfortable. I'm just keeping it 100. They make me uncomfortable.
Speaker 4:I'm right there with you, man.
Speaker 1:Sorry, yes, but you do have to be so careful. Lynn, I think, mentioned last week the chosen yeah and how you can watch that and you can be emotionally pulled into it. You can feel some kind of way, it can all be great and you can be like, oh, look at Jesus, and all of that. And it have no accuracy in the word.
Speaker 3:Right Now. The benefit of the chosen is you get to see how Jesus loved and how light, because I think most people when they just read straight through text, they see God as austere, they see Jesus as very, you know, just one-dimensional, and it gives you a personality to apply. But so much of it. You've got to sit there and think let me go back and look and see where that is in Scripture. You've got to be careful with what you watch and what you accept into your experiences and say this is the truth because it was in the chosen.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you've got to think the same way about scrolling through social media.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Because there are a lot of prophets out there, a lot of Instagram pastors and preachers and they show you a lot of this stuff. And there's some people out there that I've seen put some stuff out there and they are well-meaning, but they're well-meaning, but wrong.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 100%. That's a dangerous game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, and I would like to invite people to look up the scriptures that we have and read it in context. Read the verses before and after, and if you disagree with the way we've interpreted that scripture, I think that's a wonderful opportunity for discussion. But no one should accept what we say, what a pastor says, without knowing that it's the truth.
Speaker 4:That's right. That's right. Yeah, under our former pastor for David and I our former pastor, he used to always say it. He said don't ever take my word for it. He said get into the Bible and find the scripture, read it for yourself so you can know it for yourself. Because if you do, just come to church on Sunday and well, that's the pastor's job, he's the one that is supposed to study the Bible.
Speaker 4:I honestly believe, guys, I honestly believe that it's every believer's responsibility to become a. You don't have to be a theologian or whatever, but you do have to be at least somewhat familiar with the Bible. I think it's important, man, because otherwise it's easy to get led astray and like Ephesians 4 talks about, it says you don't want to be a child beginning tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. You know everything that comes along that sounds good or seems exciting, that you're jumping onto the bandwagon, and it may not even be in the scripture. Or even if it is in the scripture, maybe it's being emphasized in a wrong way. You know we see that happen a lot. I mean, whole Christian trends and movements have been created off of things that may have only occurred in the Bible one time and it was just a side note in some cases, you know, but somebody took that and I'm sorry I got to, I got to bring this up with.
Speaker 2:The prayer of Jabez comes to mind up with the prayer of Jabez comes to mind. Dude, I was just thinking that, thank you.
Speaker 4:And it's like I mean, thank God, jabez prayed that prayer and I know he meant it from his heart and it was fantastic. But, dude, it swept through the body of Christ like a daggum hurricane.
Speaker 1:It was like you had calendars and devotionals, dude and t-shirts and mugs and pens, because I was selling that junk in the Christian bookstore I worked at.
Speaker 4:And it's like I mean. You know, in my humble opinion it may have been a little overemphasized at that point, you know Right.
Speaker 1:And there was nothing wrong with his prayer.
Speaker 2:Nothing wrong.
Speaker 4:Nothing. It's just that you can find those same promises a hundred other places in the Bible. You know that apply'm trying to be. I'm trying not to sound so critical or whatever, but just be careful that, whatever you hear from any person who's preaching or teaching or whatever the case is, you run your check in the scripture itself. Find out if what they're saying is true. Read the verses above and below it, you know, get a feel for the context, because a lot of times people just pull a scripture, they cherry, pick it right out of context and make a whole doctrine off of it, and it may not even be true.
Speaker 2:So you know.
Speaker 1:Philip mentioned our pastor before, and I'm so thankful for him because not only did he teach us to dig into the word for ourselves, but he even took time out on Sundays to teach us how to search context how to use a concordance. He helped us to shape and put together what we now know as our own study habits, so you know, and if you knew who our pastor was, some of you would be highly offended.
Speaker 1:But he truly was one of the great teachers. But nobody knew about all that good stuff he was teaching. They only know about things that they heard. I'll just say one other real quick thing too. Philip was just saying that everybody has a responsibility to come to the table having studied and dug into their word. Do you imagine I mean just imagine what would that do to your sunday service? Yeah, came to the table already having read and understood, and the pastor comes and lays out. First of all. I think we'd have an inflow like we hadn't seen in a long time ago of revelation from God.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:People who understood, who'd taken this word seriously and understood it. I think that also, what would open up is the door would open up for understanding. Yeah, and things that you were stuck on, things you weren't sure about. God could use that pastor or that teacher to help to bring clarity on things. And now there's this maturity level that's moving throughout your whole church, that absolutely shifts the atmosphere and can begin to change your whole community and the areas around you all because you spent time in the Word. I mean that's serious.
Speaker 3:But, dave, looking out onto that, because you were talking about begetting and if you start doing that and your children see you do that and their children see them do that, look at the heritage you create of knowledge and knowing God. But there's a warning that comes with that, because I think of China. I read a book by Randy Alcorn and I cannot remember the name of it right now, but it talked about the Christianity and the freedom to worship God.
Speaker 3:And then Mal came in and all of a sudden it was outlawed and if right now, in the state that we're in, if I don't have any more Bible knowledge than what I have right now and I have more than I used to, but do I have enough to sustain me? A friend was also talking about, or I was reading where they were talking about. They had a handwritten Bible and it was their most precious possession because most of the Bible had been written from memory because, they lived in.
Speaker 3:Christianity was outlawed and we say that never happened in America, but other countries never thought it would happen there. It's up to us to learn and to sow into the next generations. It's not just for ourselves.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's good Len.
Speaker 1:That's a perfect place to put a bookmark. So we have exhausted ourselves for this particular episode, at least exhausted the time on the clock. We've got some more of these cycle things. We've got four more to get through that we think will be helpful for you and more along this discussion. Just a reminder just because you said it doesn't mean it's the end.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 1:There's always a way out for you. And there's a path through repentance that God gives each one of us to be able to use and deploy. And I love what he says I will remember when we repent and bring our stuff to him. He says I will remember their sin no more. So God's not using your past as a means to motivate your future. He's not using it as a means to torment you or anything like that. He can't, because he has forgotten that thing, because he said he would and we have more trust and believe that he'll do exactly as he says.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to wrap it up for us, phillip and Lynn, any final thoughts.
Speaker 3:No, I think you wrapped it up well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, enough said there buddy, that was good stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, we're glad you joined us for this episode. We hope that you got some level of inspiration, lord God, and some motivation out of it. We, of course, would love to connect with you. You can connect with us through the comments section on any of the podcast apps or YouTube or Rumble that you're listening and watching through. We'd love to engage with you.
Speaker 1:Remember, what are the areas in your life or what areas do you think keep us in the cycle of sin in our lives? We'd love for you to share that in the comments section with us, between now and when the podcast goes live, and even after that, because we'll probably bring it in as part of a discussion point. Remember, as always, to smash that like button to subscribe with us here, both in Instagram, facebook, also on YouTube and Rumble and any of the platforms, again, that we're using. And also, if you just want to chat with us and you don't want to put it in the comments, you can reach us on email at gotbrew at biblebrosnet Again, that's gotbrew at biblebrosnet. Philip or Lynn, let's pray for people before we wrap up, finally, and then we'll close it in All right, lynn, if you don't mind doing the honors.
Speaker 4:Thank you, lynn, if you don't mind doing the honors, thank you, father.
Speaker 3:you are so very good. We thank you and we bless you. We praise you. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity that we can share the things that you've shown us. Father, I pray for those who are listening that you would just give them revelation into how much you love them, that you would draw them near and draw them close. For those who are caught up in a cycle of sin, father, let them be the light of your love. Lord, break that cycle. In the name of Jesus, we ask, father, for your presence with us as we move forward this day, and that you would be be with us and that you would teach us where to go. That you tell us in scripture this is the way. Walk therein. So, father, we know that you will guide and lead us. We love you, we praise you. We thank you for Jesus. In Christ's name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. All right everybody, I'm David, he's Phillip, she is the land master and we are out of here you.
