Can Christians Be Cursed? Gerry Breshears on Demons, Trauma & Freedom

December 13, 2025

Gerry: [00:00:00] [00:00:10] End up talking to some folk last night after the service was over. Yeah. And Jeremy was running [00:00:20] the evening service so Matt could be home with his family. Yeah, yeah. And he came in and wanted to lock up, so he'd go back up home. And so he ushered us out and I was still talking to this [00:00:30] woman about a difficult pastoral situation, and my PC is still laying on the podium there in the building.

Gerry: I was about halfway over the motel. Oh, dang. As far, I had two of 'em with [00:00:40] me. So I could work this morning, but I don't like having my PC laying on a podium in a church. Yeah, no kidding. I'm not a trusting soul.

Kyle: Yeah, no kidding. So you got it back [00:00:50] ready or are you still here? Well, no, I'll hit it. I've got a lunch over there after this, so.

Kyle: Okay. Yeah. How far, how long is the drive?

Gerry: Uh, over to the church [00:01:00] or, uh, no,

Kyle: to, uh, Portland back home. Oh,

Gerry: it's, uh,

Speaker 3: well actually it was Seattle traffic, which I run into this afternoon. It's probably six hours on that [00:01:10] order.

Kyle: Oh, that's actually not bad. I, yeah, it's not bad. I have some friends down there that I was gonna go see later this year.

Speaker 3: Five and a half hours right now it [00:01:20] says

Gerry: I have global entry. So getting back into the US is, I can go through the Nexus lane. Mm. Unfortunately come up here. Global entry doesn't do any good at all. [00:01:30] So I had to sit in line on Saturday 'cause I was on my way up and I realized I've forgotten my passport.

Gerry: Yeah, I

Kyle: heard that.

Gerry: Jesus.

Kyle: How far were you out?

Gerry: I was an hour [00:01:40] Hour. So it cost me two hours. Cost you two hours. So I got here with seven minutes to spare before the one o'clock start on the Oh wow. It was that

Kyle: tight. Oh, wow. Because [00:01:50] originally you were fly.

Gerry: I originally, I was gonna fly up Friday night. Uh, I've got class all day Friday and uh, I got to look at that and said, you know, I don't get into [00:02:00] Vancouver until 1210.

Gerry: Enterprise closes at one. Now they know I'm coming, but I'm still tight. And I think then we get a car and [00:02:10] drive hour and a half. I beat me in bid at like 3:00 AM not No they're not. So I said, I'll just drive up. So, yeah. Yeah, that's worked out better. I spent [00:02:20] less time on travel, so. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense.

Gerry: And I got my car up here, so save the church some money, which I'm, I'm cheap. I'm Brethren background. Yeah, I heard that yesterday. You got your

Kyle: book [00:02:30] for $2 instead of 50 15 and I was like, oh wow. He is, well I

Gerry: can't get it through Crossway anymore. It's out of print. Okay, so, which is crazy. 'cause book of the year in 2008.

Gerry: Yeah, that's

Kyle: [00:02:40] not that long ago.

Gerry: And, uh, but you know,

Kyle: what do you know? Book of the year, that must not have been by number sold or was that,

Gerry: uh, [00:02:50] Christianity. Christianity Today votes book the year based on what they think is, uh, significant impact. It's early, so they've got initial sales, [00:03:00] but it's, it, I don't know who votes for it.

Gerry: Somebody does some Christian leaders and, uh, so it, uh, you know, I, it's a great book, uh, but out of print [00:03:10] now. Yeah. Fair enough. So, but the crazy thing is exactly the same book from Sri Lanka. Two bucks. Yeah. And the postage. I get it. And I got, I got 30 of them this time from my [00:03:20] class. And, uh, so the entire $7 and 35 cents, including the postage shipped from Sri Lanka.

Kyle: [00:03:30] Crazy, crazy. Yeah. Okay. Before we get started, do you have any questions or anything or, uh, what

Gerry: are we up to? I mean, I, I kind of know that you're a socio of the [00:03:40] church beyond that. I know nothing and furiously curious. I mean, that's me.

Kyle: Okay. So

Gerry: that's apparently something we share.

Kyle: Yes. Yeah. I'm pretty curious guy.

Kyle: Yeah. Started in 2019 at a break in [00:03:50] between, and now I just interview mainly Christians and Christian leaders, Uhhuh, uh, uh, people that have in, in, in that world. And just to, just to learn. So, um, I go to [00:04:00] Central at, have, Matt had Matt on. Okay. And Jonathan Neufeld. And, um, and, uh, I knew you're coming up here for spiritual warfare mm-hmm.

Kyle: Seminars. I was like, oh, love to [00:04:10] talk about that some more. Let's do it for my audience. So, um, I'll open with prayer. Yeah. Heaven. Father, thank you that, uh, Jerry and I get to, uh, record here this morning. [00:04:20] Um, thank you for him and, uh, what you also gotta share with us, um, this weekend and what he'll share here this morning.

Kyle: Uh, so you would bless him and fill him with your spirit and, uh, give him [00:04:30] what he needs and help me ask, uh, ask good questions and we could just have a good discussion. Yeah. And that'll be a blessing, um, for the listeners when they listen this in the, in the future for Your Glory and our good. [00:04:40] We pray in Jesus name.

Kyle: Amen. Amen.

Gerry: Yeah, it's Gary, by the way. Gary. Not Gary. Gary. Okay. Yeah. It's a confused mother. Many years ago, many years ago, [00:04:50] she and my dad had decided Gary if it was a boy, and then she's laying there and decided GARY is so boring. You must have to whim, wrote down [00:05:00] G-E-R-R-Y and the birth certificate. And I've been explaining it ever since.

Kyle: Yeah, no kidding. I was just gonna ask that. You must be explaining that a lot, so yeah. Okay, I'm just gonna roll [00:05:10] into it. It's very conversational style. Yeah. And, and, and so just back and forth. Feel free to ask me questions or, yeah. Yeah. So

Gerry: super

Kyle: welcome back guys to the episode of the [00:05:20] Furiously Curious Show.

Kyle: I am here with Gary Brashears. Um, I'm gonna do a little bit of an intro, which is I got from, um, the central website. Gary was here at our church this [00:05:30] weekend for an, uh, equipping for spiritual warfare seminar, um, which was described as, uh, our warfare with darkness ranges from evangelism to spiritual growth, to encounters [00:05:40] with the demonic, and knowing the types and limits of satanic strategies against Christians and the church's essential in our increasingly pagan society.

Kyle: So a strong, [00:05:50] biblical and theological foundation is essential to help people find freedom from spiritual bondage. So we'll talk about that this morning. Um, but you are a professor of theology [00:06:00] and a program director. Of the Master of Applied Biblical leadership degree at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.

Kyle: Mm-hmm. And you served as the National Executive Committee of the [00:06:10] Evangelical Theological Society and was the founding board member of the Bible Project. The Bible project. What was that?

Gerry: Uh, Bible project, a group that put together, uh, [00:06:20] it started with doing just five videos. The first one was the Heaven and Earth video, and it's grown out now that we've got, uh, sketchbook videos on every book of the Bible and, okay.

Gerry: That's you guys, all kinds [00:06:30] of stuff. Oh yeah. The podcast is one of the top rated podcasts. Just finished a session on the wilderness theme. Okay. John Collins and Tim Mackey. Uh, and it's a, a large group [00:06:40] now, and we've got the materials now available in like 50 different. Cultures, not just languages, but it's actually Oh wow.

Gerry: We call it, uh, it's, [00:06:50] it's acculturated, it's called. Uh, so it's not just translation, it's actually changing things the way language's used and such to make it fit [00:07:00] into, uh, the receiving culture. So I've got connections in Mongolia. I was there, uh, about three months ago, and Jen and Corey. [00:07:10] Ellison are there, and they contacted me and said, Hey, can we get this stuff in Mongolian?

Gerry: I said, well, our goals work with the top 50 languages. I have no idea where Mongolian fits on that 'cause there [00:07:20] aren't a whole lot of people living in outer Mongolian. What turned out that, that's like 33rd on the list. So I have seen the Bible project video on Genesis [00:07:30] in Mongolian, and it does mean no good whatsoever, but it does Mongolians a lot of good.

Gerry: So yeah, that's what we do. This bible brought into context of different cultures, but [00:07:40] primarily English and major languages. Okay, that's cool.

Kyle: Yeah. So you're also, one of the areas of expertise is spiritual warfare, and you've mentored a lot of influential pastors and theologians like John Mark Comer, Tim [00:07:50] Mackey, mark Driscoll, Brianna Blaine, you still mentored Mark Driscoll?

Gerry: Uh, mark and I have not worked together for a while. We had a, we did four books together. Uh, [00:08:00] the last one was Doctrine in 2010. And then Mars Hill blew up in 2014. He went down to Scottsdale. We redid doctrines. So the 10th anniversary [00:08:10] edition is available from real faith.com. And back in Easter of this year, we redid our vintage Jesus book as King of Kings.

Gerry: And now that's available through real [00:08:20] faith. Okay. Uh, but we're not actually working together any projects now. Okay. Yeah.

Kyle: So you're also Matt SCHs, my pastor's professor in seminary. And, um, I [00:08:30] think, but the most important thing that you also communicated this weekend was you've been married since 1968 to your wife, Sherry.

Kyle: Yep. You have two sons and a daughter. And four wonderful grandchildren.

Gerry: Yep.

Kyle: And, uh,

Gerry: [00:08:40] and one great granddaughter. Oh, wow. Nora is here. Okay. I get to hold her at Thanksgiving again. Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Kyle: Okay, so, uh, [00:08:50] spiritual warfare. How, how did you get into this topic? Uh, first of all,

Gerry: I, I grew up in New Mexico, uh, seventh grade through college.

Gerry: And [00:09:00] the native spiritualities I was very familiar with. I went to, uh, stuff with Pueblo Indians near Albuquerque, hung around with the Navajos and such multicultural environment, [00:09:10] and they have all kinds of stuff that they do. As I now I would say that they're worshiping demons, but they're gods of their tribes and such, the wind walkers and all kinds of [00:09:20] stuff.

Gerry: And I was aware of that and that just superstition, you know, pre-scientific explanation of psychosis, uh, or just pure superstition. Uh, but then God took she me [00:09:30] to the Philippines to teach at Faith Academy as a math teacher. And I discovered they take stuff very, very seriously there. So we'd go to the market to buy our veggies [00:09:40] and the next market stall was demonic stuff.

Gerry: And I thought, gosh, this is weird. And I ended up talking to a number of people, including [00:09:50] the manager of the Christian bookstore there, blaa, who had a background of active demonic involvement. He would call up demonic spirits to give him power so he could work his way with [00:10:00] women and did,

Speaker 4: Hmm.

Gerry: Became a Christian.

Gerry: And you know, I, wow. He takes his stuff for real and stuff. So I got in just around it. Didn't do [00:10:10] anything particularly active about it for those three years in the Philippines. Came back to the United States in 1975. Went to seminary, did my grad school. Uh, came in [00:10:20] 72, finished in 75, went to Pasadena, did a PhD, taught at Biola.

Gerry: And apparently all the demons live in the Philippines 'cause there's no of 'em here. [00:10:30] And then I came up to Western in 1980 and I discovered, you know, the demonic Israel here. Uh, and [00:10:40] uh, because I was teaching on it in my classes, people had. Uh, were willing to come talk to me about their experiences. So I got involved in what do you do [00:10:50] when you've got demonic, uh, attack like Jesus in the wilderness or demonic attachments, or full on demonic possession?

Gerry: And I've been doing that [00:11:00] now for, since oh, early eighties in a variety of contexts and all over the wor I've taught this all over the world now.

Kyle: Hmm. And on a basic level, what is a [00:11:10] demon? And is that like one of the, like, uh, from what I understand, one third of the angels fell, uh, in, in Genesis. Are those all demons now and Satan is their leader, or what's it No, Satan

Gerry: is the [00:11:20] leader of the dark forces.

Gerry: Uh, the third of the angels mentioned Revelation chapter 12, and that follows actually after the death and [00:11:30] resurrection and ascension of Christ. Oh, wow. I think there is a pre Genesis one, one follows Satan, it's hinted at in Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14, [00:11:40] uh, one Timothy chapter three. We only get hints of it, no details in this rebellious guardian cherub in Ezekiel 28, who [00:11:50] was the, who was carrying the throne of God, but decided I should be on the throne, is, that's the hint in Eko 28.

Gerry: And that was the [00:12:00] rebellion, was he wanted to be the guy instead of being a servant of the God of heaven and earth. Uh, we don't know whether demons are [00:12:10] fallen angels or not. They're never, there are fallen angels. It's referred to, so places in scripture, but there's nothing that connects fallen angels and demons.

Gerry: You have passages like [00:12:20] Ephesians, uh, one and Ephesians six that talk about different categories. Apparently, uh, rulers, authorities, powers, spiritual forces and dark places. But are [00:12:30] those different categories of spiritual beings? We just don't know.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry: But I just use demons as a category. It's both old and new Testament for personal [00:12:40] spiritual beings who hate God, want to destroy and defile particularly humans, and are quite good at it.

Gerry: And that so demon [00:12:50] is a category of these personal, malevolent, spiritual beings that, that want to destroy and defile the work of God. Okay.

Kyle: And so the one third that fell [00:13:00] that you said, that's after the resurrection.

Gerry: Well, that's in Revelation 12, and that's, it begins there with the woman's giving birth to the son who ruled the nations.

Gerry: And the dragon is waiting to [00:13:10] kill him. And, and then the, the son is taken up into heaven. That's the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the cast out of heaven and hurled to the [00:13:20] earth is a apocalyptic picture of this rebellion where they are, their heavenly influence is broken [00:13:30] and their authority over believers in Jesus Christ is broken, but he's hurled the earth and he's really angry because he knows his time is short.

Gerry: And that's where we [00:13:40] live now. Is this dragon doing war against the church? Yeah, but exactly what the 30 angels are doing. No details right? There's a whole lot of stuff we don't [00:13:50] know. Okay.

Kyle: What would some of the biggest misconceptions be of, of demons that you see in the church today? And, and kind of what, what goes on?

Gerry: Just about everything. Fair. Fair enough. I mean, you [00:14:00] see demons are cute little beings, you know, with horns and pitchforks and that kind of stuff. That's just not a picture at all. Uh, or demons are kind of cute little things. And, uh, they're [00:14:10] just, most of the popular pictures of demons just have no reality whatsoever.

Gerry: Uh, they're spiritual beings. They're personal. [00:14:20] They can talk, they can choose. Uh, they're deceptive and they're evil and they afflict people.

Kyle: You mentioned earlier a kind of a tongue in [00:14:30] cheek joke of that there's no demons here. Yeah. They're only in the Philippines. What, where, where does that come from, do you think?

Kyle: In, in western culture? Uh, especially Christian culture where, yeah. It doesn't seem to be a, a topic of Yeah. [00:14:40] Much.

Gerry: We, uh, beginning in oh 16, 17 hundreds, there was a move, what we call the Enlightenment now, and it was moving away [00:14:50] from a spiritual reality that this world is a place inhabited by god's and demons to what we call naturalism.

Gerry: Everything is controlled in our world with of [00:15:00] science. So everything's controlled by random application of presently operating natural law. So we can explain everything by just [00:15:10] naturalistic evolution, electrochemical processes, viruses, that sort of thing. And our Western worldview basically is if there is a [00:15:20] God.

Gerry: He may have created, but he didn't have anything to do with this world. We're on our own and everything is controlled by scientific natural law, and we just don't believe in spiritual beings at all. [00:15:30] Uh, so the idea that they're demons, like I grew up in a scientific environment, it's just pre-scientific explanation, psychosis, [00:15:40] and, but if I'm in other parts of the world, they take it very seriously.

Gerry: So I just reading a, a friend of mine, he is in, uh, in Thailand, [00:15:50] M pen at Cambodia, uh, in M Pen, and he is dealing with a doctor there, well-trained doctor, [00:16:00] uh, who went back to Buddhism from a. Christian involvement and he spends much of his spiritual life trying to make [00:16:10] sure that the, that I would say the gods, the demons are trying to appease them through Buddhist rituals, so they won't hurt him.

Gerry: Very different [00:16:20] worldview than we have here in the West. And we just, we just, and so demons here, just, there's no demons here. We're not here because they get their work [00:16:30] done disconnectedness from God by just, okay, keep, there's no, God, don't worry about him. And that's, that's, there's a

Kyle: different form of Dece.

Kyle: Different form of Dece. Exactly. I [00:16:40] remember in, uh, 2013, I think it was, I was in Cona Creek Guinea on the, on the Horn of Africa. Yep. Yep. On the mercy ships there. Okay. And there was a local, uh, church, um, that I went to, and they [00:16:50] used to have a huge tree on their property, and the locals used to go and worship it.

Kyle: Yep. And they had no idea how to re remove this tree because they didn't have a chainsaw. They didn't [00:17:00] like Uhhuh. There was one traffic light in the whole city. They had no means to do it like we would do. So they prayed around it for seven days, and after seven days it fell over. Whoa. And I still [00:17:10] have a hard time believing it, but it was really like the whole church talked about it and stuff like that.

Kyle: Uhhuh. And they had lots of, there was lots of witch doctor tents everywhere and people getting their arms healed. Yep. [00:17:20] From being broken and just like a whole new world I had not not been aware of at all. Yeah.

Gerry: See, we don't do that here, but if you're in Africa or Southeast [00:17:30] Asia or much of the world, which doctors are very real and they actually do healing miracles, they really do.

Gerry: There's power in the demonic realm. People say, well, [00:17:40] how do you see that biblically? I say, turn your Bible to Exodus, chapter seven. Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh, you know, let my people go. And Aaron takes his staff, throws it [00:17:50] down, and becomes a snake. Whoa. But the Egyptian missions do the same thing by the power of their gods.

Gerry: They turn their staffs into [00:18:00] snakes. Now how many people turned to staff into a snake recently? Like nobody.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry: But see, it's a reality and there is absolute reality, the spiritual forces of darkness. And that's [00:18:10] what Paul talks about. Where in put on your armor, because we're in a battle. Yeah.

Kyle: So how does it show up in western culture?

Kyle: How did demons show, show up? How are they influencing that we're maybe [00:18:20] blind to or, or just so used to seeing?

Gerry: Uh, I think the biggest things that demons do here is just help us with the lie that the, that God is [00:18:30] not

Speaker 3: real.

Gerry: Uh, there may be a creator God, some sort of deistic uh, creator that got the universe going, but there's no accountability before God.

Gerry: There's [00:18:40] no connection with him. We live in a human centered, naturalistic universe. That's the primary deception, the big lie. [00:18:50] You don't have to worry about God 'cause there's no such thing. He may have been creating something, but he's not doing anything today. Uh, but what I also find through my own ministry [00:19:00] is that demons will, uh, force of darkness will pump energy into our stuff.

Gerry: Uh, [00:19:10] so one of the stories I tell, I had a tough Texan who was a student of mine part-time. Pastor in a church seminary student and he's, he's an [00:19:20] Aggie, so he's having good year this year 'cause Texas AM is undefeated. Uh, and he had turned out, had some really, [00:19:30] really bad addicted behaviors going, a really sick sexual relationship.

Gerry: He was addicted to alcohol and other stuff. So I referred him to psychologist, friend of [00:19:40] mine, Christian psychologist, and I had a release of information so we could talk to each other. She got a hold of me one day and says, Gary, I'm not making any progress to this guy at all. My stuff is not [00:19:50] working as a Christian psychologist.

Gerry: And I was working with him on a spiritual basis and I was pushing really hard on some spiritual stuff in my office one day. [00:20:00] And suddenly his face changed and in a very different voice I heard, he's ours. You can't have him. Wow. And next thing, his tough text is slumped over in the [00:20:10] chair in my office.

Gerry: Weeping. What was that? Well, what was happening is somehow with no idea how he had gotten inclined, gotten connected to the sym [00:20:20] demonic forces, and they were pumping huge energy into his addictive behaviors. So we commanded the demon to get out, [00:20:30] dealt the stuff that I do. I mean, I, I'd do a fair bit of it.

Gerry: Uh. And when we got rid of the demon demons in his life, the [00:20:40] attachments, then that took the power out of the addictive behavior. And my psychologist friend could do her good work as a very competent Christian psychologist [00:20:50] and he was able to overcome those kinds of things. And now he's married and has four kids and his daughter just graduated with a National Merit scholarship and they, they're back in Texas [00:21:00] and living well.

Kyle: Okay. So how do you know if someone's addiction is just an addiction versus a demonic is putting energy into it? 'cause I can imagine some [00:21:10] people could even use as an excuse to say,

Gerry: oh, absolutely. Yeah, I can't help it. A devil made me do it. Yeah. And that becomes an excuse not to deal with our own stuff.

Speaker 3: Yeah,

Gerry: for sure. Uh, [00:21:20] what I do in these kinds of things, I have an assessment that I do when somebody comes in and they're struggling with any kind of pastoral problem, anxiety, addictions, [00:21:30] uh, depression, uh, just can't concentrate, there's all kinds of different things. Uh, I just say, can you tell me your story?

Gerry: And so I just start listening to their [00:21:40] story. Uh, tell me about what's good in your life, you know? And in that process, one of the things I assess for is on the spiritual component. Now there's [00:21:50] also emotional, physical, uh, familial who you hang out with, uh, those other things as well. But I'm looking primarily at the spiritual side.

Gerry: [00:22:00] So tell me your picture of God. So I have paper and crayons in my desk, in my office, and I'll hand him a piece of paper and say, draw me a picture of the God you pray [00:22:10] to at two o'clock in the morning when you can't sleep. Or tell me the story if they're not, if they're not artistically inclined. Because what I find a lot of times is the demons [00:22:20] actually distort our picture of God and make him an angry, impossible to satisfy tyrant or something like that.

Gerry: And that's, that's [00:22:30] demons dealing our conceptions, uh, in addictive behavior. Uh, what I'll do is tell me your story. And I'm listening for [00:22:40] three things. I'm listening for accusing voices, 'cause Satan means the accuser. I'm listening for oppressive presences, and I'm listening for occultic [00:22:50] involvement. So as I'm telling your story.

Gerry: Uh, I will hear somebody say something like, well, one story I tell often now is a [00:23:00] woman I was working a spiritual assessment with and she had a severe eating disorder and working with eating disorder specialist. And tell me about your eating disorder, how it works when you have to [00:23:10] control and that kind of stuff.

Gerry: And I heard her saying this process, and the voice says to me, you are a fat pig. Ding, a accusing [00:23:20] voice. So he came back to that later and I'd already worked with her about her and Denny in Christ, the demonic force, that she's a in the kingdom of light. [00:23:30] And I said, tell me more about that accusing voice.

Gerry: And the thing is, uh, that can be negative self-talk. [00:23:40] We've all got lots of negative self-talk. It could be an, um, what we, a psychological call, a negative interject, uh, um, a parent. Kind of stuff, or a [00:23:50] significant person. And I said, I want, what I want you to do is look at that voice, uh, by powerful Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus.[00:24:00]

Gerry: And so she's looking inside herself in her own thought world at that voice. And she, and then I just say, is that [00:24:10] your negative self-talk or is that something else? Hmm. I can't tell from the outside, but if it's, I, I believe that people, I'm [00:24:20] talking, particularly Christians here through powerful Holy Spirit, can look at these things and determine, is that me or more than me?

Gerry: [00:24:30] And in her case, she realized, I've been listening to a demon all these years, and she was mad. Uh, so that's my base way of telling things, but [00:24:40] I'm very, very, very, very careful to tell people, just 'cause you have a, a powerful addictive behavior saying you need a disorder, anxiety or something like that. It [00:24:50] may well not be a demon.

Gerry: And people get invested in the idea, it's a demon. Get rid of the demon, I'll be fine. And it's not a demon. And they end up being really disappointed. [00:25:00] And that's very frustrating, frankly. Yeah. That's, that's a danger of what I do is people put their hope in the fact that it's a demon, you have an excuse and if it's not, then they're devastated.

Kyle: Yeah. [00:25:10] Yeah. Okay. Do, do you think demons put more effort into people of influence? Like, do you think they Oh, absolutely. Put more go after pastors or like, do you think that's why Hollywood is the way it is? 'cause they [00:25:20] know how much influence those people have through their movies and TV and stuff like that.

Kyle: Culture, uh, and gamers.

Gerry: Games too. Okay. I mean, I, I don't do games, but I, [00:25:30] my kids do. Yeah. And my grandkids do. And there are a lot of games that are just neutral. They're just fun. I'm talking about video games and such. Yeah. But when I start looking at these, a lot of the [00:25:40] games are, in fact, they're actively involved in demonic things, and you're actually manipulating demons as a part of the game is bizarre.

Gerry: Uh, [00:25:50] so yeah, there's, uh, getting people involved in, uh, knowing more about demons and the things related to that is a part of, it's in a lot of [00:26:00] Hollywood movies, a lot of music videos. Uh, a lot of games to an, because people are now becoming aware of spirituality. Uh, gen [00:26:10] Z is now very much aware of the failure of the secular worldview and is beginning to look for spiritual side of life.

Gerry: And a fair number of them are getting involved in [00:26:20] demonic stuff as well as some getting involved in the Jesus life. Hmm.

Kyle: How do you protect yourself? From it. Like if you're, um, a person of [00:26:30] influence of any kind. Yeah. You know, or what, like even myself. So you have like a platform, like a podcast and stuff like that?

Kyle: Yep. So my question is right away, like, oh, I'm gonna get attacked by Satan more now, or like it may be, and what does that look [00:26:40] like? And

Gerry: uh, what I do, my base thing is have somebody open their Bible and read it out loud. So I have you, Kyle, read your Bible out [00:26:50] loud as simple interpretive questions. So I'd have you turn to pa passage.

Gerry: The first Peter chapter five, he begins talking about elders. And next thing it talks about, it [00:27:00] says, be alert because Satan is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And it tells you what to do, resist and stand [00:27:10] firm. So alert, there are demonic forces there. Don't be naive about it. And. Watch for those kinds of things.

Gerry: [00:27:20] And when you get the accusing voice or the oppressive presence or the unnamed fear or something like that, resist verbally oppose, quote scripture out [00:27:30] loud at the thing and demand that it get away in Jesus' name. You have the authority to do that. So what I do routinely because [00:27:40] I'm a person of influence, is I begin every day with just a, it's a spiritual practice of remember who I am.[00:27:50]

Gerry: I am a abba's child. I am light in the Lord. Ephesians chapter five, uh, I am. I come in the name of Jesus. [00:28:00] Demonic forces are disarmed. They have no authority in Colossians two 15. And I just remember who I am and do my [00:28:10] day. And there's another thing I do in that morning. Uh, prayer and scripture and such.

Gerry: Yeah. And at the end of every day I follow, uh, not formally, but the prayer of [00:28:20] examine from a nation, Ignatian spirituality begin in the end of the day, what are good things that happen today that I'm glad for? Gratitude is [00:28:30] fundamental. 'cause demons wanna be cynical. And I've got a cynical bent to my personality.

Gerry: Uh, what are the places today that are good? What are the [00:28:40] places I have seen Jesus show up or God show up? What are the places where I have sinned and fallen short of what I could do, confess and receive his forgiveness, and then look [00:28:50] to tomorrow with hope and anticipation and then sleep. Hmm. So I do that just as spiritual practice.

Gerry: It's just routine. And then [00:29:00] I'm, I'm just, I come in the name of Jesus. Hmm. So that's my base stuff. Hmm. And I, I, I tell people I treat demons like rattlesnakes. I [00:29:10] actually like snakes. Uh, I had pet snakes when I was a kid. Yeah. Not rattlesnakes.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Gerry: Uh, but I grew up in Albuquerque and so out in the desert they're rattlesnakes.

Gerry: And if you're [00:29:20] four feet away from rattlesnake, it's not dangerous at all. In fact, they're kind of fun to watch 'em coil up and rattle at you and such. Yeah. But if you step on one, it'll bite you. My pretty [00:29:30] wife had that happen to her back in Arkansas. Or if you play with them, don't play with them. You don't mess with 'em.

Gerry: Keep your distance. Be alert. If you're walking out in the deserts of New [00:29:40] Mexico, they're rattlesnakes there. Don't step on 'em. Hmm. So be alert, but they're just rattlesnakes. That's kind of my attitude toward demons. They're dangerous. Only if you play with them. [00:29:50] Only if you step on them.

Speaker 4: Okay.

Gerry: But then they are really dangerous.

Gerry: Yeah. So be careful.

Kyle: Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. How do you know if something is a temptation from your own sinful heart versus from a [00:30:00] demon? And does it, and does it matter if, where it's being driven from?

Gerry: In resisting temptation. I don't think it matters that much, but the difference between something that [00:30:10] comes to the world of flesh and the devil, 'cause they're in league with each other.

Gerry: The world is just, culture says, this will make you happy. So the temptation is to do that. [00:30:20] Uh, flesh is just my own distorted desires and demon would be a personal presence. And so when I find myself being [00:30:30] drawn to, well, in my case, my besetting sin is to put stupid buttons on people. I have a high analytic intelligence.

Gerry: You are so stupid. Let me show you [00:30:40] how stupid you are. Yeah, well that's a sin. I should be blessing people. And when I find myself wanting get it competitive and wanna [00:30:50] stupid somebody that probably might be setting sin. But I'm also aware that that could be more than that. So when I find that popping. I just quote [00:31:00] a passage, let your speech be such that edifies the other.

Gerry: Uh, and then I just say no to that voice and who has a demonic [00:31:10] thing or a self thing doesn't make that much difference in routine kinds of things. Mm-hmm. So that's my approach.

Kyle: You mentioned this weekend that Satan uses, [00:31:20] um, things like sex, uh, and, and out of its context to influence. Yep. Um, which is, you see that in the porn culture Yep.

Kyle: And just what's going on. That's really prevalent. But then you [00:31:30] also mentioned that he uses things that are as more subtle, like money Oh, and power and Yeah. And, um, and things like that. How, how, how does he maybe just give some practical examples on how he uses [00:31:40] money and power mm-hmm. To influence or to screw things up.

Gerry: Our cultural value is money is the means of happiness. The more money you have, the happier you are. Now, I [00:31:50] talked to some really rich people, and that's not true, but they do a lot of cool things. Yeah. And so the, the, our idea, and it's not a new idea, is I'll keep my [00:32:00] good stuff for myself, for my own happiness.

Gerry: And that's the way of the world, but it's also a way of flesh. It's also a way of demons. There's, Jesus [00:32:10] identifies the desire to have money as mammon, it's a demonic name. And so to meet somebody in [00:32:20] need and just keep walking is actually to give into sin. Hmm. Uh, my response should be, how can I help? And, uh, [00:32:30] so, uh, that temptation with money, uh, there's what I call a rule keeping righteousness.

Gerry: So [00:32:40] the standard is 10%. I need to give 10% of my income. To Christian things. And that's a, that's a starting point, [00:32:50] but a rule keeping righteousness, okay, I've given my 10% ding, I'm good. I see somebody need, well, I've already given. And that's, that's sin. The [00:33:00] generosity ethic, which is the way of God is I have stuff.

Gerry: How can I help? And so Sermon on the Mount, if I have two coats [00:33:10] and I see him, but he doesn't have a coat, I should give him one of mine. But we think, oh, well I need this light coat for nice days and I need this heavy coat for cold days. [00:33:20] Yeah, he has no coat at all. And see, that's the generosity ethic. So we keep stuff from my own pleasure, my own comfort, [00:33:30] and that can be a very powerful sin.

Speaker 4: Okay.

Gerry: And boy, I tell you, uh, there is a huge, huge joy. In [00:33:40] helping a relationally connected person who's in difficult space. Yeah. Yeah. But you have to do it to experience it. Yeah. Yeah. Move forward in faith. Yeah. So [00:33:50] money, power. We see people are more aware of power abuse right now. Want to use power to crunch somebody.

Gerry: I use power to get for myself and we're [00:34:00] more aware of that, but it's usually in them. We don't see it in ourselves that

Kyle: much. How do, how do you see it in yourself? If it's money or power or sex? Like how, what's a, a self test someone could [00:34:10] do? Yeah. To see that, hey, this is actually, you know, 'cause it's easy to point it out another.

Kyle: Mm-hmm. How do you, how do you discover discovered in yourself?

Gerry: Uh, the, well, I, [00:34:20] I grew up in a brethren environment, so plain and pacifist is in my genes and putting on, hes. Uh, it just so repulsive to [00:34:30] me, but I find on airs, uh, putting on, uh, privilege, putting on airs a way of I'm a good guy, you know? Okay.

Gerry: Yeah. Yeah. And I want the special parking spot and I want to be treated well at [00:34:40] the Yeah. That kind of stuff. Yeah. And that I'm actually allergic to that. Right. Uh, my pretty wife went on a cruise with her mother and sister and sister-in-law, and when she [00:34:50] got back she said, Gary don't even think about doing a cruise.

Gerry: 'cause the whole point of cruise is you are so special. Oh, yeah. And she said You would hate it. That's probably true. But the, what I do [00:35:00] think is, uh, I, I was president of Evangelical Theological Society and when a year I was program chair, I brought 600 people to a [00:35:10] hotel in San Francisco, a Hilton hotel by the airport.

Gerry: And Hilton took notice of me to deliver. 600 people means money for them. They just wanted to give me nice [00:35:20] stuff. To entice me into using Hilton as a brand. Now there's nothing sinful about that particularly, but I realized at that point in [00:35:30] being, uh, delivering a convention of 600 people to Hilton, they were willing to give me all kinds of nice stuff and that could [00:35:40] become easily using my position of power.

Gerry: And, and it's legit what I did, but I could very easily become something I use for personal [00:35:50] privilege. That's where the sin comes, and it's just the way of the world. Yeah. We call it corruption, but then everybody does it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's deceitful. It comes quickly. So what's, [00:36:00] what's appealing to me to be special person in some sense?

Gerry: What's appealing to me to become a, uh, one of the sexual areas would be to [00:36:10] do something outside of the relation with my pretty wife. And there's lots of ways to do that, uh, and. They're just a power, money, [00:36:20] knowledge. I mean, I, because of my pastoral stuff, people confide in me a lot. I have to remember, that's their information.

Gerry: I do not have a right to share it without [00:36:30] their permission. And that protecting that confidentiality is a huge thing to me. I have to do that. So there's all kinds of things where Satan can attempt [00:36:40] us to break ethic, Christian ethic for the sake of influence or power or being seen or something like that.

Gerry: Yeah.

Kyle: What, what, [00:36:50] uh, part does confessing your sins one to another and being open with other brothers in Christ, um, have in fighting that then? 'cause I'm assuming that, um, bringing those things to the [00:37:00] light and, and sharing the ways you're being tempted is Yep. A good way to kill the Yep.

Gerry: Satan's basic thing we see, and he deals with Eve.

Gerry: He isolates Eve from [00:37:10] God and from Adam, and talks to her by herself. And says, Eve, check it out for yourself. And that's one of the things he does is isolate us from other [00:37:20] people. And one of the most effective ways to overcome Satan's temptations for us is to be really open with your close [00:37:30] group and they can weigh what something's weird there, what's going on.

Gerry: So yeah, confessing your sin to one of the James five passage is exactly right. Be [00:37:40] open about my life with a, with a group of people and I trust 'em with my heart. And so they, that's a really, really, really good way to [00:37:50] avoid getting involved in what seems okay in the deceptiveness as Satan.

Kyle: When I was a, a little kid, I was, um, I was pretty crazy.

Kyle: [00:38:00] There was, I, I ended up bunch of the psych ward and everything when I was, um, nine. I. I, I don't wanna go into the details of the abuse, but there was just extreme neglect. [00:38:10] Um, and it made me snap one day. Um, uh, I, I think I told a story that I was sexually abused, which wasn't true. Um, but I got, um, [00:38:20] attention when I told that story.

Kyle: Yep. And, and so the story kind of grew and stuff like that. But my behavior was crazy. There was more holes in the wall of my, my bedroom than there was drywall left who I would [00:38:30] light fires in the room. I would run the roof. I would, I would chase my brother with a knife. I would throw hot coffee on my dad.

Kyle: I would, I I was in, in insane. Um, [00:38:40] and so I went to that. Psych ward and through a lot of drugs and timeouts and stuff like that mm-hmm. Things were settled. But then for a super long time, I had no [00:38:50] memories of my childhood at, at all. Mm-hmm. Until I did psychedelic therapy a few years ago, and then I got access to all the memories again.

Kyle: Mm-hmm. And I've been trying to process that since, but I still have a [00:39:00] really, really hard time with it, um, in being able to access any of the memories, um, trying to understand why I showed up the way I did. Mm-hmm. My siblings didn't. Um, [00:39:10] and, and after this weekend, I'm curious, like, is there, at least when I ask the question, is there like, is there, how do I know there's not a spiritual [00:39:20] attack of some sort attached to it?

Kyle: Or like, and that's still there today? 'cause worthlessness feelings or just, um, even talking about it is, is, [00:39:30] is hard for me. And, and I just have very little understanding of, of what happened. Can you help me unpack what. Like different, like trying to figure out [00:39:40] if, if there is anything demonic there or along those lines.

Kyle: See, what

Gerry: I would do as a paradigm would be to, uh, [00:39:50] sit down with you in a pastoral situation and I'll encourage you to get a hold of Matt and some of the folk of the church and do this 'cause I can coach them. Uh, is to [00:40:00] go back and just first of all, lay carefully the identity as child of God. That's where I have you read your Bible out loud, simple, interpretive [00:40:10] questions and go to certain key passages that relate to that.

Gerry: Uh, you've been transferred, you've been transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of the [00:40:20] beloved son, and you have redemption, the forgiveness sin. Just really work through that passage and make it personal. I'm kingdom of light, I am light in the Lord, I am child of [00:40:30] the Lord. Most high, uh, demons at its arm, nothing has authority over me.

Gerry: Just really lay that foundation really carefully. And then, uh, is [00:40:40] what's often called healing prayer would go, prayerfully, go back into those and through powerful Holy Spirit, go back into some of those memories [00:40:50] and bring them up again, which is scary and painful, but do it with powerful Holy Spirit. And then say, and go back there.

Gerry: And [00:41:00] in, as you're reliving that memory, look there and say, is there something going on there that we need to about? And just the prayer is, holy Spirit, show [00:41:10] us what we need to see. And it may be just crazy 9-year-old. It could be that there's some sort of demonic influence. It could be that there were just a [00:41:20] hormonal out of structure kind of thing.

Gerry: It could be a lot of different things or some combination of all of those things. But then if we find something and it looks like there's [00:41:30] something beyond you that was actually influencing that, then you just go back and you say, uh, to this force, this demonic thing or [00:41:40] whatever, you have no authority to be here.

Gerry: I reject you. You must leave now and you may never, ever contaminate my life again. Holy Spirit, [00:41:50] empower these things because you are the one, you're an encourager and just reject, rebuke, break off any connections made at [00:42:00] that spot. Now I'm short circuiting. It'd take a, it'd take. Uh, typically I'm gonna do something like this.

Gerry: I do a couple of hours. Yeah. And if something shows up there, [00:42:10] we can deal with it. A lot of times nothing shows up at that point. I just make it really clear. Okay? Anything in the present that what takes advantage of what [00:42:20] happened when you're nine years old now? I stand firm in the Lord Jesus Christ. I will, I reject any spiritual influence from the spiritual forces of [00:42:30] darkness.

Gerry: Again, holy Spirit, show me any place where I'm listening to voices that are not your voice, where I'm engaging with presences, not your presence. I'll stand [00:42:40] firm and I'll worship the Lord and Him only all of their spirits must leave me alone in Jesus' name. So I'd be kind of the outline of what I would do, and then always bring attention back to [00:42:50] Jesus.

Gerry: And stand firm that I, father, son Holy Spirit, that I'm a child of the King Jesus, and my brother Holy Spirit is my present [00:43:00] encourager, and I'll receive his power and his power only. That'd be the outline of what I would do.

Kyle: Right. Yeah. Interesting. Mm-hmm. You, you talked this weekend about different curses that mm-hmm.

Kyle: Um, demons can put [00:43:10] on you, but also curses that a dad can put on someone. Yep. What, what would the difference between those be and how do you combat

Gerry: both of

Kyle: them? Yeah.

Gerry: Uh, a dad curse [00:43:20] and I am a dad. I'm a granddad now, a great-granddad. Uh, dad is, curse is when, you know, like I, if I didn't do these things, but I could see [00:43:30] myself doing it.

Gerry: Uh, I'm working with my son, I'm helping him, or he's helping me do some project and I want him to hammer in a nail and he keeps bending the nail and [00:43:40] kind of stuff, and I just get irritated with him and just can't you do anything Right. You stupid little kid. And that's a curse. And if he receives that [00:43:50] curse, that becomes an identity thing for him.

Gerry: I'm a stupid little kid. I can't do anything. Right? It's amazing how that curse can now be directed for his entire [00:44:00] life. And then as I'm helping people think things through Holy Spirit show you, we need to see. A lot of times there'll come a memory show up. I just did this with a really good [00:44:10] pastor, a friend of mine, uh, I thought we were talking about issues in his church.

Gerry: I got together with him and his wife and he was talking about fear that he was having [00:44:20] around being a pastor. And so I did what I'm talking about here. We just went back in. Okay. I want you to look at this fear. We talked about it a bit. And again, I'm praying [00:44:30] out loud, but quietly, holy Spirit's choice. We need to see.

Gerry: And I saw him react to something and I said, what was that? I don't wanna talk about it. Aha. [00:44:40] So we got into it and it took him back to a memory from his childhood with his mom. And I won't tell you any details of it, but stuff that happened in relation with his [00:44:50] mom had poisoned his entire life and he had to go back and we brought Holy Spirit healing back into that memory and put [00:45:00] it in a context and put it away.

Gerry: Change his life. Hmm. That's a, that's a, that was a parent curse. Now that couldn't come from anybody. Yeah. And that's just a bad [00:45:10] word, but it comes an identity point. And the one I told I tell often is the identity in my, in me, the curse is thou shalt not wake a sleeping woman. Hmm. And [00:45:20] I'm pretty sure where that came from, but to this day, I'm almost 79 years old.

Gerry: It's really hard for me to wake my pretty wife up, even if she wants me to, uh, because I [00:45:30] think probably my mom cursed me back. Yeah. And the little guy. Uh, but uh, there can also be demonic curses. That's where like a [00:45:40] witch doctor type thing. And I've dealt with some of these where somebody doesn't like you, so they go to a witch doctor and use the power of the demonic things to put a [00:45:50] spiritual curse on you.

Gerry: And if you receive that curse then it becomes powerful for you. And in the witch doctor [00:46:00] side, the curses are very real and they're very powerful. And on the if and what happens if I'm dealing with people in Africa, they're not Christians, where they do this sort of thing, [00:46:10] is if I think there's a curse on me, then I have to go to a witch doctor who look into the spiritual realm and see what that curse is and tell me what it is and how to undo [00:46:20] it.

Gerry: So it's witch doctor against witch doctor, and you can't have to amp up to get a high powered witch doctor. And it can get really complicated and extremely expensive. [00:46:30]

Kyle: So that would be a person doing that. You wouldn't be going to the witch doctor and asking what kind of curse is on them.

Gerry: Well, I would if I weren't a Christian, but Christians tend to do it too.

Gerry: Yeah, because this curse [00:46:40] is on me. I hear that some, that Joe put a curse on me using a witch doctor. There's a temptation if it's my worldview to go to another witch doctor to do it back, even though I don't need to [00:46:50] do that.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Gerry: It's easy to fall in. Well, I need to fight this curse with a curse. 'cause that's the way it's done.

Gerry: Uh, in the, in the darkness. I'll just leave it at that. [00:47:00] But we don't have to do that. Yeah. 'cause we have the power of Jesus to do it.

Kyle: Yeah. What are some of the, uh, subtle signs of spiritual oppression that people often overlook? [00:47:10]

Gerry: Uh, the, the sort of thing I watch for is just, uh, when I feel out of control in my life, I [00:47:20] wanna know why.

Gerry: When I find people say, I just, I just, I can't read the Bible. How come, uh, when people [00:47:30] say, you know, I go to church and I just never get anything out of it. Okay. How come? Because what the, the world of flesh and the devil are trying to do as numb as to the [00:47:40] beauty of the self-giving God. Hmm. And make a self-sufficient.

Gerry: I've gotta do it by myself to break connection with people, particularly spiritual connection with people. Those are [00:47:50] the kinds of things that I steer into. Okay, what's going on here? Uh, and that's just as pastoral things. You're talking to your friend and I'm just, you know, I just, [00:48:00] so I I, I come into that and start thinking, okay, why is this and do prayerful examination or powerful Holy Spirit to find out what's [00:48:10] behind this difficulty in your life.

Gerry: And it may be a spiritual thing, it may be something else. It may be 'cause you've bought a lie about who God is or you've, [00:48:20] that you've said this sin can't be forgiven 'cause it's too big, or I don't have any sin in my life and actually you do and it's poisoning your life. Or it could be something directly [00:48:30] demonic that's taking advantage of your weakness.

Kyle: Yeah. And, and what, what do Christians commonly, um, leave open that invite in [00:48:40] spiritual trouble? Like what are some of the areas that they have doors open, so to speak, that

Gerry: the, uh. The it, it [00:48:50] can come a lot of different ways. I think there's a lot of curiosity these days about demonic kind of stuff. So I start investigating demons because I'm just curious about 'em.

Gerry: Well, that's a [00:49:00] good way to get involved with it. It's like, I need to know more about meth, so I'm gonna take a couple hits of meth just to see what it's like. 'cause I'm just curious what it's like now. That's really, really, really [00:49:10] bad. Yeah, and my view is I don't need to know anything about demons. I don't need to investigate them.

Gerry: I don't need to be involved in them. It's not like some demon's gonna jump out of a [00:49:20] movie screen and zap me or something. But when I, the first, uh, Philippians four, eight is my life versus what things are good, noble, true of good report. Think on [00:49:30] these things. I wanna put my mind and fill it with good stuff, godly stuff.

Gerry: So don't watch the news. I, I actually watch the news in the name of [00:49:40] Jesus. I really do. And I, I, I record the news and I fast forward through a lot of stuff. Mm. Uh, 'cause I don't need images of violence. You know, the [00:49:50] assassination, Charlie Kirk, it's really hard not to have seen that. Yeah. Bullet go. I've never seen it and will never see it.

Gerry: I don't need violent images in my mind, [00:50:00] so I just avoid that. I avoid, to a large degree, I can't do it completely, but as much as possible, I avoid sexual kinds of things, uh, because I don't want those images [00:50:10] in my mind. So that puts a lot of majority of movies, TV shows outta the Yeah. I see very few movies.

Gerry: To me, violence is never entertainment. [00:50:20] And many of our movies focus around violence, so we're always putting out guns and shooting each other. Hmm. I just don't do those things, period. I need a good cop drama. No, you don't. Yeah, [00:50:30] you do not need the, and now when I grew up on gun smoke as a kid or dragnet or something like that, you didn't see heads exploding as a bullet, went through it kind of stuff.

Gerry: [00:50:40] You see it all the time now in the movies to make it dramatic. I don't need those images. Yeah. Uh, I don't need to images of, you know, demons laughing through [00:50:50] the wall or something like that. So I just avoid those things and I really think that's a good thing to do. Hmm. Because I do a fair bit of stuff around spiritual warfare.

Gerry: I end up hearing a lot of things [00:51:00] about demons, but I don't fascinate with those things. Yeah.

Kyle: So what about like, uh, CS Lewis's screw trip letters?

Gerry: Uh, to know the [00:51:10] actually screw tape letters is really good. Could help me see how Satan works in our realm. Hmm. And that's part of being alert Okay. Is knowing those kind of things.

Gerry: But [00:51:20] CS Lewis's screw tape letters written from a Christian perspective for Christians not tantalizing us to check out a little bit more what's going on with the demonic realm.

Speaker 5: Hmm.

Gerry: [00:51:30] But for some people, they really can't read screw tape letters. Yeah. Uh, but I don't study. I

Kyle: just, I, I read it and I start questioning everything.

Gerry: Well, to be [00:51:40] alert to this temptations are going on in our society is not a bad thing. Yeah. But yeah, you can, you could get fascinated with that too. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Screw tape letters to me. I've [00:51:50] only read it once. Okay. Uh, and I haven't gone back to it again. But, uh, that was really helpful to me as a, as a young man.

Kyle: Yeah. It's actually a named a guy from, I think his [00:52:00] name is Greg Morse from Desiring God Ministries, that it's kind of kept going and writing that way, like the way that, oh, the CS Lewis through the scope screw tip letters and more of a modern version of that. Yeah. And it's uh, [00:52:10] it's pretty interesting.

Kyle: Yeah. So if you're not a Christian, does Satan fully control you then? No.

Gerry: No. If you're not a Christian, you're in the domain of darkness and [00:52:20] Satan is your spiritual authority. But that doesn't mean that you're demonic attached or demonic possessed necessarily. Uh, it does make you more susceptible to [00:52:30] that.

Gerry: But I don't, just because you're not a Christian does not mean you're demon possessed or you're attached to a demon. In fact, for many people, especially in our western world, they're [00:52:40] just not.

Speaker 4: Okay.

Gerry: Uh, if you're in other places where spiritual stuff is much hotter than it is here, then it's more likely to be involved because you're going to witch doctors [00:52:50] routinely 'cause grandma's sick.

Kyle: How do. Uh, like Sha we talked a bit briefly about shame and secrecy and mm-hmm. Unconfessed sin play into spiritual [00:53:00] warfare.

Gerry: Uh, unconfessed sin, uh, leaves me where sin poisons my life. And the, when [00:53:10] we confess our sins and receive his grace and cleansing, that frees us up to be fully related with God. If I unconfessed sin, the primary thing is that [00:53:20] poison my relationship with God.

Gerry: Same thing with with Sherry in my relation with her, if I'm holding some resentment against her because something she did [00:53:30] or didn't do and I don't see anything about it that poisons our relationship. So I I, I'm very open with her and she with me. And when I do al stuff, my [00:53:40] thing is learn how to complain.

Gerry: Well, unstated resentments poison your relationship,

Kyle: and that's unstated resentments. Poison

Gerry: unstated re resentments is a primary [00:53:50] destroyer of marriages. Okay? People not communicating the things

Kyle: that are frustrating them. Yep.

Gerry: So learn how to complain and a good complaint in Situation X, we needed YI [00:54:00] felt Z.

Gerry: That's John Gottman, but I had one more thing to it. I'd like it if you. In Situation X. So it's concrete. When you did y [00:54:10] specific action, I felt I'm giving now the gift of my feelings. I'd like it if you Hmm. It's a great way to deal with stuff in marriage. Yeah. [00:54:20] And probably not right after it happened.

Gerry: Well, yeah. In the heat of the moment. No. Take a break and come back tomorrow morning and do it. Yeah, yeah,

Kyle: yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I think that happens, [00:54:30] uh, a lot where people do not, don't share and

Gerry: Yeah. Yeah. But at that spot, if you haven't confessed that sins, demons can empower that. You need to [00:54:40] keep that to yourself.

Gerry: They won't like you if you talk about that, if you talk about

Kyle: what, specifically? If you

Gerry: talk about the sin. Oh, okay. If you talk like the resentment. Yeah. Uh, you know, you just don't treat me [00:54:50] right. Whatever kind of stuff, keep it inside and hold that in. Oh yeah. Keep it yourself. Because if they, you know, and a demon can empower that, uh, I.

Gerry: I am [00:55:00] absolutely opposed to the idea that unconfessed sin gives a demon legal right to invade and stand in your life. And that's a form of deliverance [00:55:10] ministry, Derrick Prince and others like that say that you have to interview the demon. Find out where it came in, what it says the spiritual cohorts are, what [00:55:20] ground it's standing, what the and confess sin is.

Gerry: It gives it right to be there and you have to interview the demon to find all that stuff. And you can only give to the demon after you've canceled a [00:55:30] ground that it stands on. I completely disagree with that. Hmm. When I look at the deliverance stories in scripture, Jesus never goes after unconfessed sin.

Gerry: He never interviews [00:55:40] demons to get information from them. He just says, shut up and get out. And I think that's the way you should do it today. I never interviewed demons ever. I will [00:55:50] tell him I rebuke them and, and I'll have the person do that. Yeah. But I, I don't need to talk to demons.

Kyle: And on resentments, I guess you don't always have to talk to the person you're resenting.

Kyle: You can just share it with a brother [00:56:00] just to get it out and not keep it, not keep it inside. Uh, if it's

Gerry: a relational thing, you need to talk about the person you have the resentment with. Hmm. Uh, the, you can talk to somebody else and how do I do this [00:56:10] without ro ruining everything? Yeah. But I think for relational closeness, we need to talk about that point of resentment, but do it well.

Gerry: Yeah. [00:56:20] So you state your complete non attacking and if you're on this side, you receive it non defensively. Hmm. That's a key to close relationships in the [00:56:30] community. Hmm.

Kyle: What do you, how do you discern this Holy Spirit's conviction versus a demonic accusation? Okay, that one's pretty easy because, just to add to [00:56:40] that, I grew up in a Calvinistic church.

Kyle: Mm-hmm. And. We were, it was taught clearly, which I agree with, that we're sinful and, and, and sinners. [00:56:50] Mm-hmm. But I took it on as more, or, or maybe it was taught, not sure exactly where it was just like I was worthless. Uh, I, I was No, no. Good. Uh, [00:57:00] like we are just like, God is, you know, angry at us and he Yep.

Kyle: He doesn't want to, he like, you just, you know, reluctant to, to [00:57:10] see us and, and just like, you're, you're to have like any sense of like, um, self-worth is almost seen as a negative thing that's [00:57:20] pride. Mm-hmm. Um, and so what is, like, how do you know what's the Holy Spirit convicting you on, on something versus, you know, just a, a weird belief or a [00:57:30] demonic accusation?

Kyle: Mm-hmm. Um, because that often the conviction will drive us to Christ, right? Like, so Romans three is one of the most. Comforting passages [00:57:40] in scripture for me. 'cause when I read my heart, it was like an open grave, uhhuh. And, and I have no use for God at all. I was like, that's who Jesus died for. Like, I was so excited.

Kyle: 'cause I mm-hmm. I hated [00:57:50] myself. Mm-hmm. And so it gave me, it gave me hope.

Gerry: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And Romans five, eight, uh, six through 10, really, we were enemies, [00:58:00] helpless, uh, sinners. And he died for us. That is huge hope. That's what we call salvation by grace alone through [00:58:10] faith alone. Uh, but the, when I look at, uh, when I look at conviction, the Holy Spirit convicts.

Gerry: [00:58:20] This is, this is bad. There's hope when Satan does it. This is bad. You suck. No hope. There's no hope. [00:58:30] Conviction of the Holy Spirit comes with, we can deal with this. The power of grace is more than sufficient for all this to is grace greater than our sin? [00:58:40] Absolutely. Uh, so conviction always comes with hope.

Gerry: There's healing and help

Kyle: devil right away. I mean, like when you, like when I've [00:58:50] been convicted of sin before, I didn't necessarily right away feel like, oh, there's a way out. Like there's grace. You know it.

Gerry: No, it won't come necessarily right away. [00:59:00] But conviction, and that may be your background. If you come from a hard reform that you have no righteousness except the imputed righteous of Jesus Christ, which is wrong.

Gerry: We [00:59:10] have that, but we have more than that. Explain that. Uh, we, uh, as believers in Jesus Christ become obedient, mature [00:59:20] sons, daughters of the Lord most high. We do good things and God is proud of us. Once you're a believer. Not be once You're a believer. Not before. [00:59:30] Yeah. I'm talking about believers. Yeah. Yeah.

Gerry: I think non-believers are, he's still image of God and can do really good things. Uh, Jesus talks about, uh, [00:59:40] you unrighteous give good gifts to your children. Unbelievers do good things. So the thing that popped in my head right now was no one does good. No, not one. That's correct. [00:59:50] And that's quoted from Psalm 14.

Gerry: And Psalm 14 is a person who says There is no God in the context of sinful [01:00:00] people, which are denying the reality of God. Their righteousness is for the wrong team, so to speak. [01:00:10] So they do. I mean, they give good kids to their kids. They encourage their kids well, for example. That's a good thing. Yeah. But it's not something gives [01:00:20] me a right to become a child of God or makes me better in God's eyes.

Gerry: That's only for his kids. Yeah. But unbelievers can, you know, [01:00:30] unbelievers can be very generous, unbelievers can be very helpful and encouraging. Uh, but it's not gaining them status in God's eyes because they're not his [01:00:40] kids yet.

Speaker 4: Hmm.

Gerry: That's where I'd come on that. Hmm. But that is actually quoted from, uh, Psalm 14.

Gerry: Those who say there is no God in that [01:00:50] crowd. There's nobody that is good because they're serving the wrong team. Yeah.

Kyle: It's interesting, uh, you quoted yesterday the first [01:01:00] time that God describes himself in the Bible, which is when, uh, he, Moses is in the cleft of the rock and Yep. God describes himself and that's, you said is the most quoted verse in scripture.[01:01:10]

Kyle: Um. Maybe explain that. Yeah.

Gerry: The Bible quotes itself all the time. Yeah. You know, Genesis 15, six is quoted regularly in the New Testament, Haba two, four, the just will live by their [01:01:20] faithfulness, quoted regularly. The most quoted verse in the Bible by the Bible is Exodus 34, 6, 7. And it's the Lord. The Lord, [01:01:30] merciful or compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, uh, forgiving wickedness and [01:01:40] rebellion, but not leave, does not leave the guilty unpunished.

Gerry: That is the key description of who God is in in many Christian [01:01:50] views. No, God is holy and he hates you well, no, he's actually compassionate toward you and loves you enough to die [01:02:00] for you. And it's not because you're Joe Kool, it's because he wants you on his team. Hmm. And he will do the work of sacrifice to [01:02:10] bring you forgiveness of sin and membership in the kingdom of God and right to become son of God.

Gerry: Hmm. So, yes, God hates sin. There's no doubt about that. And [01:02:20] he's angry at sin. But for an, that's Romans five, six through 10 for enemies, sinners, helpless. He is [01:02:30] willing to die for you so that you can be a child of God and do good things that he's proud of. Hmm.

Kyle: I think it's at the end of John three, it [01:02:40] says, if you don't, don't believe, um, you already condemned in the wrath of God abides on you.

Kyle: That's correct. And so that would've been taught to me as like the wrath of God is on. If I'm [01:02:50] not, don't believe in Christ, the wrath that God is is on me. And so like mm-hmm. Be,

Gerry: be scared. Yep. And in one sense that's true. But the other side you have to read is that [01:03:00] God loves you enough to die for you, even as he's mad enough at you to send you to hell.

Gerry: Those are both true. And so if you're on, [01:03:10] in some cases, the only talk is that God hates you. God is so angry at you, it's gonna punch you into the ground. And he [01:03:20] does hate sin. There's no, I mean, Psalms five, five is really clear, and John 3 36, he just quoted,

Kyle: but he doesn't hate the sinner.

Gerry: Well, yeah, he does.[01:03:30]

Gerry: See, you can't separate sin from the one who sins because the one who sins, uh, he, his wrath abides on [01:03:40] you, but he also loves you enough to die for you. And they're both true. And so when you get into certain contexts, well, God only hates sinners, so he's gonna [01:03:50] hit somebody. And so Jesus says, okay, hit me instead.

Gerry: And I don't think that's the picture you find in scripture. He is sacrificed for our sins. That's [01:04:00] for sure. He takes a penalty for our sin, uh, so that we can receive his forgiveness. That's true. Uh, but the picture that God just hates you [01:04:10] and that you have, and particularly as child of God, that you have no righteousness except the gift, righteousness of Jesus.

Gerry: The alien. Right. Of Jesus. That's just not true. [01:04:20] We are maturing to the measure of the statue, of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians four, I don't know. I don't remember exact verse. Yeah. 13, 14. [01:04:30] And he's proud of his kids. And we increasingly become mature and Christ-like and more and more effective in what we do, [01:04:40] uh, in.

Gerry: And God I think is proud of his kids. And then he also says, Hey, we gotta deal with other garbage in your life. 'cause you're not all the way to mature yet. Yeah. Yeah. [01:04:50] That's where the conviction comes in. No doubt was. I mean. You, Gary, you just fell back into stupid buttoning again. We gotta get that fixed kiddo.

Gerry: 'cause you're, you're not doing well right now. [01:05:00] Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. Okay. What are you seeing in the next generation that concerns you most spiritually?

Gerry: Uh hmm. [01:05:10] The, the biggest thing in Western stuff is it's, uh, there is an anxiety. [01:05:20] I'm talking about Gen Z and, you know, the teens and early twenties. There is an anxiety that comes through.

Gerry: Nobody cares about me. [01:05:30] And unfortunately that's in Christian circles too. Uh, and it's our radical individualism in a cancel culture. If I don't [01:05:40] perform well. So people like me, they'll cancel me and I'm thrown away like used garbage. And that anxiety is running deep [01:05:50] in the Gen Z culture. And it's because I've gotta, I've gotta be liked and if I don't get likes and shares on my Instagram or [01:06:00] whatever thing you're doing, then I'm gonna get thrown away.

Gerry: And it's true. And that's where the beauty of the self-giving God comes in. And if [01:06:10] we are connected with the self-giving, God self-sacrificing God and practice his way, it means I seek out the worthless to me person [01:06:20] and invest in them. That's the self-giving community, the Holy Spirit. And that's why I think.

Gerry: Gen Z is showing this deep [01:06:30] interest in a true Christian spirituality community of spirit, because they're discovering, here's a community that will stand with me even when I'm not doing [01:06:40] well. Yeah. And that's a key to Christian community. Yeah. Love your neighbor, love your enemy. Yeah. And that spirituality is completely opposed to the [01:06:50] celebrity spirituality.

Kyle: I guess it's a church problem too. I mean it, one of the favorite parts of your sermon yesterday was when you did your fake smile and said, people walk into church and say [01:07:00] like, like how are you? Go out as good

Speaker 3: Yeah. For your face. Yeah.

Kyle: Linda Hill gave me that phrase when, when, a lot of times that's not the case at all.

Kyle: Yeah. Like why? Why? You know, [01:07:10] how do you fix that problem in churches where people can actually come in? Broken and don't necessarily have to, you know, feel like they have it all together. 'cause that it feels like a museum for good people more than it does a [01:07:20] hospital for the broken. That's

Gerry: absolutely true.

Gerry: And that's where, as churches, you know, I consult with a lot of different churches. We have to be a place where people can, uh, can [01:07:30] be authentic. Say, I'm having a tough day today. Instead of, oh gee, I'll pray for you and walk away. It's let's talk and can we [01:07:40] grab some lunch today? Something like that. And when we're community the spirit, uh, one thing we don't do is create dependency because like you said, you were [01:07:50] doing stuff because you got attention for it.

Gerry: Uh, people in some places, they get attention by, I'm ready to kill myself, and that gets some [01:08:00] attention. So now I'm ready to kill myself a lot. Because we'll do all kinds of stuff for attention.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry: But, uh, that's when we have to move people toward repo [01:08:10] responsible personhood, not helpless, victimhood. And a lot of what's done in therapy today is you're a victim of [01:08:20] abuse.

Gerry: You're a you and you're helpless.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry: And we're inculcating the victimhood helplessness and that's really [01:08:30] unfortunate. Yeah. 'cause we need to move people toward responsible agency power of the Holy Spirit. And you can become a giving person as well as a receiving person. [01:08:40]

Kyle: Yeah. What are some good resources on this topic of spiritual warfare that if people listen to this can go to and read?

Kyle: Um, yeah. Certain books or things like that that'll help them.

Gerry: Mm-hmm. There is [01:08:50] a lot of stuff. The two that I recommend probably highest would be Clint Arnold. Uh, he's a New Testament prophet down at Talbot Seminary, personal friend, and he has a book [01:09:00] called Three Questions on Spiritual Warfare. That's really well done.

Gerry: And another book called Powers of Darkness. That's just a basic theology of the dark [01:09:10] powers. Uh, he's written a major commentary on Ephesians and he just, you know, he's a really good guy, Clint Arnold. Three questions, spiritual warfare, and then Sam [01:09:20] Storms. Uh, who's back in Oklahoma now? Retired from Bridgeway Church back there.

Gerry: Has a book on spiritual warfare. I don't remember the exact title of it.

Speaker 5: Alright.

Gerry: Uh, and it does a [01:09:30] good job too. And he's got a lot of stuff on spiritual gifts and spiritual presence. That's really good too. So there are two authors to look at. Clint Arnold and [01:09:40] Sam Storms both have really good stuff. Okay.

Speaker 4: And

Gerry: then on my website, brochures.net I've got a thing called Spiritual Warfare Resources is one the buttons on my [01:09:50] website. Yeah. And I've got a quite a fair bit of stuff in there too. And of course everything I do is great.

Kyle: I went on it this morning and, uh, it was good. Would you, uh, be [01:10:00] willing to share, end with sharing the gospel to our listeners?

Kyle: Yeah. Anybody listening? There's unbelievers as well and, and believers that need to be encouraged. Yeah. And then, and then close in prayer.

Gerry: Yeah. The heart of [01:10:10] the gospel is that we have, we're dead in sin, we're separated from God. And we cannot restore that relationship [01:10:20] and that sin could be some horrible things we've done or maybe just that we're just not connected with God.

Gerry: And that's the beginning point, is to admit that I need, I want relationship with God. [01:10:30] And the good thing is that he wants it enough that he's willing to take the penalty, death of [01:10:40] our sin to himself. So Jesus came into this world. Second person of Trinity came into this world as a baby, helpless and [01:10:50] endured insult.

Gerry: He was a, he was a refugee in Egypt. Came back and was assaulted probably in [01:11:00] his boyhood living in Nazareth. Uh, 'cause he was, he didn't have a daddy, uh, went to Jerusalem, was. He shows us how to live in hard [01:11:10] times. But then he went to a cross and took the penalty, death of our sin in our place, and then took that [01:11:20] and brings us the freedom to receive his forgiveness that comes.

Gerry: And that disarms the demonic powers. It gives His honor for our [01:11:30] shame, gives his power for our weakness. All coming through the power of the cross. The resurrection brings life into the place of death. And all we have to do is admit [01:11:40] our need. I am, I'm helpless, deal with my junk and receive his gift of sonship, [01:11:50] uh, being a child of the Lord.

Gerry: And he gives it freely. And when we come into that, then we get not only forgiveness, we get cleansing for [01:12:00] our dirtiness. We get honor for our shame. We get power for our weakness. We. Being a child of the Lord most high. And then we get his [01:12:10] help, his encouragement to grow and enjoy the fun of being adopted child of the Lord most high.

Gerry: And it's amazing. It's [01:12:20] absolutely amazing to see the delight that heavenly Father takes in those who receive his gift of forgiveness, his empowerment, [01:12:30] and then say, okay, I'm gonna be like you Jesus, and follow him. Oh yeah. It's amazing.

Kyle: Right? Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Would you willing to close in prayer? I would.

Kyle: Thank you. [01:12:40]

Gerry: I just thank you, holy Father, that you do love us with a compassion that goes even to the worst of enemies [01:12:50] with a grace that says you help even the most helpless and the most awful. So much that you're willing to [01:13:00] do the sacrifice to and go through the cross to bring us forgiveness. We're grateful for that Holy Spirit, I just pray that [01:13:10] in these words, we've talked here today that people will find that are trapped in places we'll find hope and move toward your healing power.

Gerry: 'cause you Holy Spirit do bring [01:13:20] healing and hope into our lives. So I pray that through these words and through your work in our world, that we would see the possibility of a joy filled [01:13:30] life, a hope filled life, a fun in the best sense of word filled life, just the pure delight of being participants in your good [01:13:40] powers, that we can overcome the work of the enemy who's wanting to show despair and disunity, and divisiveness to bring your hope, your joy, your love.[01:13:50]

Gerry: So I pray this blessing for these people hear this, and thanks for Kyle. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Kyle: Thank you, Gary.

Gerry: Appreciate

Kyle: it.

Gerry: Glad to do it. [01:14:00]

Kyle: That was good.

Gerry: Yeah. Go all over the place. It's a good thing. You ask good questions. You've all prepped well.

Kyle: [01:14:10] Uh, yeah. I, I think that's a, a gifting I have, I just, yeah.

Kyle: Naturally curious. Love, love to learn. Furiously curious. Yeah. Furiously curious. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. [01:14:20]

Gerry: Yeah. The, the famous word is curiosity killed the cat 'cause it got in and a dog bit it in the thing. I don't know if [01:14:30] there's a curiosity that you have to know. I don't need to know more about demons, but I am intensely curious.

Gerry: Yeah.

Kyle: That's what you

Gerry: learn. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna know [01:14:40] everything.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gerry: And I realize I'm, you know, toward the end of my life, there's a whole bunch of stuff I'm never get figured out, which is really annoying.

Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. Think there's gonna be lots more to learn in heaven. Like, [01:14:50] we'll be learning there.

Gerry: I we don't know what's gonna happen there.

Gerry: Yeah. But yeah, I, I, it says now we know in part than we shown know as we're known for Corinthians 13. [01:15:00] Yeah. So I think there's a lot more to learn. Mm. But yeah,

Kyle: going back to the earlier part of our conversation where I kind of talked about my personal life a little bit and my childhood. Mm-hmm. Do you think I should go talk to Pastor Matt or Pastor Jeremy?

Kyle: I [01:15:10] would.

Gerry: Yeah. Yeah. I would go talk to Matt or somebody there. 'cause I what it's generally called healing prayer. But whoever it is, just go back and look at those memories, the name of Jesus [01:15:20] Christ. 'cause there's, there's probably some poisoning stuff there that can be redeemed. Hmm. I've done that work a lot.

Gerry: I'd love to do it with you, but unfortunately I don't have the time to do that. No, it's, it's all good. And it needs to be done [01:15:30] well. Yeah. But yeah, those, what you're describing there, I mean, it could be just, I've seen kids act out in really, really anger ways. It wasn't demonic, it just. Who knows. Yeah. [01:15:40] But to go back and look at those memories and to just bring Christ's forgiveness is the shame that can be associated with that.

Gerry: Just take [01:15:50] that away. 'cause there's a toxic shame. There's a true shame, but then there's a toxic shame. And that could be really helpful. Gabriela was talking yesterday about the counseling ministry. I [01:16:00] don't know what they're planning to do with that, but clearly Central is a really strong church.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gerry: I'm really glad Matt.

Gerry: Yeah. I've only been going there

Kyle: for three years. Um, but it's been, it's [01:16:10] so, it's been such a huge blessing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I came from a, um, uh, a

Gerry: hard, hard Dutch reform church. Yeah, I heard that. I know your name's [01:16:20] Dutch. I did my dissertation on Dutch theology. Oh, okay. So I learned Dutch. Okay. 'cause I need to read Bob and Dutch Yeah.

Gerry: And some other things.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Gerry: [01:16:30] And, uh, so yeah. And there's a, there's a hard Dutch, so what'd you come out?

Kyle: It is like, it's called the Netherlands Reform Congregation. My dad was actually the pastor. That'd be like, [01:16:40] there'd be like a thousand members and um, like 10% would attend communion. Everyone else would go to church twice every Sunday and like wear, like [01:16:50] wear skirts and not have TV at homes like that.

Kyle: But like, you were to wait until God would save you. Like I, I went to church every Sunday hoping God would save you one day, but it wasn't up to me. It was a one-sided [01:17:00] worker of God. So God's sovereignty was hyper. Who hyper, hyper pushed. And, and so you just, it's like very fatalistic and, and, and so people just pour themselves into their work 'cause [01:17:10] they hate themselves 'cause they're no good.

Kyle: They're, they're sinful and, and, and, you know, useless and, and God's holy and angry. And so yeah, that was, was, that was the [01:17:20] world I grew up in. And, and, uh, yeah. It's, it's crushing.

Gerry: It is. Yeah, it is. Well, I'm glad you got out of that.

Speaker 5: Yeah,

Gerry: yeah. I know a little bit about that. The [01:17:30] Christian Reform Church and the, uh.

Gerry: I, I'd

Kyle: run across the Netherlands Reformed Church, but I don't know much about it.

Speaker 4: Yeah,

Kyle: yeah. There's [01:17:40] actually another church here locally. It's, uh, called the North American Church of North America Reform Church of North America. And, uh, it's like 2000 members and maybe like 10 perc maybe like 10 or 15 people [01:17:50] go to the communion.

Kyle: Really? Yeah. And it's, it's, it's ter it's terrifying. Like, it's like, why would people go to it [01:18:00] in hopes they can get saved? Yeah. In hopes they can save. Like, yeah, you would get, like, if you don't go to church for example, then, then that might've been the Sunday that God would've saved you. And so, oh man.

Kyle: Like if God [01:18:10] left, you know, left your spot open and like, um, so yeah, that, that kind of thinking, um, yeah. And huge influence by the [01:18:20] pastors and, and the elders and stuff like that. Um, sin never gets talked about really, except for like those like few outward things, you know? But like. When real, like [01:18:30] abuse, sexual abuse happens, whatever, that gets something underneath the rug.

Kyle: And, and, and so that, that grows in those communities a lot. Um, it's, it's like, yeah, I, I, [01:18:40] because I left, um, from those communities, I get condemned pretty hard. Oh yeah. Like, yeah. Like especially this podcasts and talking about it and stuff like that, and[01:18:50]

Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a few books that really helped me. Ian Murray wrote a book called, uh, sub Spurgeon versus Hyper Calvinism. Um, that was quite helpful. Mm-hmm. And, uh, [01:19:00] around The Wicked Gate by Charles Spurgeon, you wrote that. Oh, okay. Yeah, Spurgeon, of course. Yeah. Um, but it's, uh, even, even still now, [01:19:10] it's like, like being out of bed and understanding grace more than I think I ever have.

Kyle: It's still like it permeates you. It does. Yeah.

Gerry: It does. [01:19:20] Yeah. Yeah. The, uh. They, uh, one of the things I push hard in my classes is the word Holy ian [01:19:30] Hebrew hazo and Greek, uh, is understood as separate from or completely other, something like that. That's not the meaning of the word. [01:19:40] It just isn't. You go look in the lexicon and the first he like Isaiah six, holy, holy, holy Lord.

Gerry: Uh, [01:19:50] and that word there, first of all means awesome. Where they respect the second meaning is dedicated to, is not separated from, is [01:20:00] not. That's a result. If we're dedicated to God, then you're separated from bad stuff, but it begins with dedicated to, and the reason [01:20:10] God shows up there in Isaiah six is because he's holy.

Gerry: He's dedicated to his people Israel, and that's why he shows up and calls Isaiah to take the [01:20:20] message of repentance to. It.

Speaker 5: Hmm.

Gerry: Completely different than what you get in the hard reform. Yeah.

Kyle: Holy means that he hates you. Yeah. And after you, so would you like [01:20:30] a like RC spools book, holiness, would there be something in there that you disagree with?

Kyle: I do. Okay.

Gerry: Interesting. I do. 'cause he focuses on the separated from

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Gerry: And that's not the primary [01:20:40] meaning of holiness. Now he is separate from sin. That's true. But his holiness actually moves him to come to the place of sin. To bring redemption.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

Gerry: [01:20:50] And uh, learning a little bit of that in, uh, Dane Art run's book, gentle Mobley, gen Dane is a good guy.

Gerry: Yeah. Yeah. He's a buddy. That really helped me. Uh, yeah. Dane and Gavin, the [01:21:00] brothers. Their dad, Ray Junior and their granddad Ray. Yeah. And I knew all of those guys 'cause I was in Pasadena and Ray Senior was pastor at Lake Avenue. Yeah. [01:21:10] Congregational. Yeah. And then Dane. Yeah. Gavin or both buddies through

Kyle: Evan Evangelical Theological Society.

Kyle: Yeah. I just heard the chapter on that. Like his ways are higher than our [01:21:20] ways. And that, that he explained that that's understanding the fact we don't understand grace. Yeah. Like we actually understand justice. Yeah. Yeah. It's a grace side that we don't [01:21:30] actually comprehend. Exactly. That like popped my brain up.

Kyle: Yeah. Whoa. Yeah.

Gerry: Like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's great. And they're, they're reformed guys. They're not, they're not on the [01:21:40] Armenian side of the house. Yeah. But they're really, really sharp guys. Yeah. And good man.

Speaker 5: Yeah. That's

Speaker 3: awesome.

Gerry: Thanks again, Gary. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Okay. Well I'm run over to Central and have [01:21:50] lunch with the leaders over there and Awesome.

Gerry: Yeah. I'm glad you got all that.

Speaker 3: Thanks for the time to do the podcast guys. Thank you. This is great what you're doing. Keep doing it. [01:22:00] It looks like you got some real cute kiddos down there. Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. You all have a different experience

Kyle: growing up than you, huh? Yeah, they, oh yeah. They will do a little soccer field.

Kyle: [01:22:10] Oh yeah.

Gerry: That's great. Trampoline, all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah. That's so fun. Good for you. Yep. The I raise two. [01:22:20] Two bio sums and a whole bunch of other kids. And sorry son.[01:22:30]

Kyle: Thank you, Gary. Gary, sorry. [01:22:40] Stuck in my head.[01:22:50] [01:23:00] [01:23:10] [01:23:20] [01:23:30]

[01:23:40] [01:23:50] [01:24:00] [01:24:10] [01:24:20] [01:24:30] [01:24:40] [01:24:50] [01:25:00] [01:25:10] [01:25:20] [01:25:30] [01:25:40] [01:25:50] [01:26:00] Hi.

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