You're listening to KFI on demand. Mark, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Hello Jesus Him Mark, what's going on my pleasure? Well, my
wife and I we just recently went through bankruptcy and I'm self employed, she's
self employed, and we've had a real rough year and we've you know,
we've lost everything. We've lost our house, our cars, pretty much everything.
So we're starting over. We're already at the bottom, so the only
way we can go is up. So I'm just calling for encouragement and we
continually, you know, try. I'm still a contractor, have a masony
and concrete business, and we've been faithful Tithers. We've always gone to church,
We've been involved in our church, but we we just haven't gone because
we don't have a car anymore. And I'm just trying to figure out what
can I learn from this. I mean, I I have a relationship with
you. I look forward to talking to you throughout the day. I go
to bed, I pray to you. I'm just I don't know, I
just I'm confused right now. And I know you're not the author of confusion,
but I just need clarity on when I'm supposed to get out of this,
and if if we're going for experiencing a like a fruit of I'm going
through bankruptcy being Christians, and maybe we're still suffering repercussions of it with our
our work. I mean, we just can't we can't see me get a
paycheck. And it's not the lack I'm trying. I don't know. I
don't know what to do. I have kids and it's just got a lot
of my shoulders right now. I just I don't know what to do.
Mark, what what does your wife do? You say she's self employed as
well. Yeah, she's a realator. Oh boy, so you guys are
getting tag teamed on this one. And she approaches her work as a ministry.
She true truthfully likes to help people because she's we've lost her house,
so she likes to counsel people that have gone through that. And we're we're
approaching everything with the right perspective. But it's just every door keeps shutting.
And these businesses were prosperous at one time. Yes they were. My mind
was my wife's recently went back to work about a little bit over a year
ago. Yeah, that's a tough time to go back into real estate.
Yeah, as far as being a contractor. And you called and you're being
incredibly brave and honest, and I appreciate that, Mark, and I know
that it's it's hard for you. And men tend to tie a lot of
their value and worth up into their job and how they're providing for their family.
And I realize you're being hit on many different levels physically, the stress
of it emotionally, that those battles that you go on with yourself about oh
gosh, I'm less of a man because I'm not providing any of these things
then, and that's of the devil, by the way, sure, and
all those things are going to beat on, uh, you know, come
at you from different sides in addition to you know, really the the finances
being falling out from underneath you. But you you built that from nothing,
Okay, so you've been at nothing before. This is probably the first time,
with a wife and kids to be in a situation where you're going,
oh my goodness. And a lot of times when people get to that that
that die or place of having to make such a decision as bankruptcy. And
I know that there's Christians that go back and forth, whether it's a Christian
option. Some people argue, you know, bankruptcy is a legal option,
not a moral option. All these things, let's push that aside to look
at what's going on in your life and the fact that you own it.
To look around at the best thing is there's only so much more you can
lose, uh, And also how you're going to rebuild this and what you're
going to do differently, because that's where you're at. You're at a rebuilding
stage. You can't really salvage, you continue to hemorrhage and all these things
money and you're you're saying you can't pull a paycheck. This is the time
to look at what you do for a living and whether you want to do
something else or whether you're just going to do a hold me over and jump
into any job and that's fast food, that's anything to be in the workplace
again. And also what methods you you used that didn't work as far as
putting money aside. I we have many different friends of the Jesus Christ Show,
and they have are from many different walks of life, and I talk
to them all about the things that they do, whether it's saving money or
investing or whatever they do and why they do it. And we have friends
of the show that are are that are actors, and that's not a very
sturdy line of work. And I know some athletes and these types where you
look, gosh, that's a very temporal that's very limited as to how long
you're going to be able to work. And I fear that sometimes although the
mindset of those types of jobs is, hey, we have to save now,
we have to work as much as we can, we have to do
what we can now because it's not always going to be there, whereas some
of your more traditional jobs tend to think, oh, well, the work's
always going to be there, or the money, the income is always going
to be there, and that's not necessarily the case either. Did you build
a plan, did you have a savings account, did you have things that
as far as a safety net. No, Well, we moved and I
moved into a new region where it was booming with construction. And the problem
is we bought a big house that we could not afford. And you know,
when I bought the house, my income was great. I didn't plan
ahead for the future. So the house, you know, was the first
step and going causing the bankruptcy, and I did not have a plan for
our future idea. I assumed, you know, I go, well,
just once again, our house get established and I'll start that. And I
didn't do that, And this is where I am. Well. Buying a
house is a strange thing. As you'll find a lot of people say,
hey, listen, you want to stretch your your comfort zone in buying a
home. But as we've seen the evidence of in the past that a lot
of people did that when they couldn't and they stretched themselves beyond a normal limit
and went to a limit that it's not practically. You point that out yourself,
and that's a that's a healthy statement for you to make. Say hey,
this is where I think we did went wrong. So now you have
a better outline of how to do it right this time. And that's kind
of where your mindset has to be. You have to switch from the mindset
of gosh, I need to make money as a masonry and say, okay,
as a mason, I'm not bringing in this money. Now, I
need to look and find out any kind of work I can do anything you're
looking at getting work. I've even talked to people on the program that are
out of work, and I tell them to do voluntary work because you shouldn't
be you shouldn't be stagnant. You need to be up and around and you
need to be interacting with people, and you need to be meeting them,
and they need to be meeting you, and you need to be using skills,
and you need to find ways to do that now, otherwise you're going
to continue to wither. As far as it being a punishment, it's not
a punishment. It's a consequence. It's a consequence to the things that you
did. There were some things that you did that weren't very smart. You
said, Okay, we're gonna put I'm gonna put us in a house that
that's over extending us and you're not going to save and you put yourself in
a situation where if there was a problem, it's okay, you can't staff
the firehouse as if there's never going to be a fire. Yeah, and
that's that's the problem. But the best thing I hear, Mark is that
you you are in charge of this, You and your wife are partners,
and that you are already making note of the things that you did wrong.
So it's a matter of jumping back in just differently. You're people try and
jump back in where they where they stopped, and that's not what you're doing.
You have to jump back in at the beginning, and you got to
kind of start over again, but better. It's like the old saying,
Oh, going back, I wish I knew now what I or I wish
I knew then what I know now? Well now you do, so start
over clean, but start over smart. Mary Ellen, Welcome to the Jesus
Christ Show. Hi. Either we recognize the anti Christ? What are his
most obvious elderly signs? Well, yeah, traits or behaviors. How do
we get away from him? Well, in scripture, there's there's not a
whole lot given. There's throughout the centuries, you've had people think anybody in
political power or prominence is the Antichrist. The President's always been believed to be
the Antichrist by someone you go to Vladimir Putin, you go to Pope's.
People always are trying to attribute the anti Christ moniker to people throughout history.
Even Martin Luther was convinced way back when the Pope in his time was the
Antichrist. So in the nineteen forties, when you believed it was Adolf Hitler.
And these don't, as sssarily point to the specifics of scripture, because
Scripture doesn't have a whole lot of specifics when it comes to the Antichrist,
doesn't say anything too specific about where he, she it will come from.
But a lot of Bible scholars do speculate, and through that speculation, people
start hearing things and thinking, wollow, Okay, well, it's got to
come from this group board, it's got to come from that. Some believe
that it's going to be a rebirth of the Roman Empire, that through that
rebirth the Antichrist will come. Scripture talks about the fact that there will be
certain attributes, certain things that the the the Beast, or the Antichrist will
do and or say, their blasphemies against God, putting themselves above God,
these types of things, and many many Biblical scholars have stated that it's probably
most unlikely that the majority of people would even really get an idea who the
Antichrist was until the Antichrist was in full form, and there's tons of speculation
so on things like this where there's so much speculation, I say this,
if you know enough about the truth, if you spend enough time in God's
Word with God's people, then it will stand out. It will be juxtaposed,
and you will see it more vibrant that there is something amiss and it's
people look for the anti Christ under every rock, and there's problems. Everybody
in the history up into this point that is claimed to think somebody was the
Antichrist has been wrong, and how that individual comes to power is not essentially
known. But the hope is that you will have a good understanding of the
truth of the Word of God to know the difference to know that something is
wrong, because the anti Christ is probably going to use a lot of terms
about God and religion and all of these things. There are some that believe
that the anti Christ has to be a Jew because he has to claim messiahship,
so things like that. People go back and forth, but really it's
all speculation. And Mary Ellen, it's not that you should fear the Antichrist.
It's that you should adhere to God and to God's word and God's truth
and to be rooted in that. It's like asking, how can I tell
a counterfeit? Well, you can spend a lot of time learning about what
a counterfeit is like and the details of a counterfeit and the different processes that
go into making a counterfeit bill. Or you can be around real money enough
to wear. The minute something that is just a little off crosses your fingertips,
he'll know. And that's the best way to do it, because there's
too much speculation back and forth as to what it is. And there's you
know that people worry about all every little nook and cranny anything it's a little
different. That's why throughout the history of the Church, people have gone,
oh, there's the Antichrist. No, there's the Antichrist. No, there's
the Antichrist. It's not going to be a guessing guy. When the anti
Christ comes and is in full force, that Christians should know. Christians should
know not just a gut feeling, but there should be a tremendous sense and
understanding that what that person is doing is against scripture and against the Holy Word
of God, and that the Word of God is going to be the measuring
rod of what is right or what is wrong, and that's that's going to
be the test. Tom. Welcome to the Jesus Christia. Hello Jesus,
I have a question for you. Well, actually, a couple of I
went to Catholic school for twelve years, and I'd heard the term agnostic.
It wasn't until recently that, you know, with the advent of the Da
Vinci Code and the recent letters that were found in Hagnamatti, that there were
Gnostics, the Saint James, sat Philip Thom, Saint Thomas. What what?
Why did it seem like the Catholic religion was against that particular offshoot of
Christianity? And is it possible to have a relationship with God, with Jesus,
with you without an organized religion? Now are you're talking about the scenes
or the agnostics? Because agnosis or agnostics means without knowledge. That's that means
that they were they don't necessarily believe in God or don't believe in God.
They're not sure. That's not really a sect, that's that's just a it's
a worldview. But the the scenes there there's difference. And see, this
is why a lot of these books unfortunate Dan Brown and uh and a lot
of keep in mind their their fiction and a lot of the stuff that's taught
in them is is not historic. And I know a lot of people think
that it is, and they get confused because there's a little bit of history
here, a little bit of history there, and they're using you know,
actual street names and actual museums and all these things, and uh, and
then they kind of compile them. But it's for entertainment purposes, and unfortunately,
people start to consume those things, or they hear certain words or certain
names being thrown around and they feel that they have an understanding. But as
we say on the show over and over, Tom, there's a major difference
between good sound reasoning and reasons that sound good, and so people get those
two confused. I'm not sure what you're asking. Well, my question is
basically, Okay, the gossips that were according to Saint Tom and Saint Philip,
Okay, those were apocryphal. So that's a whole different word. Apocryphal
means hidden or in this case, these were works that did not cut the
mustard as far as the canonization, meaning that there was something wrong either with
the way they were written or the authorship or the timeline, or something wrong
with them that pointed to them most likely not being scripture. And doesn't mean
that they're bad, they're bad writings, or that they aren't you know,
they wouldn't be of interest to read. However, they don't fit with scripture,
meaning that there was some problem with them. The same way you look
at any work of antiquity. This isn't just the Bible, but you look
any work of antiquity. If you were to make claim that this was written
by so and so, or it was written about such and such, that
they have to kind of jive with other bibliographical tests to make them considered part
of a homogeneoust or you know, hermeneutical work. It's like, well,
this all works, and it all has the same theme, and the authorship
can be pointed to. There's things that would cast it out from a group,
and a lot of people assume that those things are mysterious or that the
church did it because it said something about reincarnation, or the church did it
because it said something about women or men or whatever, and really that's just
not the case. And and and then who who actually made that determination?
Well, be the actual Catholic Church. Well, no, it's it's the
truth. It was groups of bishops. There's not really it's not as formal
as people think that it is. Really it's a matter of it's it's more
like it's more organic than that, and a lot of people think, oh,
well, gosh, the bibliographical tests, yes, they hold up on
their own. But as far as the canonization, yes, we're their councils
absolutely there. There's many councils. You've got the Council and I see of
the Council of Trent, the Council of calcied On. All these councils had
a purpose to refine or to agree upon one thing, but it was more
more like a group, I don't know, a team of any kind and
coming together and saying this is the way we've been doing it for all these
years. Is everybody in agreement that this is the way we're going to continue
to do it, And everybody goes yes, and then they move on.
It's not a change per se, or or them sitting down and saying I
don't like this part, let's get rid of it, or I like this
part, let's add it's it's more a way of checks and balances to keep
the purity of it, saying hey, we've been doing this, there's no
reason to add anything. We don't want to add anything, and we're not
going to take anything away. Everybody in agreement, let's move on. So
the assumption is that there was these big and books like that Dan Brown put
out, and there's a lot of books like that that even precede the Da
Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and the like. But a lot of these
books kind of allude to these secret societies and things that were underground, and
really it wasn't. You're talking about oral history being passed down and then in
written form in a way that's much different than how you experience things now.
Now everyone goes, oh, well, you know, there can be could
be a twist, or you know, imagine the internet. How ten years
from now, Tom, You're not going to be You're going to be able
to find a the truth differently than you've ever found it before, because you'll
be able to pull up files. Now you're going to have to gauge whether
those files are real or not, because, as you've seen in recent history,
even newspapers have printed photographs that were doctored. Even trusted newspapers and news
programs have printed or run with stories about presidents, about cabinets, about all
kinds of things going on, war stories and things like that that were lies
or untruth. So what they ended up what people end up doing is finding
the original somewhere, finding that there was a contradiction in the original, and
therefore the truth is preserved by the investigation. And those similar things took place
with scripture. Whereas people passed down things from generation to generation, they had
to make sure that they didn't change. And so our Jewish brothers and sisters,
the scribes that are the originated and wrote down what the Christians refer to
as the Old Testament. That was done not page for page, not sentence
for sentence, but character by character, and if there was a mistake made,
it was crumpled and tossed or buried, essentially ceremoniously, but it was
removed and start they started over. And if it was at the beginning of
a chapter, then that and they at the end of the chapter they made
the mistake, the entire chapter was buried. The painstaking process to make sure
that it was the same and that it didn't change. And these kind of
filters ended up doing that. It wasn't that there was you know, agnostics
or this or that, or it wasn't about any of that. You're always
going to have fringe groups that are trying to steer things. The interesting thing
is that you have this main artery of truth going through and that even today,
Tom, you're curious about these fringe groups. Whereas you wouldn't do that's
kind of backwards thinking. You wouldn't do that on any other process, you
wouldn't say, oh, but what about this this one? Nowadays you look
at them and you go, oh, they're fringe groups. They're the they're
the wackadoodles, they're the wing nuts. But that you know, Jesus,
with the with the like you said, with the internet, and you know,
with all the information that's available so quickly, I guess my ultimate question
would be, then, with with the information that you've given me, is
can you have a relationship with you without an organized being part of an organized
religion? Yes, that's the easy answer. The quick and simple answer is
absolutely. You don't need a building with stained glass to know me. Absolutely.
However, I would say this, how productive do you think a person
is that that doesn't use their checkbook, that never looks at the balance,
never knows what they make, and they just you know, can you balance
a checkbook never looking at it or knowing what you make? Not? Really?
Does that mean you're always going to go into overdraft. No, but
you really don't have an understanding or really good grip on the process of your
money. You're just kind of winging it. So is the relationship real?
Can it be real? Absolutely without a building or structure. But you have
two choices in your spiritual life, Tom, and that is organized religion or
disorganized religion. And organized religion has gotten a bad rap because, unfortunately,
organized religion has to be run by human beings and you guys tend to do
things a certain way, and in the process of doing that, have your
own bias and these types of things, and it perverts the process. And
there's going to be imperfections. But there's as many hypocrites in the Church of
Tom if you're the only one there, as there is in any other church
that's filled. Thank you, because you have those problems as well. Tom,
wouldn't you say, oh, yeah, okay, So it's a matter
of I know it's a pain. My producer Neil not a big fan of
it either. He is, you know, going to church is like poin
teeth for him. But but there is something about that. You wouldn't Can
you lose weight by not being on an active program or exercising. Yeah,
it's possibility. Is it the best way? No? Can you stop drinking
and not go to AA? Absolutely? But there's a there's a structure and
a process in those twelve steps that can be become beneficial if you're using them
properly. You see what I'm saying. They all have They all have this
purpose to structure. And you like structure in every other part of your life.
You know, you want the food that you order to come out on
time, You want the bank to take out the right amount of money for
the check that you wrote. You want also you want structure in everything except
your spiritual life. And I think it's legitimate to ask yourself why, Benjamin
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Yes, hi, Jesus, thanks for
taking my call, my pleasure. I had a question in regards to wearing
of the cross. I had a member in my church who who loves to
wear the cross, and he wears the cross with the the image of yourself
on the cross and nailed to the cross and the whole whole thing. And
and I told him, I said, I said, do you feel comfortable
honestly wearing the cross? He said, well, yeah, that said that's
a Christian image. I said, well, think of it like this.
Save your relative got murdered by a group of thugs like the Romans, and
and got murdered, you know, pretty much for appreation the Gospel, which
which which is a graving crime outside of the Roman law. Now, would
you feel comfortable of put in your relative that was murdered on the cross?
And he even he got silent evening, matter of fact, you look like
he wanted to cry. Well, it's an ugly image, the image.
There were two thieves that died on either side of me that day by the
very same method. And there were many thousands and thousands of people who were
killed by way of execution, by way of crucifixion. So it takes place.
What I'd like you to see is that the expression of faith in that
and the reason why something that's so horrific becomes a point of glory to many.
And you know, a lot of our Catholic brothers and sisters wear crucifixes,
and there's a lot of of our Protestant brothers and sisters that prefer not
to that, don't they If they wear cross, it's a blank cross,
that's not a crucifix with the actual Corpus CHRISTI that the body of Christ on
it, so it's personal taste, but really the belief is the same.
Some people say the empty cross is where is is where the glory is.
Ultimately, if you want to wear something that shows the glory, it would
be the empty tomb, not the cross at all. But the process,
the bloodshed on the cross and the death on that cross is what brought that
glory that you experienced today via salvation. And if somebody wants to wear a
cross with the crucifixion on it, so be it. Berry, Welcome to
the Jesus Christ Show. Yes, I've got a question about the Conservative Bible
Project run by Philip Shockley's son. I've only heard about this. Talked about
secular liberals and people weren't Christians, but they when I got on the website,
said that the you know, the NIV, your name, and the
es V are corrupted not because of lack of translational stuff, but because they
have socialist influences in them. And to me it seems to be pretty outrageous,
even though I don't read those translations. Would you have to say about
it? Well, as far as the Conservative Bible Project goes. I'm always
leery of any group that looks is looking at scripture from a particular bent,
liberal, conservative, black, white, any group that looks at the Bible
from a particular bent can be a problem when it comes to translation. The
thing that I find interesting about the Conservative Bible Project is that it's not the
truth Bible Project. It's not about saying we want the best translation possible,
and those do exist. The ISV is a new translation that you can find
out. I think it's IV dot org. But you can see the nesscient
processes. They are not so nescient at this point, but the beginning processes
of Scripture being translated, and the desire was to get the best translation possible,
not the most conservative translation or the most liberal translation. So I'm bothered
by that because it should be the most godly accurate translation. And for years
you've heard the arguments against liberal bias and scripture and people saying, oh,
you're emasculating it by having the unisex terms or anything that's gender inclusive and all
these things, and really it's about the content. Is the content still there?
Are you hearing the importance of it? It can be bothersome that people
say, oh, well, it says mankind here, and that's offensive.
You know, you understand the context of what's being said. So to try
and mutate or force into scripture something you feel more comfortable with is not the
way to go. What does scripture actually say. Now, there's better scholars
and people that are more efficient and translating now than ever before, and that
should be utilized, and new translations should come out. And what a lot
of people don't tell you, And what a lot of people don't know about
scriptures. They're often like you know, software, and they have newer versions,
but like the NIV, for instance, will say it's the NIV,
but you don't know that it's the NIV two point h or three point oho
or four point zher because when they change it, they don't necessarily let you
know. This happens with a lot of translations, that there's changes or modifications
as they get better or they correct things. And this the attitude though,
that it's got to be a conservative bent or a liberal bent is missing completely
missing the point. Are there those that read into it yes? Are they
those that read into it conservatively yes, And that's always going to be that
case. But look for the truth of the scripture in the best translation first.
Don't look for the political version first that seems backwards. Kf I AM
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