Was the Book of Enoch BANNED from the Bible...!? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the word of God, tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity, so you can be equipped to live free in Christ. Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Arraso, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Paul Cunningham. And we are coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. And on this episode, we will be talking about the book of Enoch. Should Christians teach their kids about Santa Claus? And we're gonna be responding to this viral 15 million view video that is confusing literally millions of Christians. Bro, I bet I had no joke. At least 20 church members sent me this thing. And that thing shook people. It kind of went viral out of nowhere. Bro, it shook people. So in this dude, as you're gonna see, he essentially takes like a bouquet of every myth about the origins of the Bible and Christianity, and he just clumped them all into one and threw them at you. That's right. So like, we're gonna hit this. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a fun episode. You guys doing good? Doing great. It would be better if you had a cowboy hat on. Bro, I have an announcement. First of all, I have a very important announcement. I watched Tombstone. Yay! And I was gonna bring a cowboy hat because I don't want all any, but Amazon Prime did not come through. Dang. This leads to a crucial moment though. What did you think? But hold on before I say that. Yeah, we need a review. I need a review. And what's an El Salvadorian? Because it's very Americana. Yeah, I will say this. I did buy my first pair of boots. Yeah, I did. So, I don't know, you might see me with some boots in a little bit. I liked it. I thought it was good. I will say this. Probably not my best date night movie. Carlos texted us and he was like, date night, what's Brooke gonna think? Me and Paul were like, Oh my God! He's probably gonna help her to like it. I asked Amy, she said she liked it. I mean, Brooke is open minded, you know. It's probably not the best date night movie, but I liked it, man. I can see how much of a classic it is. It's full of like epic lines. It's like the whole movie. Yeah. A lot of things made more sense. Top five quotable movie of all time. I was about to ask what your favorite line or moment was. I'm your huckleberry. I'm your huckleberry. That's a classic. I'm your huckleberry. Twice. Yeah, it was pretty good. Okay, before we get into this, can I do something I wish I would have known on last week's pod? Please do. Okay, so actually, first of all, we talked about this last week's pod. We just finished a Christmas at the movies it was last week. Dude, did you guys know this? I don't know if you knew this. All the data ended up coming in. We had, it was over 33,000 people in person at services that week. That's nice. And heads up, there were tons of live free listeners who had not ever hit a lay point campus before that came. So shout out Live Free Nation. Let's go, man. But Kraman 33,000 in there was amazing. We keep on hearing stories of people literally flying from different states just to come say hi. All right, now. And we love that. So shout out Live Free Nation. Here's what I wish I had known. All right, so this dude, his name's Jeremy Wayne Tate. I don't know anything about this guy. I ran across this and he had this post that also went viral about how Home Alone is a Christian movie. For this kills me. I was like, how did I not know this? All right, so like, we're gonna show screenshots because Jason and these guys are telling me that they'll take the episode down off of YouTube if we play the clip. All right, so here, so go to the first one. So that, you know, no, no, no, the first one. The first, stay at that one. So it's the scene where Kevin's walking into the church, right? And so I'm gonna read this. This is nuts. I can't really know this before. He says, watch this scene very carefully where Kevin is drawn into the beauty and warmth of the church. As he walks inside to Oh, Holy Night, he hears the words, fall on your knees. Oh, hear the angel voices. Now next screenshot. I'm setting the mood. Yeah, I like it. A sanctuary candle passes across the foreground, indicating that Christ is present inside the church. Then next screenshot, Kevin has an encounter with a Christ figure. Now, if you think this is crazy, just stick with me for a second. Kevin has an encounter with a Christ figure, Old Man Marley. Now, this isn't in the post, but I'll just point this out. When you first meet Old Man Marley in the movie, what's he doing? He's like, Chevlin Snow, right? Chevlin Snow, but remember what's he got in his- Salting, salting. He's salting the earth. Oh. Oh. He's salting the earth, okay? Now, so check this out. So Old Man Marley, Christ figure, Kevin makes a confession to him, then shakes his hand, and we see a bandage on Marley's hand. Now, check this out, bro. Check this out. It's never explained in the movie why his hand is wounded, but earlier in the movie, we see, drumroll, go to that next one, go to the next one. His hand is pierced all the way through. So he actually had two pictures. Do you have both of them, Trinity? So top there, blood, go back to the other one, bottom, blood. His hand is pierced all the way through, like the nails during through Christ's hands on the cross. At the end of the movie, Kevin cannot save himself from the burglars, and so Marley appears again to rescue him. Home Alone is a Christian movie. Good. Wow. Isn't that amazing? That's crazy. I've never heard this before. It's compelling. It's compelling. I'll also say this. Do you have the picture? Actually, I didn't send it to you. Here's another thing that's interesting. At the end of the movie, his hands are healed. When he shows up to save Kevin. And he says hi. And he says hi, and he waves, and his hands are healed. So I don't know, man. Could be something there. Home Alone Christian movie. I'm a fan. I think there's enough smoke that there might be some fire. Let's put it that way. I was like, he's not buying it, bro. He's like, I saw this, it's pretty cute, but I'm not buying it. I saw that post on Monday, and the same thing. Like look at it day after. I mean, just the day after at the movies. And I saw it, and I liked it, but at the same time, I was like, okay. I like it. So then I read in the comments that I guess the guy that wrote the script is like a devout Catholic. So there could, I mean, there could be. I like it. Could be something there. I'm actually a good man. I'm a good man. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, Carlos. Paul is a little more of a skeptic, it's okay. With some of the stuff that we're covering today, I think that's why I've been studying up, and I'm in more of a skeptic mood for the whole result. Book of Enoch. Yeah. Well, we'll get there. Did we get all the stuff in the Bible we're supposed to, all the things we're gonna talk about. Paul's about debunking myths today. Today, that's probably why. I'm a little bit more of a skeptical mood because of that. Speaking of Christmas services, in two weeks, we have our kind of like Christmas services. How many do we have? Do you know? A bunch. That's like over 30. Yeah. So you mentioned for people that maybe are within driving distance. You gotta come. We wanna see you here, but even if you're not, we love for you. Come say hi. Come say hi. It's gonna be fun. And so if you want more information, text the word Christmas to 20411, if you're curious about which one you can be joining us. Every week we do a head giveaway as well. And by the way, we had this dispute that we need to settle in this one time for people setting up their Christmas trees before Thanksgiving. It seems like the winner is a drum roll please. After Thanksgiving. Ah! That's the wrong answer. The wrong answer. Paul, you think that's the wrong answer? I used to, and then I got married. And now we do it before. We have a winner, because we do this every week. So winner of this week, of last week's was Eggman Tim. So that's a- Why does YouTube assign weird names? YouTube assigns weird user names. I actually Googled that name just to make sure that we're not showing anything inappropriate here. So it's fine. Yeah, I don't know man. All right, that's good. So hey, for this winner or for the this week's giveaway, here's what I want you to comment. Comment below to enter this week's giveaway, Christmas pajamas for adults, cringe or awesome? So comment below, cringe or awesome, and you will be participating in today's giveaway. And then we'll pick somebody and send a hat. We'll pick a winner and that's right. And then one more thing before we dive in, hey thanks for liking, subscribing, sharing all the things. Also, we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. And your next step after listening to this podcast is community, find your band of brothers, and find your people. And this is why we've compiled all key takeaways, additional content and discussion questions coming from this episode. So you can use it as a tool to take it to your life group. And so to get the show notes, AKA our discipleship guide, text the word notes to 20411 or go to lakepoint.church slash show notes. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. I'm prepared. What did it make it to the sermon? Okay, I didn't say I will allow it. I was gonna ask you if you allow that question. A lot honestly didn't make it in the sermon because so here's what we're doing. We're in a series called Glad Ties We Bring. It's really interesting when the angels show up in Luke chapter two and we're gonna deep dive this here for a second. They essentially they announced four things to the shepherds, fear not, good news, great joy all people. And so what we're doing during the series is like we're just we're deep diving on each of those. Fear not, fear not, good news, great joy all people. That's what Christmas does for the human soul. So a few things, there's a lot here. We did Luke, it was Luke two, eight through 14. So this is the most famous Christmas account in the scriptures. Couple of things are really interesting. So if we're gonna zoom out and like get a running start theologically. So a lot of people miss this. The Old Testament ends the last verses of the book of Malachi, bro, I didn't know this until last two weeks. The last verses of the book of Malachi, which is obviously the last book of the Old Testament. The last verses prophesied by the coming Messiah. And dude, one of the things it says is that there's gonna come a quote unquote, son of righteousness with healing in his wings. It says it's gonna turn the hearts of the children of the fathers and the hearts of the fathers of the children. So then essentially God leaves Israel on red. It's like the bubbles, you know, on the, for 400 years. Okay, so that is prophesied about the coming Messiah. Dude, I didn't know this. So when Malachi says he's gonna have healing in his wings, the Hebrew, I stumbled across this this week, the Hebrew word is the Hebrew word Knaf, which can get translated wings or it can get translated a fringe or an edge like of a garment. So I didn't know this. So then, okay, bro, this is a little deep cut. Jesus shows up, Jesus is obviously a rabbi. He's a teacher. And when a rabbi is what they would wear, is that they would wear these robes that would have these, like these fringe tassels on their robes. The word that was used for those was Knaf. In other words, that's the rabbi's wings. So dude, this is really interesting. Then you fast forward, you go to Mark chapter five. You got the woman with the issue of blood, right? Bro, okay, you know what I'm going with? You got the woman with the issue of blood. I've read that story a million times and be like, man, why did she just walk up to Jesus? And it specifically says she touches the edge of his garment expecting to be healed. Bro, this lady had read Malachi chapter four and she knew for 400 years, they'd been waiting for a Messiah to come who would have, quote, healing in his wings. And she had faith that this is the one who was promised. And so in faith to Malachi chapter four, she walks up and touches the fringe, the Knaf of his garment. Wow, so cool. Boom, she's healed. Wow. And all of it is a fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy from Malachi chapter four that leads up to, obviously the very next thing that happens in the biblical narrative is the birth of Christ. So it's like you get this running. So have you ever heard that before? I've never heard that before. Bro, I stumbled across this week. That's absolutely amazing. I love that. Let me do a couple other things real quick. Number one, obviously this stuff is cool. It's just like a little theology nerd, deep dive stuff. Obviously Jesus is born in Bethlehem. I'm sure both of you guys know this, that Bethlehem is a Hebrew conjunctive word that means house of bread, which is kind of cool because Jesus obviously, number one, he says, man should not live on bread alone, but in every word that comes to the mouth of God. Jesus is the Lagos. Jesus is the word from God, but then also Jesus says he's the bread of life. So I just think like you, so almost nowhere else in the Bible do you start getting these sovereign like crazy deep cuts. There's no way this could have been orchestrated by anybody but a sovereign God. You get that there. Golly dude, there's a bunch I didn't get in. I don't want to, I don't want to labor this. It's a fun little fact. Joseph was probably not a carpenter. This is very interesting. People get that for Matthew 13. In Matthew 13, people are like skeptical of Jesus and they're like, man is not this the, and our English Bibles often translated, is not this Joseph the carpenter's son. That's actually, it's a little translation area that goes back, apparently a few hundred years, the Greek word is tecton, or tecnon, tecnon or tecton. That it actually, what it should be translated simply craftsman or builder. So what happened was when they were originally translating it, what craftsman primarily worked with was wood. But in Jesus day, nine out of 10 craftsman projects would have been stone, not wood. So Jesus actually, Joseph and Jesus were probably stone masons more than they were carpenters. It's just a fun little fact. Couple of things that I do want to hit the did make it in. Obviously very interesting theologians who pointed this out for centuries, it's kind of odd that the angels appeared to the shepherds. I think this becomes like very significant here in a second. So like just give me a second on this and then we'll start processing this. So shepherds, it's a little weird. Why appear to the shepherds? Why not an emperor? Why not a cheap priest? So deal on shepherds is essentially like, they were kind of like lowest dudes on the blue collar totem pole in Israel. So like if you couldn't do anything else, you kind of got stuck with shep, like if you dropped out of community college to smoke weed and watch porn, you became a shepherd. Like that's, I'm serious, like they were just like rough around the edges, like blue collar dudes, like not awesome dudes. So much so from what I read this week, shepherds testimony were not admissible in court because they were like, these guys are just a bunch of liars. They're just a bunch of rough around it. They'd fight you at the drop of hat, like think like your normal Philadelphia Eagles fan. And it's like, guess what you got on a shepherd. So then, okay, well then why it seems significant, why do these angels appear to the shepherds to announce the coming? There's two things going on here. Number one, what you have is God is acknowledging the type of people that he came for. So again, man, it's like, hey, it's not that good people are in and bad people are out, and it's not that religious people are in and irreligious people are out. It's that the humble, the lowest are in, the people who can admit their need, their in and the proud are out. So this is really fun. If we ever go to Israel, sometime we all need to go to Israel together. If we ever go to Israel together, if you go to Bethlehem, they built a Catholic church. Catholic church essentially took every cool site and ruined it by sticking a chapel on top of it. It's like what they did. So they did this at the likely place of Jesus' birth. Like there's a little cave there and it just fits the geographic description and the church of the nativity at Jesus' birth. They stuck a little chapel there. It's actually kind of cool. Trinity, go ahead and toss that up. This was a cool move. When the Catholic church built the church of the nativity, the entrance to the church of the nativity is that door right there. It's like two and a half, three feet tall. And they intentionally built the door so that the only way to enter into the presence of God would be to lower yourself in order to enter. So cool. Amazing. That even hits on a common theme you see in chapter two where really Luke two is extremely politically subversive. At the very beginning of the chapter, you get Caesar Augustus. And here's a few titles for Caesar that would have been used of him, Savior and Lord, and that he would have brought peace on earth, it was called the Pax Romana. And so all of a sudden here, water's two of the three titles that Jesus has given, Savior and Lord. So they're saying, hey, Caesar isn't Savior and Lord. Jesus is Savior and Lord, Jesus is king. That's a dude. And it says, and he is bringing peace on earth to those on whom his favor rests. And where Caesar would have come in and pop in circumstance, the Savior and king of the world comes in, in a manger and appears to the lolliest of lollies. So it's this very politically subversive message. And also, I don't know if you were gonna hit this, but around Bethlehem was where they would have raised many of the lambs that were slaughtered. He's, you're beating me too. I keep going, I keep going, I keep going. Oh, and so even that you have appearing to the shepherds. That's right. The Lamb of God. That's right. To be slain for the sins of the world. All of a sudden you get this image in Bethlehem that these were the lambs that were slain. Like, no, this is the lamb that will replace all those lambs once and for all. Dude, you totally beat me too. I'm sorry. Because this is amazing. All right. So there's another thing. You know, we do Christmas in the winter. Almost certainly we know because it says the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks in the fields at night. We know from like Jewish historians and things that shepherds would not sleep out in the fields with their flocks at night during the winter months. They would only do that during the summer months. So it's probably warm. Here's the other thing we know. Okay, bro, this is amazing. Here's the other thing we know is the day of atonement. So like the peak day where lambs need to be slain typically would fall on the calendar in September. So here's what a lot of people think are happening. Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem. It's not far at all. Like literally walking distance from Jerusalem. So what some people think is happening is the angels are coming to these shepherds. They're literally raising the lambs in their fields. They're maybe sometime in August, warm months. That's why they're out in the fields at night. They're literally raising the lambs that are going to be slain at the day of atonement. And the angels are essentially coming to say, you're not gonna be needing those anymore. Because the lamb is coming. He's gonna be the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. So there's a lot going on here, man. I love it too, because back to what you were saying, Josh, even the fact that God wanted to find these shepherds that were the lowest and again, just this idea that God chooses those whom the world considers unworthy, not just to bring blessings to them, but also to empower them to bring blessing to people around them. Because if you keep reading, it's interesting, these shepherds become the first evangelist of this gospel. Even before the disciples, before the women at the tomb, before Paul, these shepherds, the Bible says in verse 16, they hurried off and spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds had said to them. And so it's like, God not only revealed himself to them, but he also empowered them to be the evangelist of this gospel. And so again, I think it goes back to, this is what God does for us. He chooses those that are considered unworthy by other people. Maybe you're thinking, man, I'm not as impressive as Paul or Josh or this other person that God seems to be using mightily. That's why God chooses you because he wants to demonstrate his power through you. Right, that's exactly right. Yeah, it's interesting, because in a sense, they're the first ones. And then when you mentioned that shepherds, their testimony was not in court, who else's wasn't? Women, who they were the first witnesses of the resurrection. That's the gospel. That's just a common theme throughout. Yeah, it's good. Okay, I do a couple of deep cuts. Yeah, I love this stuff so much. This kind of stuff, I was like, wow, I wish I had time to get in this sermon. So number one, it's like, let me just, let me get a run and start and go back to the sacrifice and all sacrifices. All right, so again, you have a couple hints. He appears the shepherds, the shepherds are, it's possible they're raising the lambs are gonna be slain to the day of atonement. Okay, that's interesting. Number two, whenever it says this passage says in Luke two that they verse, it says verse seven, and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling claws. And then it says, and laid him in a manger. Okay, now I took this picture. Go ahead and toss that manger up. I took this picture. If you go to Israel, these manger, that's a manger. And they would typically be in like horse stalls or animal stalls. So think about this. You already have, they're appearing to shepherds who are raising lambs to be slain. Then when Jesus is born, they announce his birth to those shepherds. They put Jesus in the same thing that a newborn spotless lamb would be put in upon its birth, bro, this is like inception level stuff. Okay, so then, okay, let's go a layer deeper. So this is how when theologians talk about this, there's a scarlet thread that runs this way from Genesis to free and revelation. And it's all the slain lamb. Okay, so here's, it culminates in this story. Okay, so like, just give me 30 seconds here. Okay, so you get Genesis one and two, Adam and Eve sin. That is the first appearance of fear. I mentioned this in the sermon. That's the first appearance of fear in the entire Bible. So then God goes and finds them. Theologians call it the proto-Evangelion, the first telling of the gospel. In Genesis three, Adam and Eve sin, God puts on his sitka gear and he goes, and it says he kills an innocent animal. And then he think about it, he covers them in their sin with the skins. He covers them with the slain animal, maybe a spotless lamb. All right, then you fast forward, bro. And then you get to the Abrahamic covenant, Genesis 15. God establishes the Abrahamic covenant, by the way, both of the genealogies of Jesus in Luke and Matthew are extremely explicit. They have to trace the lineage of Jesus back to Abraham. Interesting, why? Okay, so then Abraham, he's taken Isaac up on the mountain, right, we know this story. And Isaac's like, Jesus, where's the sacrifice? Or no, he's Abraham, where's the sacrifice? And essentially it's like, well, Isaac, you're the sacrifice. And he gets up there and think about it, think about it. Abraham's son, his only son that he loves, he's about to sacrifice. And then at just the right time, they look over and God provides another innocent animal, ram caught in a thicket. They sacrifice the ram and the son goes free. Okay, that's very interesting. Now, you skip forward and obviously you get to the Passover. Passover in ancient Egypt, angel of death is coming by, anywhere the angel of death saw the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and the lentils of the homes. We talked about this in sermons before, when they would have taken the Hyssop, dipped it in the blood of the lamb and put it on the sides and the top of the doors. A lot of Bible scholars say you would literally have been walking through Egypt and would have seen bloody crosses on the front of all these doors. And anywhere the angel of death saw the blood of a slain lamb and a cross, it decided to pass over and not visit the sins of the house, on the house, okay? Now skip forward. You get, we're building to Luke chapter two, bro. Wow. Okay, then skip forward. Then after this, they go out in the wilderness and God gives the law. At the giving of the law, God begins to outline what's called the day of atonement. And dude, I could spend 30 minutes, we could talk about the day of atonement and just deep dive on it. The day of atonement was the one day every year. If you get in the temple, if we go back and look at the temple, there was like a room inside of a room inside of a room that was the holy of holies, where the presence of God was. All this is gonna make sense here in a second. Just stick with me, bro, this is important. And what separated the presence of God from the people of God was a curtain. And that curtain, a woven curtain would have been about literally the thickness of your hand. Ain't nobody gonna tear that curtain. Like a woven curtain, the thickness of your hand. One day a year and only one day a year, only one dude, the high priest, chief high priest, he would have go through all these cleansing rituals. He'd have to slay again, check it out. A spotless, innocent, blam. And he would have to purify both himself and all the instruments of the temple with the blood of the spotless, innocent lamb. And as long as he was covered with the blood of the spotless, innocent lamb, that one day a year, they would literally tie, that's a true story, man. They would literally tie a rope to the dude's ankle. And he could one day a year walk into the presence of God, into the room inside of a room, inside of a room behind the curtain. And the people have interceded for the people of God in the presence of God. The reason they tied the rope to his ankle was if he had any unconfessed sin, if there was any impurity on him, then he would die. And they needed a way to pull his body out of there. Okay, so that's the day of atonement. Then you get to Stinking Luke chapter two. And we've had thousands of years of slain lamb, slain lamb, slain lamb. And then who did the angels appear to? Shepherds raising the lambs to be slain on the day of atonement. What do they put Jesus in? A manger that a spotless lamb when it was first born would have been put in. And then dude, John the Baptist sees Jesus. You remember this? John the Baptist sees Jesus in just a few chapters. My goodness. Is there's a reason we get emotional as a Christian when you talk about this. It's Jesus on the road to Emmaus, did not our hearts burn within us. John the Baptist sees Jesus for the first time. You remember what he says? Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. All right, now skip ahead again, bro. Then you get to the Last Supper. And at the Last Supper, it's really interesting. Everything that would have been normally at a Passover meal is mentioned in the Bible. The bread, the cup, the spices, there's one thing that's not mentioned. The lamb, they should have been eating the lamb. It's never mentioned in any of the gospels. And the implication is the lamb is not on the table because the lamb is sitting at the table. So then, bro, yeah. It keeps going. Bro, I think it keeps going, bro. So then you get to the cross. And if you go, the Bible tells us exactly the hour at which Jesus was crucified. The hour at which Jesus was crucified is exactly the hour at which the lamb was commanded to be slain for the Passover meal. It is the exact same hour that the lamb of God is slain on the cross, exact same hour that the lamb should have been slain for the day of Atonement. So then Jesus is on the cross. And I just wanna point this out, bro. Jesus never cries out in pain, ever. He is not recorded as crying out in pain when they beat him. He is not recorded as crying out in pain when they flogging with a cat and eintails and literally stripped the flesh off his back. He is not recorded as crying out in pain whenever they expose nerve endings of his back, have a roughshod splinter filled cross rubbing up and down. There is one time and one time only that Jesus ever is recorded as crying out. Jesus was a dude. Like he could, he take, Jesus could handle some pain, but there's one time where Jesus is recorded as crying out. The Bible says that darkness began to fall. And when that darkness fell, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachtani. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Only time Jesus ever cries out. Why did Jesus never cry out in pain? But in that moment when the sky goes dark, Jesus cries out, here's why. Because as the sky is dark for three hours, what's happening is God the Father was turning his back on the sun so that he could turn his face toward you. And Jesus had lived his entire life in such face-to-face intimacy with the Father that for that one second to have that intimacy with the Father taken from him, that was his breaking point. And that's when he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, let's go one layer deeper. The Bible says at that specific moment, the curtain that separated the presence of God from the people of God, the curtain at the front of the Holy of Holies. Remember, bro, this thing's a woven curtain as thick as your hand. Ain't nobody's gonna tear that thing. The Bible says at that moment, the curtain was torn. And it says from top to bottom, not bottom to top, top to bottom, tall curtain. The implication is God tore the veil. God tore it, why? Because when Jesus was separated from God, everything that separated us from God was removed. He was separated from the Father so that we could be united to the Father, which brings us all the way back to Luke chapter two. Behold, the Lamb of God, born to take away the sins of the world. Come on, man, so good. So good. No, we can keep going. Wow, God. Because like in Revelation, it says the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. So in other words, cross was always plan A. It was always plan A. It was always the plan. And then even like as you're talking through the 10th plague, another connection, ninth plague, do you remember what it was? Oh, dude, was that the darkness covers the land? Yes. 10th plague, death of the firstborn. Whoa. On the cross, darkness covers the land and then death of the Son of God. I've never heard that before. And think about it, to even your connection with the gospel, which was so beautiful, Pastor Josh, was in those plagues, God in the Old Testament was taking out his wrath on his enemies, is on the enemies of God. But on the cross, Jesus becomes an enemy on behalf of the enemies of God so that we might become sons and daughters of God and friends of God. That's the gospel. Bro, in the words of my daughter, clock it. That's so good, man. Bible is just like, there's just so much more. Like it's rich, rich, rich with like parallels and connections and echo. It's one book. That's why we started this thinking podcast because there's all this stuff like that that I'm like, I never have time to get that into certain. Can I do one more deep cut? Go ahead. Let me do one more and then we're going on. There's more layers of the Christmas story than like anything else in the whole Bible. Now, first of all, if this makes it into Christmas Eve service sermons, I get them all again. I'm allowed to say this twice, but just in case it doesn't, I want to get it in. So the other people that, should I do this? All right, I'm gonna do it real quick. The other people that mentioned that visit Jesus, in addition to the shepherds, they do their thing, are the Magi. Do you know the thing about the Magi? I'm not sure we've come out of this. Okay, this is amazing. All right. Here's another like, I can't believe the Bible's that cool. So for people have always wondered like, it just, there's these weird Magi, mysterious Magi, which is just a short for magician. They just show up. It's like, who are these magicians? And it says Magi from the East. East, yeah. That's all we know about them. Magi from the, so people are like, where in the world are these stinking Magi come from? Who are these guys? All right, all right, bro. Rewind, I think it's 600 years. Rewind 600 years. To the book of Daniel in the Bible. So Babylon conquers Israel. This is like the best Christmas deep cut ever. Babylon conquers Israel. When Babylon conquers Israel, they plunder all the gold from the temple and they take them into Nebuchadnezzar's thing and they get all this, they got all the gold from the temple and they make all this stuff out of it, all right? So then the Bible tells us Daniel gets set up over the Magi in Babylon. The astrologers. Yeah, but it specifically uses the word Magi. He gets set over the magicians and astrologers, but specifically some translations of the Bible literally use the word. He's the chief Magi in ancient Babylon 600 years before, okay? So Daniel gets set up as the primary Bible teacher in Babylon. The back half of Daniel are all these prophecies about a coming Messiah someday. This is amazing. All right. So all we know is Daniel spends the rest of his life teaching these Magi in Babylon about a coming Messiah. And here's what, you can just imagine this, he's in his classroom. Here's what the Bible says that someday he's gonna be in Bethlehem. And the Bible says that, and he's teaching them about all these prophecies, all right? All right, so then he dies in the book of Daniel's over. So then you fast forward to Matthew chapter two and these Magi come from the east, all right? Well, the ancient Babylonian empire, modern day Iraq, which just so happens to be due east of Nazareth where they come to visit Jesus. These dudes, these Magi, here's who I think they are. I think they are the direct descendants of these Magi from Babylon that Daniel taught the Bible to. These dudes, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather bent their knee to the Lordship of Jesus. They believed the prophecies from the Bible and they handed it down to their children and their children's children and their children's children's children for 600 years so that when Jesus is born, and they start hearing these little rumblings about a king that's born in Bethlehem, they're like, man, my papa told me someday this was gonna happen. And they were a Bible believing men. And so they travel all these miles because they believe these prophecies and they show up. And remember it says they bring three gifts, frankincense, myrrh, and gold. And dude, there is a little part of me that wonders if these guys kept the gold that the Babylonian empire plundered from the temple. And they knew that the boy that was gonna be born as Lord was actually God. And they essentially come back to say, we came to bring your gold back. And these dudes are the direct descendants of those dudes, I think. I think that's a possibility. Then it would have taught them numbers 24, 17 that says a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. And they would have been able to recognize that star and be like, I think that's the star. We need to go this way. And then they saw their king. Well, it's amazing. We can keep going. There's so much. There's so much. Yeah, and because the lamb was slain, Pastor Josh, that means that we don't have to fear. Fear not. That means that we... Fear not for I bring you good news of great joy. That was the sermon this week. Let's go, man. Fear not, man, the elimination of our fear. And so here's my question, because I wanna make it practical, because this is amazing, and I love this, we could keep going with this. But when a Bible says fear not, it doesn't say it as a suggestion. It says it as a command. It's over and over, over, like all throughout, hundreds of times, some people say it's 365 times, fear not. I read 366 this week. So you can throw in leap yourself. Yeah, you can, I guess, yeah, depending on the translation, I'm assuming. What language you read it in? Paul's like, yeah, that's right. Paul's like, yeah, that's right, you better make that comment. Fear not is not a suggestion. It is a command. God is telling us, hey, don't fear. How do you do this? If somebody's listening to me like, wow, that sounds just not realistic. How do you do this? In fact, one of my favorite quotes, G, Cake Chesterton said, Jesus promises disciples three things that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble. So somebody might be asking, in the midst of my trouble, how can I not be fearing? How do you do it as a Christian? Well, first of all, go listen to Sermon, because I was like, that was, I will say, man, if you're gonna boil it down to one thing, so there's a reason that the word of God was written down for us, and that we can wake up in the morning, and this morning, my Bible reading was 2 Corinthians 1 through 4. And there's a reason God gave that to us. Here's what I would say, man, is, first of all, we are commanded, I wanna just re-emphasize this, we are commanded to be fearless people. A Christian is somebody who should have only one controlling fear, the fear of God. And we talked about this during the sermon, man, a lot of people, they're gripped by fear of man because they do not have a fear of God, and when you live in a fear of God, it eliminates fear of man. What I would say, man, is, and I love knowing what your thoughts on this, Paul, what I would say is, you can't control what you feel, but you can't control what you think about, which is why the Bible is constantly like, hey, man, it gives us a command, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. So here's the example I would use. I had a mentor one time who said, man, Josh, whenever God gives you a promise, and he like personalizes something in your life, he said, make it the wallpaper of your life, memorize it, meditate on it, think about it, over and over again, I won't do it again. I've talked about on this podcast when I had the little season of the anxiety attacks, I literally just like listed promises and memorized them, made it the wallpaper of my life. So here's what I would say to a Christian that is like, you know, we get, they're full of anxiety or fear, is, here's the analogy I'd use. So it's like last week on X, Elon and those guys, did you guys see where they, they made the country of origin visible on all the X accounts? That's right. Okay, so this is really, I actually screenshoted like dozens of these. This is really interesting. There were all these like huge, I'm going somewhere with this, these huge accounts, like with hundreds of thousands of followers who have been like tweeting things to stir up fear and division in America, like fear and division, fear and division, fear and division, fear and division. And these accounts are like posing as American citizens or prominent leaders. And then they like, they made the country of origin visible. And it was like 90% of them were like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, like tons of them were from India. I didn't see any El Salvador. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank God, thank God. That's right. Hey man, same team, same team. They're done, there you go. Same team. So dude, so here's the example. There's all these accounts that were putting thoughts out into the world that you thought were on our team, but they were actually working for the enemy. And they were stoking fear and division, fear and division, fear and division. When the Bible commands Christians to quote, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ, what it's saying is every thought that we have, then you need to pause, put that thought in like a cross examination chair and ask the question, who sent you and what kingdom are you coming from? You need to evaluate who sent this thought. Because there's a lot of thoughts that you have that you might think are from you or you might even think are from God, but actually their nation of origin is from the kingdom of darkness. Satan is an accuser and he's the father of lies. And so man, when you're thinking things like, man, God hates me or I'll never be happy again or I've messed up and there's no hope my family will never be reconciled. What that stuff will do is it'll stir up fear in your heart. And what you gotta do is like, you gotta, okay, let me sit that thought down for a second and ask the question, what's your country of origin? Do you come from heaven? Is that Jesus Christ? You know? It's good. And when you do that again, it's like, you can't control how you feel, but you can control what you think about and make sure the thoughts you're thinking are from the father. That's right. Agree, disagree, additional comments. I heard this from Pastor Mark Driscoll. This is helpful to me, because once you start thinking about if you are feeling fear, the way you override that fear is through your faith. And so this is what I found helpful. He said, fear looks out, faith looks up. And so if you're looking out, torture problems, you're gonna get fear, but faith does not look out, it looks up, fear listens to the world, faith listens to the word. The more your attention and your focus goes to the world, bad news, whatever's going on out there, the more fear you'll have. The more attention and focus goes into the word of God, the more faith you'll have. Fear causes people to stop living, it paralyzes you, a lot of people, especially in this new generation as well, they're paralyzed because of fear. Faith causes people to start living. Faith is active obedience is what does the word of God say? Let me put it in practice right now. This is why we do the podcast. We live free, we don't just talk free. We want you to apply whatever we are having, whatever conversation we're having, and then fear keeps changing your mind, faith settles your mind. Even when things are not well, you can say, man, God is with me and I have faith that he is. And he said, don't fear, I can trust him, it is well. Amen. I think it was a Watchmen knee, a Christian from, I believe the 1900s from China. He talked first about the idea of you've got facts, faith and feelings. The proper order is what I just said. Is what are the facts? I wanna place my faith, my mind on the facts. And then after that, the feelings will catch up. Now that doesn't mean they're always gonna be there. Sometimes you're still gonna feel afraid, but when you do, you don't look back at your feelings, you look forward with your faith to the facts that are still true regardless of my feelings. But what so many Christians do is they change the order. They put feelings first, they put their faith in their feelings and then say that must be the facts. They say, oh, however I'm feeling, that must be true. And so now I'm gonna feel afraid. Whereas, hey, you actually, you might still feel a feeling of fear. It's a feeling. When you feel it, you have to remind yourself of what is true. Like God said, I will never leave you or forsake you. That greater he is, he who is in you than he who is in the world. You've gotta choose it to your point to set your mind on those facts even if you're not feeling like they're true. Doesn't matter what you're feeling. Put your faith in the facts, not in your feelings. That's right, amen. Or God did not give you a spirit of fear but of power, love and self-discipline. Amen. Well, hey guys, one of the reasons we are intentional in creating these kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the Live Free Podcast is we wanna model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the word of God together and grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ. For this reason, we love that you're tuning in. But honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined a group, you need to get into rooted. Ruded is a 10 week discipleship experience that helps you grow closer to God, build meaningful relationships and discover the purpose he has for your life. Ruded guides you to practice the seven rhythms of following Jesus to transform your faith from something you know into something you actually live out every single day. And so whether you're exploring what it means to follow Jesus and you're ready to grow deeper in your faith or maybe you're searching for people to do life with, rooted is for you. Just text the word rooted to 20411 and our teams will follow up personally. Do not wait, your next step starts now. Hey, I wanna switch gears a little bit. What are we doing? We're talking Santa, we're talking Book of Enoch. Where are we going next, man? We got live. In a couple episodes ago, we talked about UFOs. And so I wanna make sure that we follow up. We had some decent amount of comments. Bro, can we show those? Yeah, we got some comments of people asking about one particular topic that I wanna bring up. So this is somebody saying, the Book of Enoch makes it clear that demons are actually the disembodied Nephilim and they keep going about fallen angels. There's another one over there, Trinity. Oh, I'm so glad for somebody to confirm this about angels. I came to this conclusion after reading the Book of Enoch. Bro, Book of Enoch. And then there's another one here. I'm really curious if you guys have dived into the Book of Enoch and what your thoughts are on it. So I wanna, you know, and I got some emails as well. There's no more. Enoch describes demons as the spirits of the giants, part angels, part humans, because of that they cannot leave the earth. They hated us and they were alive and they hate us now. By the way, we need to do an episode on the Nephilim at some point. That's right, that's coming soon. We'll get there. But I wanna ask, I wanna bring this conversation because people are, you know, some of you are like, the Book of Enoch, I don't remember reading that one. Did Joe Rogan mention it? That's right, he did. And we actually have a clip, you got that clip? We, Tranny, you got. So let me say this. So yeah, here's why we're gonna talk about this and I'm gonna lead this to the chat, G-Paul T. The, it's like, people are on a huge Book of Enoch kick lately. Yes they are. So you got all these comments. But then this week you even had Rogan going viral talking Book of Enoch, you wanna show it? Yep, Tranny, let's go. Okay. Rep Luna, you know, she came on my podcast too and she was telling me some stuff that was just like mind blowing. And she was, she really got me to read the Book of Enoch. She's like, you gotta read that. So you have the Ethiopian Orthodox text, which has I think 88 books of the Bible in total. But in the Ethiopian Orthodox text, it's basically kind of like a mainline OG version of the Bible. And then sometime in the fourth century, there was actually a group that came together and they removed certain books. And the story goes that revelations actually had replaced Enoch. And so it's interesting because when you're looking kind of full circle and you hear the stuff that some of these people are talking about and then you see and you read the Book of Enoch, which is a wild read, okay? And then you look at kind of what our modern day description is of what angels and entities are versus what Enoch was seeing and reporting in his language and ability at that time. I just, I think that there's a lot that brings you to then ask the question, well, why would they remove this information? If it's truly written in part the oldest Bible in the world, why would they then take it out? Then that could have easily been attached to the religious canon. You tell me about this. Some rabbis disagreed with it because it didn't vibe with the Torah. So like let's chuck that one out. But it's in the same lump of Dead Sea Scrolls as they have the Book of Isaiah, which is really fascinating because Wes Hough, when he was on my podcast, explained to me that the Book of Isaiah and that they found the Dead Sea Scrolls is verbatim. The same as the Book of Isaiah that was a thousand years more recent. That's good. All right, Paul Cunningham. Paul is our resident Book of Enoch scholar. By the way, you know the episode's gonna be good when you got like four big, many books. I've got a Hebrew Bible, a Greek New Testament, a Catholic Bible, and left behind. All the essentials. All the essentials. All right, so Paul Cunningham, I have two questions. Yes. Number one, why when we talked about aliens did everyone start mentioning the Book of Enoch? And then number two, what's up with the Book of Enoch? Is this helping they just cut out of the Bible because to protect the aliens? And then number three, what the heck is the Book of Enoch? So many things there. In terms of aliens, probably Rogan goes on in that clip to talk, almost connect the idea of what's called the Watchers, which is a term used in the Book of Enoch for angels or the spiritual. Watchers is used one time in the Old Testament. It's actually used two or three times in Daniel. So it's a reference that is also used in Daniel for angels or spiritual beings that we often call angels. And so he goes on and basically says, oh, maybe this was aliens coming and basically creating mankind or something like that. Probably the reason that most people, when we did that episode, reference it is because we talked a lot about angels and about demons. And the Book of Enoch was a writing that was really compiled between the third century and the first century BC over a period of time. And a lot of its emphasis is on angels and demons and their origins, that there were multiple schools of thought about angels and ancient Judaism. There was not one school of thought. There's multiple schools of thought. And basically this was the schools of thought of the way of saying, hey, this is what actually happened. This was some of their origins. And they ascribed it to Enoch, who is the great grandfather of Noah. And there's actually this. So I just want to pause. Go ahead. So they were claiming the book was written by Enoch, the grandfather of Moses. Yes. Even though it was written in the first through the third century BC. That's exactly right. So this is called pseudopigraphical writings, which literally means false writing. And so think of it today. When we want to plagiarize today, we'll put our name on someone else's writing so that it can have more credibility and authority and validity. And this day, they would put someone else's name who had credibility and authority on their writing and say that this was actually from Enoch, who was alive a long time ago. And this is his testimony. And so therefore, we should hold it to be true. But it's actually not. That's why there's a little bit of a stretch, but I actually brought a left behind. So I did. I brought, I'd be honest, half price books. Thank you for having this. I do not own this book. Looks like you've been highlighting. And this is like your real copy. I see a lot of. As soon as you sign a copy. Yeah. And so here's the thing with this, is what left behind is for those who don't know, is written about 30 years ago by Tim Lehey and Jerry Jenkins. And they're talking about what could happen in the future. But it's a fiction book. It's like fan fiction of what could happen in the future of Revelation happened today. Kind of a thing. But I want us to imagine for a second, if it was written now, or even like 1,000 years in the future, instead of having their names on it, all of a sudden it had like the Apostle John or James or things like that. And saying, oh no, see, this is legit. This really did happen. And so whereas that would be more about what could happen in the future, people are falsely describing Enoch to themselves to say, here's what we believe happened in the past. And authoritatively try to say, this is what happened in the past. But it's only one school of thought. Now, a few things here. One is honestly when I watched that video in that, I forget what her name was when she began speaking, I literally, while we're nerding out, I'm going to just kind of go to Star Wars right now. Because there's this line in Star Wars from Luke Skywalker where after Kylo Ren kind of goes off, Luke looks at him and says, amazing. Every word that you just said was wrong. And so when I watched, I feel like Paul looks at me like that sometimes. No, not like that. I'm teasing. Oh, I was like, where do I even begin? And so with this, a lot of people nowadays think, oh, the book of Enoch is this ancient book. And it actually tells us the truth. And it was once in the Bible and it's banned from the Bible. And that's simply not true. So I've got some different Bibles with me up here. I've got a Hebrew English Bible. The book of Enoch has never been in the Hebrew Bible. Ever. Ever. It was never in there, never taken out, because it's never in there to begin with. But she said, hey, it was. It was. And some rabbis just kicked it out because it didn't drive with doctrine. I'm going to get how that happened and why that happened, because it's also attributed to this weird false belief, although I think I know how it developed. But I'll give you that in just a second. So I've got a Greek New Testament. Let's say we combined a Greek Old Testament, often called the Septuagint with this. Here's the thing. You'll not find the book of Enoch in here ever. It was never in the Septuagint, which means that none had Brake Jews, but also Hellenistic Greek Jews never believed it was part of the Bible ever. I've got a Catholic Bible with me. Now, if you open a Catholic Bible, it actually does have more books than the Bible that Protestants use, called the Apocrypha. What's interesting is the book of Enoch. By the way, we hit that on a previous podcast. You should go listen to it. We should stick that in the show notes. If you want to go back and listen, why are there some books in the Catholic Bible that are not in a Protestant Bible link in the show notes? That's important. All right, sorry. Go ahead. You're good. So in the Catholic Bible, you've got books that are often referred to as the Apocrypha. So for example, I've got Second Maccabees Open. But if you look through it, you will not find the book of Enoch, and it was never there. So literally, in every canon list in every Bible that we have, except for one, it was never in. And so therefore, it was never taken away. So even I laugh sometimes when we use the idea of, oh, it was banned from the Bible, or it was there. It was like, well, if by banned you mean like, and this is true, Alexander Hamilton wanted the president to actually serve a lifetime, say for a lifetime. And you're like, they banned him from the Constitution. I'm like, well, if you mean by that, that he was in there, and then they decided they didn't like it and took it out later, no. But if you mean that they consider his opinion and didn't consider it valid, then yeah, in a sense that they decided not to include him. Now there was one text that was used, that used the book of Enoch and that had it in their canon. That is the Ethiopian Orthodox text. That's what she mentioned. And here is a common myth. It's like, oh, that's the oldest Bible. And so therefore, that's like the OG, the original. That's the true. And then all the others conspired and took it out. The problem is it's simply not true at all. Amazing. Everything you just said is false. I award you no points. Have mercy on yourself. We are all now dumbers for having to look at you. You always need a Billy Madison reference. That's great. That's a reference. Don't go and necessarily worse that with your kids. 100%. 100%. You saw Billy Madison before Tim Stone. I have no idea why, but I know Billy Madison. And he probably liked it more than Tim Stone. No, that's not true. Anyways, anyways. OK. That's simply not true. Here's how I believe this came about. As you do have something called the Garima Gospels. I think we actually have a picture of those up here. This is an Ethiopian text that was written about 500 AD. It is the first illuminated gospels that we have. And when I say illuminated, the picture of Hebrew, if you're listening to this instead of watching it, it has a drawing or a painting in there. So it is the first illuminated text that we have. But it is not the first gospel that we have, full gospel. It is definitely not the first Bible that we have. In fact, the first. You said 580. That's 580. So it's like, whaaat? I was about to say. So we have something. I think we have actually another picture of Codex of Vaticanus. It is from the early 300s, which contains almost the entire Old Testament and New Testament in Greek. And it definitely has all the complete text of the four gospels. So almost 200 years before the Garima Gospels, we have this text and we have the complete gospels. The first complete Ethiopian Bible we have, by the way, dates between the 14th and 15th centuries. Holy Moses. So over a thousand years after this. And by the way, in the early 400s, we had the Latin Vulgate, which has the complete Bible as we know it. Again, that's almost a thousand years before that as well. So I think what happened was, is people somehow took this idea that it was the first illuminated gospels. And then they started just saying, oh, this is the oldest thing we have. When that's simply not the case. Not the case. No one used it. And so real quick, can I just explain why no one like. Of course. Dovon Stason used it. And so and then I'll get to a common objection, I think that may be even someone put in there in a comment. Wait a second. One of the books, the New Testament refers to the book. I got some questions for you, but yeah. And it does. I'll get there. That's Jude. That's Jude. Jude quotes it when it's doing the Janus and Johnbers thing. Well, and it specifically talks about Enoch the seventh from Adam of how he prophesied and he talks about that kind of stuff. I'm sorry, you go ahead. I don't know. You're good. You're good. So why would none of these people, including in let's just say this again, no Hebrew Jew, no Hellenistic Jew and no other Christian, except for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, why did none of them include it? Two big reasons. Number one, as we earlier said, it's a pseudo-pecraf work. It's a falsely attributed work. And so big for both the Old Testament and New Testament is they wanted these writings to be as close to the events as possible and written by authorized prophets in the Old Testament, say, or sages or kings, people like David, Moses, all the prophets of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, it had to be as close to the apostles, specifically written by an apostle or one associated with an apostle. And in the same way, I'll just put this one, the same way that we would not take left behind and put it on par with the book of Revelation. By the way, that whole thing that she said, probably not. The Ethiopian text has the book of Revelation. So I literally have no idea what she's even talking about. She says, because she says, she said in the clip, they replaced it. And if you go to because there's actually 81 books in the Ethiopian, not 88, if you go there, they're both there. So again, I just like when she kept going, I was like, no, I knew what you're talking about. Anyways, I'm sorry, I'm getting kind of getting kind of fired up and taking away here. So in the same way that we would in no way read this thousands of years from the time of the apostles and say, well, hey, if it had a name of an apostle on there, then it must be true. And in fact, we know no, it's too far removed from the original. It's the same thing. It was too far removed. They didn't hold it as authoritative. The second thing is that because some of the things in the book of Enoch actually contradict what we have in authoritative scripture. One thing, for example, is that in scripture, what we see is that the angels fell before before the world was created. Whereas what's happening in one place in the book of Enoch is you have in Genesis six, it says, when man began to multiply on the face of the earth, and the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took them as their wives that they chose. So as the Nephilim, that's the Nephilim. Some Jews, which including the people who wrote the book of Enoch would say, hey, these were fallen angels who slept with women and then have basically giants that we call the Nephilim that then this is when more angels fell. So basically, it's like, well, hey, we see inscription and they fell before the creation. The book of Enoch, I could say, no others fell after creation. It doesn't die. So that's just a few reasons, a few reasons why. Now, some may point out like, well, what is that? The book of Jude refers to it. So if it refers to it, then surely then it's inspired. And it's also the word of God. I'm going to look at it up real fast. I do. I want to see the exact verse. It doesn't quote it to clarify that. It quotes it. I think it does. OK, it quotes it. It quotes it pretty directly. It actually like quotes it. It quotes it pretty directly. Here's how I like to say about this. We have to make a big distinction between what is inspired and what is true. If something is the inspired of word of God, it is necessarily true because it was inspired by God. If something is true, that does not necessarily mean that it was inspired. So anything that is inspired is true. That's good, Paul. But something that is true is not necessarily inspired or mean that the thing that it came from is completely inspired. So let's actually leave the book of Enic and give my favorite example from the New Testament of this because they would often quote other works of people. And my favorite one is from a guy named a pep. Can I talk to today? Epiminities. Epiminities. Act 17. Is that where you're going? Act 17. Actually, I was going to go to Titus where Paul calls him a prophet. And he says that he tells this basically the same of all cretins or liars. Titus is on the island of Crete. And so Paul is like, this is true. The issue with that is that that is in the context of the same poem. It actually quotes in Act 17. That is a hymn and praise of Zeus. So my question is, does this mean that Paul actually believes Zeus exists and that we should worship him alongside Jesus and stuff like that? No, of course not. What he's doing there is he's taking a work that they are familiar with and that they would understand and saying, hey, in this specific thing, this is true. And he's trying to connect with them. I believe it's the same thing in the book of Jude, where Jude is taking something that early Jews would have been aware of and saying that, hey, this specific thing is true and is representative of the truth without the entire book of Enic having to be true as well. So here's the verse. It's Jude. It's on one chapter in Jude, Jude 14 and 15 is a quotation of 1st Enoch 1 9. So it says, it was also about these, the Enoch, the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment at all and to convict all the ungodly of their needs of ungodliness, that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And that's apparently a quote of 1st Enoch, like I said, 1 9. But you're saying just because the Bible references this work doesn't mean the Bible is affirming the entire work or that the entire work is inspired again, in the same way that Paul is in no way saying that, but Minutes is an inspired author and that everything he says is true. He's simply taking a truth in there and using it for his context and for his purposes. So what's I'm curious because we didn't talk about this. It was like, what's the warning that you. So for people who were in the comments, this is good. And they were like, hey, man, it seems like when y'all are talking about angels and demons, you know, manifesting as things that people are confusing for, you know, alien activity and people are, you know, using the book of Enoch as like a legitimization for that. I think like legitimate for them to do that. What's a warning you would give before you go there? Because what they're saying is basically like, here's my Bible and here's a book of Enoch is basically like the same authority. That's what a lot of people were saying, actually. And even like with this, I think it's important even as an example, because some people like, well, wait a second, even some early Jews did have it because even like Joe Rogan said in that one clip and I forgot to address this earlier and this will lead into a response, this will say, well, go wait a second, that early Cumbron community had like Isaiah and they also had the book of Enoch, which was true, but they didn't hold them on par with each other. Yeah. And to clarify, Paul, because you're using terms here for people that don't know. So Joe Rogan said that in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is the earliest manuscripts found of the Bible, that in addition to the books of the Bible that we are familiar with, like the book of Isaiah, they also found the book of Enoch. So he's saying, well, it was kind of altogether. So why is the Bible the Bible? But then this one's not exactly. And so this was an early Jewish community, like kind of like a sect that lived out in the middle of nowhere. It was a community and they would collect these scrolls and yeah, they wore together. But here's the key distinction. They did not hold them equally. And so we know that both by how they refer to the different things and how they talk about them. But also there's something called Pescher style commentary, which is what they would take actual books that we know as the Old Testament. And they would make comments on them to try to explain, hey, this is how this is being fulfilled in our day. Guess what does not have that? The book of Enoch. Oh, interesting. So you can you can even tell was that the Essenes? Yeah, yeah, there's Essen community. And so like with that, they have it all over the Torah because the Torah was accepted as the authoritative. Because they were essentially writing commentary. Yes, exactly. Almost like a study Bible. Exactly. They would take the verse and then and then you're saying they did not do that from Book of Enoch. And that very clearly indicates these dudes did not consider that. And so actually using like this table as an example right here is like imagine like I die in a thousand or 2000 years from now, they find my library. And in that library, they find all my Bibles and then they find left behind. By the way, you will not find that because I'm going to probably return this after the show is over. Sorry, I have price to get new money back. But many ways I'm getting my money back. You can donate it. Say I through three bucks. They'll pay you three. I have comments, but I don't want to get angry emails. Anyways, I'm at Nikolai Karpathia on the YouTube video and we will send you. That's hard to spell. But anyways, imagine if they said, oh, Paul must have held all these in equal esteem to each other because they were all in the bookshelf together. Yeah, it's just guys, it's it's silly. It's silly. So in terms of some warnings, I'd give before Paul, it's true to that. In the debts, he scrolls. It's not just like the Bible. There are other writings. Oh, yeah. There's other ones. There are a bunch of different things. So it was a whole library. And even that connects to like, well, why did the Ethiopian church like accept all these best we can guess is that in the fourth century missionaries did come to share the gospel with them. And then also there was an Ethiopian Jewish community there that had some of these writings, including the book of Enoch as well. So our best guess is basically around the same time that the canon was being receded and finalized in terms of, hey, these are the writings that are authoritatively from God. The Ethiopians had all these different things. They're like, oh, we'll just take them all. It's basically the easiest and fastest way to explain. So now warnings for sure. Yeah. So a few warnings. Number one, if you're hearing this like, well, that's nice, but I don't care. I'm still going to accept as authoritative. My question be by what criteria? So in other words, if you think, hey, even though every Jewish community, except for anything like it would be said, Kuma Ron didn't accept it at the same level, even though every Jewish community did not hold it the same level as the Bible. And even though with the exception of one, every Christian community in the world at that time rejected it, they did not include it. It was never in the Bible. They simply rejected and I include it. If you reject their criteria. Okay. So what is your criteria? What is it that you're going to be saying that this is the ground to truth? Because you're saying like what we believe about God and the world God has made really matters. There is a real God who wants to be known for who he really is and loved and worshiped for who he really is. And he wants us to know about the world he really created and how he really created it. And so what is your criteria? And my sense is this actually lead in a few minutes to the next video, because you'll see some elements of this too, is that if it's simply you're choosing it based on what you like and don't like, well, your God's going to become a lot like you. Yeah, that's right. He's going to be, he's going to be a figment of your imagination. So the real God. So if you want to reject it, I'd say, Hey, what is your criteria? Number two, I'd say this. And I see this, I've always seen this, but I will say it's increasing danger. I do see is that there is this obsession with things that we can't know to the neglect of knowing the thing that we can't know. Um, that's very smart. Yes. Like in Deuteronomy 29, it says that the hidden things belong to the Lord, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children so that we can basically do them to practice them kind of a thing. And so it's just so interesting that maybe that people will spend so much energy trying to speculate on things we will never know this side of heaven. It may never even know on the other side of heaven. And yet we neglect to know the God that we can own who is infinitely noble. The way I like to think of it is like, imagine if explores all of a sudden stumbled upon this continent that is vast and that just so much to see and explore, and then they just decided to stay on the shore. That's how so many Christians treat God. That's right. Like people want to dive into these things that we can never know when there is a God through his word that we can know, which, by the way, knowable. That is like a temptation in every age. That's why in the New Testament, Paul is constantly, you have that in your notes. Paul is constantly warning. And I just want to say this for church members and Christians in general, like conspiratorial thinking. And let me go down the rabbit hole and that kind of thing. Like we're literally specifically warned in the New Testament. He says, stop devoting yourselves to myths and endless genealogies. And what he's doing is he's pointing back to the same principle from Deuteronomy. He's like, no, man, there's some stuff that the Lord has locked up. You're not going to know the side of heaven. Quit focusing your mental energy on the things that are hidden and give give your mental energy to the things that have been revealed. What has God clearly revealed to us in the scriptures? That's where your mental energy needs to be. Not trying to figure out if the watchers are aliens. Exactly. I'll read this text and I'll say something to us. I said to Carlos, who will come back around and we come to the Nephilim and I'll have to share it again. But this is actually you're just quoting 1 Timothy 1, where it talks about, don't devote yourselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. And he goes on a few verses later, says certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into what? Bane discussion. Then go. And so let me even ask you like this, because this was revealed like to the Nephilim and everything. If you knew who the Nephilim were today, what would it change about your relationship with Jesus tomorrow? That's a great question. That's good. That's a good question. And I would also, by the way, you can substitute any other thing that people endlessly debate about that we can never know that ultimately is not the core of our faith. And yet this is the thing we become obsessed over. And frankly, it's funny because people are using this talk about demons. If I was a demon, I would love for you to endlessly obsess over things that you can never know for sure. Instead of the God that you created you to know him for sure. So yeah, that's great. Speaking of, do you want to? Yeah, man. Kind of dovetails in there. Yeah, absolutely. So speaking of, how do we actually get the Bible? There is a video that we're going to be reacting to. I'll set this up. But you do? All right, dude. I, no joke. I want to talk about this because no joke, at least 20 church members sent me this thing and it is at 15 million views just on Instagram. It had at least that many on YouTube. And if it felt like for like two weeks, like every Christian was like, oh no, what do I think about this? But then honestly, I watched it and I had the Billy Madison response. Yeah. I award you no points. May God have mercy on your soul. We're all dumber. And I don't mean to like dunk on a guy, but I kind of do. Okay. So here's what this, by the way, do you know who this guy is before? I did not know. Okay. This just went like mega viral. And here, if you're a Christian, here's what I want to do this real quick. You're going to get this stuff constantly thrown at you. And I mean constantly, because what this dude does here in these like three minutes is he essentially takes like, like every gaslighting myth about Christianity and the origins of the Bible. And he puts it all into one bouquet and throws it at you. So are you all ready? We're ready. Also, this is what you're going to hear is basically like textbook deconstructing Christianity 101. Like that's exactly, like I've actually, you know, I've been there. I've read all the books as well. And like everything you hear him say is literally like all the main points for a path towards deconstruction. But go ahead. Let's dive in. Okay. So here we go. Let's break this down. Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was a Jew. And he didn't come to create a religion. The Bible, as we know, it didn't even exist when Jesus walked the earth. Okay, pause. First of all, I'm already dying. Okay, let me say a few things. And then you got to chime in. First of all, Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was a Jew. Okay. First of all, yes, obviously. Yes, that's true. Jesus wasn't you. But I just want to say like, what do you mean Jesus wasn't a Christian? He wasn't a Christian because the word Christian literally means little Christ or follower of Christ. Newsflash. He can't follow himself. He would not say I am mini me. He's not little Christ. He is the big Christ. Different movie reference there. All right. Now, so then he goes on and he says, and again, this is the kind of stuff. If you're a Christian, you hear it in an Instagram video and this guy is this soothing voice, you know, has the backwards hat on. Obviously, it's very, it's very compelling. Then he says, and he, he didn't come to start a new religion. This is what he says. Okay. So I would say number one, yes, but he did come as the fulfillment of the Jewish religion that this is very important. Matthew 5 17. Jesus very specifically says, do not think I came to abolish the law on the prophets. That's the Jewish religion. I've not come to abolish them. I have come to fulfill them. The other thing I would say, and we'll rapid fire these things is no, he didn't come to start a new religion, but he did come to establish a new covenant. In fact, he specifically says, what is a covenant? That's a big Bible nerd theological word. A covenant is a, an agreement with God between God and man, uh, about the way that God is choosing to relate to mankind. Jesus specifically says at the last supper holds up the cup and he's like, this is the cup of my blood. This is the new covenant. So yes, Jesus did come to establish a new covenant and a way that we relate to God. And John 14 60 literally says, I am the way, the truth, the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me. No other religious leader in history of a major religion has said that Buddha literally said, do not look to me for salvation. I am not your final refuge. The Quran literally says Muhammad is only a messenger. No Hindu divinity says they're an exclusive access to God. Jesus did say that. Therefore that's like, that's new. That's you. Yeah. And one thing real fast, not that we can, we can keep going, although it's going to be hard to honestly go more than a few seconds and stop. But, um, is that, yeah, there's a bad term of religion, but another term of religion that sometimes people forget is that it just means basically what are the acceptable beliefs and practices in association with a specific person. And so part of, I think even what this video is going to get over time is like, oh, you can just believe whatever you want, except Jesus doesn't really allow you to do that. And he doesn't talk that way. That's right. He literally says when he's praying to the father about his disciples after he leaves, he says, well, he says, um, sanctify them in your sanctify them. The truth, your word is true. In some other words, it's not where you can believe whatever. And I know there are certain things and beliefs about God that are right. And there are certain things that are wrong. So yeah, just a few thoughts. Didn't even exist when Jesus walked the earth, not when Paul wrote his letters, not when Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John recorded their accounts. The Bible was literally compiled hundreds of years later. Pause. All right. This is killing me, bro. Wait, there's a little bit more. Bye. Bye. Who? Okay. Yeah. Bye. Click again. I'm a big camper for political reasons. Bye. Okay. Pause. Bye. Thank you. Okay. So a few things. This kills me. Okay. So it says the Bible as we know it didn't even exist when Jesus walked the earth. Well, that's because the New Testament is a recording of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And you can't write it down until after it happens. So I'm like, yeah, bro, of course. And so I would just say it like this. Like, hey, Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they can't read something that they wrote before they write it. Yes. And also Jesus had a Bible. It's called the Old Testament. The Old Testament. So literally, that's why he quotes the scriptures over and over, and he affirmed the law and the prophets, Matthew chapter five. So I mean, that's God's word. Yes. So here's what you got to understand. And this is going to become important in the next few seconds of this video, which I have to understand is, okay, here's what Jesus did do. Jesus specifically prophesied the fact that the New Testament, the New Testament scripture was going to be written. So these are the important verses, John 16, 13. Jesus said, but he, when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you, the apostles, into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears and he will tell you what is yet to come. He's specifically saying ahead of time, the spirit is going to author new scriptures, just like he did in the Old Testament. He's saying that there. You also have this in 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16. You have already the apostle Peter during the writing of the New Testament, referring to the writings of Paul as the scriptures. So I just want to pause. You'll see this like with all the deconstruction guys, you're going to see this throughout this thing. What these people are asking you to do is they're asking you to believe that man, Paul and Peter, who actually like New Jesus, they missed it. But me, 2,025 years later, I figured it out. And then he makes the assumption that, oh, it all wasn't brought together. So 300 years later, by Pagan and Burr, we'll get that because that's literally like not true at all. But with that is also like selecting like over the next hundred years, you have church fathers who are quoting the New Testament as scriptures that literally if we just took, and we, by the way, I think we'll get this estimate. We've actually also got lists that are given before eventually it has settled on. But if I just took, for example, like in 180, there's a guy named Aaron Nais, and he doesn't give a list, but he quotes every New Testament book, except for Lehman, 3rd John and Jude, Clement. Again, he quotes every New Testament book, except for Lehman, 2nd and 3rd on John, James and Jude. So if I just took people's citations, they are quoting the things that we now have as the New Testament, like that is the scripture. And they're quoting it as authoritative scripture. Not as possible as to be believed. This is important for listeners because a lot of people don't know the dates. So when you're saying Irenaeus 180, first of all, isn't it, it went John polycarp Irenaeus was, When he had Clement, you had Clement in there as well, the very end of the first century. So I'm talking about the discipleship chain. Oh, it was the apostle John and then he discipled polycarp, polycarp, discipled Irenaeus. I believe so. I think that's right. So you essentially have this guy was discipled by a guy that was discipled by an actual apostle. And you're saying that was 180 AD. Well, what a lot of people do is a lot of people put the writing of the book of Revelation between like 90 and 100. Right. So you've got like within one lifetime. Yep. Okay. So then the other thing he says is he says, I mean, you got it right there. The Bible was compiled hundreds of years later by a pagan emperor for political reasons, chap G-Paul T was the Bible compiled by a pagan, uh, a Constantine hundreds of years later. I was about to say he's most likely referring here to Constantine and the answer is no. Which is why Shrut would say false. We're trying to get as many, yeah, trying to get as many different random movies and TV shows in years we can't. No, I then be theft. It's not a joke, Tim. I'm going to keep going. I've got to be careful. I'm like, I'll be able to recover. Oh yeah. We're running out of time. Okay. So most likely he's referring to the counts of Nicaea that we're actually in the 1700 year anniversary of this year. The problem with that is that we have accounts of the count. So if Nicaea we have 20 was called cannons or rules that are passed there. And you know what? None of them have to do with scripture and the, and what was the new Testament whatsoever is that the counts of Nicaea was really around the debate about something called Arianism. And that was, was, Hey, was Jesus, um, an uncreated divine? Like what we think of now, he was the son of God uncreated or was he a created being? Arians would say he was created orthodoxy or say, no, he was not. And, um, nice. That's homo Oceas. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. And so Constantine called the, the, that council. Um, but it was the bishops who decided and gave what were they not deciding. They were not deciding scripture whatsoever. This is a really, I just want to highlight this because if you're a Christian, this is kind of stuff you're going to throw at you constantly. There is a persistent myth that Constantine and 325 AD around there. He just sort of decided the new Testament again, for political reasons. Literally there's not a scrap of evidence anywhere. Anywhere council of Nicaea or Constantine had. And so it's essentially like, what's your source? Trust me, bro. And in fact, like, well, like literally the first council that adopted like a fish, although in 367, a guy, a matthanasius released this festival letter and he proclaimed what we get, what we now know as the new Testament, the 27 books as the new Testament scripture. Um, but it's the sign of carthage in 397. You know, who wasn't there? Any emperor. Yeah. Constantine had already been dead for a good amount of decades and no emperor was there. In fact, it's a little quick thing. Um, while Constantine called the council at Nicaea and he did enforce it, what's interesting is, is his son actually then tried to enforce Arianism, become the official doctrine. So really the only time in those first like that, that timeframe that an emperor tried to force doctrine on people, it was trying to force false doctrine now that we have Christian doctrine. Fascinating. So it's actually the opposite of what everyone always says. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. That should tell you something. Now, does that mean we throw the Bible out? No, I love the Bible. I read the Bible every day. It's the most important book of my life. But it does mean we have to stop worshiping it like it's God and be honest with ourselves. True. And start listening to the truth that is behind it. And if you doubt me, do your own research. The Bible was literally voted on by a bunch of politicians and bishops in a room deciding what made the cut and what didn't. I made it up. Mounds. He just made it. Centuries after the fact. That's like building your spiritual life around the minutes of a corporate board OK, pause. So first of all, we've already established it's like it's literally just an out of thin air fabrication. Yeah. Our research is good advice. That's what he said. He said, do your research. I'm like, you should have done that. That's great advice. So let me just say, so we say we have to stop worshiping it like it's God. Hey, first of all, true. Yeah. Let me just say that's true. Yeah. And just so you know, just because you believe the Bible doesn't mean you worship the Bible. That's another false economy there. That's right. Now, should we treat the Bible as if every word of it is true? Yes, because God says every word of it is true. In fact, Jesus says every word of it is true. Not a jot nor a tittle of the law will pass away until heaven or the past way. I will just say one thing he's saying there, this true, because I want to acknowledge that we should not that there actually is a way, Jesus says, to elevate the scriptures above the person to whom they point. In fact, Jesus says this is what the Pharisees did that was wrong. He specifically says this to the Pharisees in John five. He says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is they that bear witness about me. So he's saying, bro, the whole point of the scriptures is for you to look through them to have a relationship with me. Fun little side note. That's why Martin Luther, president or former, he called the scriptures the swaddling clothes of Christ. He was like, man, it's inside of these things that you develop a relationship with Jesus. Now, the one thing that I will say is really subtle. You're going to see this and what he just said, and you're going to see it in the next few seconds and what he says. Really subtle. What he's doing is he's saying, Hey, man, you need to look past the Bible to like what's behind it. Now here's what's going on, bro. If you get down underneath everything, what he's doing is he's essentially going, Hey, Carlos, you need to trust yourself to be inspired to evaluate the Bible instead of just trusting the Bible to be that is inspired so that it can evaluate you. That's really what he's doing. A lot of times theologians, they'll call it, they call it spot inspiration. And they'll say, man, some people believe that the Bible is inspired in spots and they also just so happen to believe that they're inspired to spot the spots. Yep. Here you go. I think it's basically, it's the same thing as before, is I'm picking what I like. That's right. And what I end up is it got a lot like me. And that with that, he makes this other thing. And this is like, Oh, there were other texts. What's interesting is all those other texts, there were other quote, quote, gospels written. Do you know what they all have in common? They attributed themselves to who? An apostle. So even like the criteria was that it had to come from an apostle to be authoritative. So even the false gospels, we call them false, but maybe my think they're true. Although when we actually encourage you to go read them, people say that most of them have never actually read them. And if you go read them, they're really weird and you would not want to believe what it actually says about Jesus. Just going to say that you can go read it for yourself. But what I was going to say is like, so then I come back to it. So then what is your criteria? Like if we believe that we're worshiping and believing in a true historical person with events that either happened or they didn't, we would probably want to get as close to those events and to the eyewitnesses of those events as possible. Who are who? The apostles. So we'll keep going. All right, let's keep going. And Jesus never said, read my book because the Bible didn't exist when Jesus was here. He said, follow me. His God. Pause. Let me just, Jesus never read my book. He said, follow me. Here's what I want to go. Well, then how do you figure out how to follow him? You read the book. Yeah. But there's no other way to figure out how to follow him. By the way, you said, the basis in applying the Bible has been kind of corrupted because it was put together by politicians and we can't completely trust it. Well, how can I know that I can trust the verse that says, follow me? Yeah, there you go. There it is. And he also said, have you not read? Have you not read? Sounds like he wants us to read it. He said the scripture cannot be broken. Yeah. All the things. Yeah. All right. Let's keep going. The gospel was not about denominations and it wasn't about brick and mortar churches. He was talking about the church in the heart of men, those in pursuit of the truth, not the dogmas of men. And it's important to note that God did not write a single page in the Bible. The words came through men, deeply flawed men. Pause. Okay, bro. This is the big deal right here. So let me riff on this for a second. He said, it is important to note, God did not write. A single page of the Bible. It was written by men, deeply flawed men. Okay. This is the most important thing. All right, Trinity. Will you toss that diagram up here? All right. So this is what Satan does in every generation starting in Genesis chapter one is, God did not surely say, that's what he always is doing. He's trying to undermine the authority of the word of God always. Okay. What Christians have to have is a solid rock underneath their feet. Like, hey bro, you can trust the Bible. Okay. So like here, I'm going to give you one. I'm just going to give you one thing to help you here. Okay. Here's what you're looking at right here. This is like one of my favorite diagrams. That is a diagram of every cross-reference in the Bible. So every time that the Bible connects to directly or indirectly, another part of the Bible. Okay. It's so it's, it's vast. All right. Now what you got there is you have 63,779 connections from one part of the Bible to another part of the Bible. Now let me just say this, bro. You look at that thing. If one person did that, if somebody wrote a book that did that, everyone in the world would say masterpiece. Like greatest author that ever, nobody's ever done this before. But that book was not written by one guy. That book was written down by 40 different men. Over 1500 years across three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa, in three different languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, it has one united story. It has zero contradictions. Let me just say this. There is only one answer to how that can happen. It was written down by men. It was authored by the living God. Yes. So listen to when he's just making naked assertions, not one page of the Bible is written by God. You're just making a naked assertion with no evidence, in fact, in the face of all the evidence, and in contradiction to what the Bible says about itself, where the Bible itself says that it was inspired by God. Not only that, I mean, all these references in the Old Testament thus says the Lord. There are parts of the Bible where God literally says, write these words, and then he speaks, and then the author writes. So Exodus 17, write this on a scroll, Jeremiah 30. Thus says the Lord, writing a book, all the words I have spoken to you, Revelation 21. Write this down for these words are faithful and true. I mean, it just keeps going. Jesus said in the scriptures, have you not read what God said to you, and it points to scriptures? I mean, it's just, it's all over. Everywhere, man. All right, let's keep going. Written, rewritten, translated, retranslated. This is very Bart Ehrman. Kings, priests, and politicians, and then argued over by 45,000 different Christian denominations, who all swear they're the ones who are right for 2000 years until it made it into your hands. If that's not confusing, I don't know what is. Okay, pause. I know I'm pausing a lot, but this is like, bro, Christians need to know, like, this is, this is insane. So first of all, he does the whole thing, written, translated, rewritten, retranslated, as we all know. So like, I want you to know, like, how trustworthy your Bible is. So this comes from, it's Josh McDowell compiled this. Will you toss that, toss that, the chart up there? All right, so here's what you're looking at. This is, I don't think people realize, like, how trustworthy the text you're holding in your hands is. I don't think people realize it. So what you're looking at here, and it's worth going over to YouTube if you're not to actually see this, this, this is the manuscript evidence of both the level of attestation to ancient documents, and the accuracy of the copies of the documents. Now dude, we could do a whole podcast on this, I'm not going to do that. But it's like, you know, when you read in high school about the writings of Plato, for instance, okay, we have seven ancient copies of Plato, and the time gap between when he wrote it, and the first copy we found is 1200 years. Wow. You can do this a bunch of stuff. Julius Caesar, we have 10 copies, 10 ancient copies of his writing, and the time gap between when he wrote it and the earliest manuscripts we have is 1000 years. Aristotle, we have 49 copies, and the time gap from when he wrote it to earliest manuscript is 1400 years. Okay, then you get to the New Testament. What you have in the New Testament is you have, and this is the most conservative estimate, you have about 6000 extant ancient copies of the New Testament, and they date to within less than 100 years of the events of the New Testament. And my way it makes it sounds like, oh, it went through all these changes to get into your hands, as if like, you, it had to go through all these different things, like a giant game of telephone, or literally I've got here, like I've got the Greek New Testament. And what I love is at the bottom, you can't see this, but at the bottom, any place where there are any variations at all, they actually tell you, so there's nothing to hide. Nothing's hidden. Yes, we do have a lot of different translations of Bible, and guess what they are all based on? Greek New Testament, and then Hebrew Old Testament. With 6000 ancient manuscripts, by which to back test the accurate. They verify themselves, they corroborate themselves. Exactly. So then, and you got this, you know, if you go back and look at it, the accuracy of that, when they took the 6000 early manuscripts, Greek manuscripts in the New Testament, and they back test them against each other, the accuracy of the copies exceeds 99.5%. And then the only little, you know, the only variations, there are things like, was the word the right there, or is the little stuff, has nothing to do with doctrine. All right, let's keep going and finish this up real quick. Now, this is something that Christians do not want to address, because it destroys the entire idea that the Bible is flawless, and all you need is this book, that mainstream Christianity has turned into something of an idol. And for further context, the Old Testament, God smiting people left to right. This kills me right here. Is not even the same personality as Jesus in the Gospels telling us to forgive our enemies. We're talking about two totally different characters. It's like trying to mix a Metallica concert with a Mr. Roger's neighborhood special, and calling it one genre or religion. The God of the Old Testament is not the same God as the one that Paul wrote about in his letters. All right, pause. Pause. Bro, that is literally like, did God really say of the Old Testament? Yes, bro. Basically what he's doing. Well, that's also called Marcianism. Oh, is that what you said? I don't think you've got any Marcianism. That's Marcianism, Patrick. So that's a Marcianism is a heresy that essentially says what he says. Two different gods. Yeah, two different gods, Old Testament God, New Testament God. I just want to point this out, because if you're a Christian, you're going to get that thrown at you a lot. And this is like, honestly, it's one of the like most mind-blowing little deep guts in the Bible. All right, so what people will do, like this guy, is they'll point to, he says, smiting the innocence, the slaughtering of the innocence, and in the Old Testament, they do slaughtering of the innocence. And the New Testament, they don't do that, so they're different gods. I just want to point this out. When it comes to the slaughtering of the innocence in the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, I have good news and I have bad news. Okay. Good news, good news. There is no such thing as a slaughtering of the innocence in the Old Testament. Every time you see a quote unquote slaughtering in the Old Testament on behalf of God, it is not genocide, it is genocide. There are no innocent people. That's the bad news. There are no innocent people. So here's what's really interesting. Like, let's put our theological hats on. Here's our theological hat. There is actually only one time in the entire Bible that there is a slaughtering of the innocent. It was not in the Old Testament, it was in the New Testament. And bro, listen, God did not do it to man. Man did it to God. When we crucified the Son of God on the cross because of the wickedness of our hearts. So listen, you want to talk about slaughtering of the innocence? That's in the New Testament, not the Old Testament. There is a radical continuity between the character of God and the in the Testaments. Yeah. And then the correct caricature is that the Old Testament has judgment and mercy and in the New Testament is hugs and kisses. Actually, like both the Old Testament and the New Testament both have judgment and mercy. And so again, and then obviously you need to read Revelation as well. There's a lot of judgment there. Yeah. Yeah. The imagery is insane. Well, like when people bring this up, I'd say, okay, if so, if Jesus was so different than the God of the Old Testament, then why didn't Jesus ever rebuke that God? It's great, Paul. And why didn't he ever say, oh, no, no, no, no, don't believe that one. Instead, like he said, again, I've not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. That I'm not not the smallest little thing is going to pass away from those. He came to fulfill all those things. And he did things that were only attributed to God. He actually said before Abraham was, I am. And so actually, you know what Jesus was saying? I was that one who ordered that. That's exactly right. And so when we say all this, I'm kind of like, it just constructs this false narrative. I'm like, Jesus literally, you're apparently holier than Jesus. So that's all. All right, let's finish it up. Here we go. And neither are the same characters Jesus from the four Gospels. Jesus said something really interesting once. He said, be like little children. Kids do not need theological degrees. They need simple truth. The gospel was meant to be clear, freeing and alive, not locked into nominational arguments and weaponized like the woke left and the stone casting right. Because the real gospel, the gospel that Jesus taught is not about control. It's about freedom. So if the Bible is fallible, good, that means it's human. And if it's human, then the point was never the pages. It was the person. And he still says the same thing today. Follow me and be free. Okay, let me just say the point was never the pages. It was the person. How do you figure out how to follow the person? You read the pages. I'm going to end right there. Yes. That's good. I think we're good, man. I think we did it. Man, we got to talk about Santa next time. I know. Wait, you don't want to do it? No, it is. You know. You're a call. I think we save it for next time. Okay, we'll see you next time. So next time, we're going to go, should Christians do Santa Claus? Good to hear. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? I would love to. Yeah. Father, thank you. Thank you for your great kindness to us. Thank you for the bread of your word. I pray for every man and woman that are listening, that they would fall in love with the word of God, and they would feast on it because man does not live by bread alone, but by everywhere that comes from the mouth of the Father. Father, I pray that you bless them. I pray that for people who are walking through valleys of shadows of death this Christmas season, that they would know that you are with them, and that your rod and staff will comfort them. So I commit them to you in the name of the boy who was born Lord, and grew up to be crucified for their sins, Jesus Christ. Amen. Man. Live free. Live free, brother. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review, and share the podcast, and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church Online every weekend, and find more resources at lakepoint.church.livefree. We'll see you next time.