Free Will, Gossip, and Proverbs - The Briefcase and the Barn - Episode 13

October 16, 2024

Final ep 13

Kyle: [00:00:00] Okay guys, welcome back to another episode of The Reef Case in the barn with me and Gary, episode 13. Uh, could be back intro, uh, and sponsor. I literally just read my notes. Beekman Auctions.

Gary: Beekman Auctions.

Kyle: I was gonna do my coaching company. Okay, what's going on with Beman? Say

Gary: Beekman Auctions. We got a big auction coming up

Kyle: when.

Gary: Uh, Thursday night is

Kyle: the, Thursday's the day, and the day is the auction. Can you gimme a date? 'cause Thursday night could be all kinds of times away.

Gary: It's very confusing to me. Um,

Kyle: October 30th is the

Gary: auction. Hang on, I'm gonna get this right. I know the dates. October 17th is the auction, which is tomorrow.

If you're listening to this, the day this comes out, this, this podcast comes out on the 16th tonight. If you're listening to this in chill walk free dinner at Heritage Park. That's why I wanted to be the show sponsor. Ah, that's where I'm going with this. I'm not taking from two and a hostile takeover. I do do those, but, uh, we have the, uh.

Pizza free dinner for the whole community. That's [00:01:00] tonight. That's tonight. OC Wednesday, October 16th. At what time? 5:00 PM at Heritage Park. Bring your family, bring your friends. Pick up some homeless people. Whoever you feel like needs a meal. Lots of food. Lots of food. And the next day's the auction. And while the auction's happening right now, you can already look on the website.

Everything's selling. Oh, let's finish. When is it close? You can put your max bid if you're worried about missing out on it and you really do want something, can you add something still? Can you add a lot? Oh yeah, you can add stuff. There's stuff being added every single day. It's crazy. Like the auction, we start taking stuff into the yard this week, Saturday or last week?

Saturday. If you're listening to this on Wednesday, sorry. And then Monday, Tuesday, and then Tuesday night is the last time you can add something. And then Wednesday's, today's the viewing day. I gotta find something to add. It's gotta be worth quite a bit because there's a $25 lot fee. Like just to put something in, you pay 25 bucks.

If it sells for five bucks, we send you a bill for 20. And if, and if, um, what percentage do you take of the sale? A lot. I. What percent? A lot. Like on a item that sells for a hundred bucks, we take 30% from the seller, 10.5% [00:02:00] from the buyer, and a $25 lot fee. 62 50 goes to the house on a hundred dollars item.

Okay, but, but it's still not that great. Everybody's like, Ooh, that's a lot of money. Well, you try running auction like it, it's not. It's like anything, right? It's possible thing. Uh, then it's, it's usually 10%, but it could even be less depending on the deals or, okay. So it just, you're only

Kyle: getting

Gary: really hosed if small stuff youre getting hoses on the small stuff stuff.

'cause it's the same amount of work to consign a hundred thousand dollars tractor is it us to unload your shopping cart full of garbage that you just didn't wanna bring to the dump. Makes sense. Which people do do that, right? They're just get rid of their stuff.

Kyle: Makes sense. Okay. Okay. Good week though.

Busy week.

Gary: Yeah. Busy week. Um, lots of real estate stuff going on. Um, ready for tonight? Freedom Session. Yep. It's Thursday night. Yep. Ready for tonight? Session four. Stepping out of Insanity. That's a tough one for you, isn't it? It's, I haven't done it yet and I've been doing it for eight years, so obviously it's very difficult.

What does it actually mean? I can't remember from last year. Well, insanity is basically the definition of insanity. One of them, [00:03:00] there's many, but the definition would be doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. And most people do do that 'cause we're creatures of habit because we have our.

You know, how we were brought up and we just do a lot of weird things that we don't even realize they're weird until we start engaging with people that think a little bit differently than us. So, yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. Or just thinking about the questions and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. So

Gary: looking forward to it.

Kyle: Okay. Anyways, um, proverb of the week. Um, this is, uh, Proverbs 24, 28, 29. Quote, don't testify against your neighbors without cause. Don't lie about them and don't say, now I can pay them back for what they've done to me. I'll get even with them. What do we learn from that? Don't testify against without cause.

Don't gossip. Gossip is gonna, I would say, falls underneath that if you're talking about people where you don't actually know all the facts.

Gary: Even if you do know the facts, maybe even more reason just to say nothing. That's what I struggle with. I really struggle with [00:04:00] Casa.

Kyle: Like other

Gary: than yourself.

Kyle: Yeah,

Gary: yeah.

Personally. Yeah. Yeah. I'm getting a little bit better, but I would still, I have a long ways to go. I would say. Not like really personal stuff. No. Like I'm not sharing like, you know, really awful. It's not that. It's more just. Information that just doesn't need to be shared. If it's not positive about somebody, don't say it.

People just to share. So this is, don't justify

Kyle: against it with there's no Cause. If there's, cause Let me ask you this. Let's say you were working with someone, uh, a business and they never pay their bills or, or, um, like they're, they're just not, um, someone you wanna do business with 'cause you've been screwed.

Can you warn people about that business? I

Gary: think you can. Some people would really disagree with that. There are very people that I really respect that really disagree with that they think you always keep that to yourself. I think if you care for other people, I mean, there again, you don't need, you're not gonna run around and post it socially, but if you know someone else that's gonna be doing a deal with them and you're worried about them, I, I think that's totally [00:05:00] fair.

I think that I. There's consequences for people paying. But you

Kyle: don't, you don't have that opinion about church though. If you say there's like a church that's really damaging, you wouldn't say, oh, you can't talk about badly, but the church, you say, shut your, shut your app about that stuff.

Gary: No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that.

I wouldn't say that You wouldn't shut your Y about it. I just think to the people that go there, are you gonna start skewering them? Is that, is that helpful to the cause by, by being derogatory, I mean. Every church has issues. Every church has things that are not doing things quite right.

Kyle: Every company has issues too.

I'm, I'm trying to draw. They do. I don't

Gary: think you wanna compare churches in business. I think that's, there's lots of people that are doing that. It's causing a lot of problems. Well, yeah. Fair, fair enough. I'm more talking about the fact of like this, of what, when can you say something in light of the proverb?

I mean, it's, I wonder how much of that, I'd be curious to know if we had a scholar here that, you know, actually New Hebrew. New Hebrew. I'd be curious to know how it, you know, if you took it word by word or if you take it phrase by phrase, is this from the NIV? Uh, N-L-T-N-L-T. So I mean, it's, it's, it's para paraphrase version.

It's word step above the cran. Right. That's what I'm always told whenever I pull up the NLT, it's like, what are you reading that book for Greg? That's [00:06:00] the message I thought. No, no. It's even the NLT at our church. It's even the N lt, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. If it's the SV or nothing, it's the New K JB It'ss, the new King James.

Yeah. And ironically I read, when I read the ESV, and I mean, I do read the ESVA lot and we do read it at our church, but I find it's like. It feels similar for me reading it as reading the King James, where it's just kind of like, it feels cumbersome. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Were there, shell the

Kyle: goho fourth.

Gary: Yeah. Just, there's gotta be an easier way to say that for a dumb farmer like me. But,

Kyle: um, I, I actually had a buddy, uh, of mine, um, send me a quote this week from like, it was like super, super old English. And, uh, so I threw it into chat, GBT, and I said, chat GBT give me like the modern English version of this.

And then I sent it back to him and I said, do you think, did you mean this? And he's like, oh, so you can understand this? I'm like, no chat GBT can. Yeah. He said, that's why I read the NLT. I didn't tell him that, but Okay. Um, but the last part of this prophet though, and don't say. Quote, now I can [00:07:00] pay them back for what they've done to me.

I'll get even with them. I was like, also talks a little bit, I guess, about, um, vengeance. I guess. Revenge. Revenge, yeah.

Gary: Bitterness, revenge. Everybody. Not everybody. Most people harbor some bitterness in some way against somebody.

Gary (2): Yeah.

Gary: And it may not come out in that exact where, you know, like read the ver end of the verse One more time.

Kyle: I'll get even with them now I can say now I can pay them back for what they've done to me. I'll get even with them.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. People do struggle. People struggle. People want things to be fair. Even though most of us, if things were fair, we'd be in deep trouble. Yeah. That's the ironic part, right? We justice, just see justice.

No, none of us actually really want justice. We're in deep trouble. Yeah. So I find it interesting. I out with a guy the other night and he was talking about that, how he's always struggled with that issue of what's fair. Right. And he's that hard life. But I just feel like, oh, what do we really deserve?

Right. And I think that's where,

Kyle: yeah. Yeah. The only one that can really say that's not fair was Jesus.

Gary: Yeah. I.

Kyle: You go. [00:08:00] Okay. Moving on to something else. Uh, I signed up this week, um, to, uh, an, uh, YouTuber or an influencer or whatever guy, um, forgot his name now, but he has, uh, something, he's, uh, really into stoicism, which is like Marcus Aurelius and like those guys about like, very much controlling your, um, uh, your thinking and stuff like that, and not letting outside influences affect you.

But anyways, he also has this program called The Daily Dad. And so, uh, there was a, he sends it out an email every day about like, things related to fatherhood and stuff like that. And so Is this a Christian Guy? No. Okay. Not a Christian Guy, but what he said I thought was really, uh, really good. So I thought I'd read it and we could chat about it.

So here it goes. Uh, every dad needs a little help. They don't understand the context. They'll forget that you apologized right after. They can't possibly conceive the stress that a parent feels. They definitely won't admit that they played a part in it too. All your kids will remember is the vibes that you were upset a lot, that you had so little patience that you always had.[00:09:00]

There was always tension that your greatest hits was mostly filled with criticism or worries or hurrying them along. I. That's what you're defining their childhood by, and that's what you're searing not even into their memory, but physiologically into their very being and for what? So you can get their air, get to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

So their GPA is more impressive than the other kids in their neighborhood. I. So the piano teacher doesn't think you're a bad parent. Come on, none of this stuff matters. Or at least it doesn't matter like you think it does. The vibe you want is calmness, presence. Security, acceptance, love. That's what you want them to remember, and that's what you want to inate in them.

So act accordingly.

Gary: My first thought that comes to mind isn't, it's not. That would be for dads or moms, those lines 'cause. Dads and moms are both struggling with that, um, is that it's really, you're only gonna get to those last [00:10:00] character qualities that he's talking about by being healthy yourself first.

Kyle: Yes.

Gary: So if you listen to that and you're like, oh, I'm none of those, which, I mean, I'm often not any of those, but in those moments I'm like, I'm not just gonna try harder and be more calm and patient with my kids, like I am the way I'm with my kids because of other things or because of my character, the areas I struggle, where it's like, well, I just have.

Put all these things in my life that have now made me crazy and it's like, okay, now how can I be patient with my kid? Because in my mind, like there's just so much that needs to be done or, you know, yeah, I said that to, uh, Marie yesterday. We're struggling. We're struggling with some of our children in different ways with school and other areas and like behavior stuff and things that they're saying.

And I'm like, like, yeah, I do want their behavior to change, but I don't just want behavior modification. Like I do want heart transformation and like how. And I, I don't know, I don't even have the answer to this. I'm like, how, how much does it matter if your kids are not saying the bad words or they're not saying these things if they're hard, if they're just not saying it?

'cause they're just scared of you and they know you're gonna freak out and punish them or, yeah, come down with some hard consequence, right? Like, how do [00:11:00] you, how do you actually be gentle and kind and patient? So yeah.

Kyle: Yeah, I, I think it very much ties into getting healthier self. I mean, like one of the biggest factors I'm doing freedom Sessions a third time is because I desperately want to be a good dad.

And I know the only way that's gonna have any chance of happening is if I through more work on yourself. Yeah. If I like become calm and patient and gentle and all those things myself, like it's not, not gonna be like, you need to be patient and I'm fricking the most impatient, you know, it's just not gonna work.

They're not gonna become patient. And I was actually talking to Nicole about it yesterday was like, malachi's. Very high strung. And, uh, and I'm like, man, like I gotta get this, calm, this kid down. I'm thinking about a little more. I'm like, I'm pretty high strung. That's what he sees, right? And, and so that's what they're gonna go do.

They're gonna, do you think I'm high strung? Uh, distracted.

Gary (2): Distracted.

Kyle: Not high strung. Okay. Okay. Easily distracted. Yeah. Or it comes out in different ways, but

Gary: yeah. Okay. Do you think that our personalities, we get to use them as all [00:12:00] as at all as an excuse, our character, our makeup, our genetic makeup, how we're created.

Like do you think, oh, how would it

Kyle: be an excuse? Have like an example? Well, that we're like high strung, so then we're not Well, yeah,

Gary: I'm saying, hey, if you say, Hey, I'm, I'm wired this way, or I'm, you know.

Kyle: No, I think that's bullshit.

Gary: It's

Kyle: all bullshit.

Gary: Okay.

Kyle: Do you disagree?

Gary: I don't know if I disagree. I don't, I don't have a strong opinion on it.

I just feel like to some degree, you look at a, somebody you know, I typically really admire people that are very different than me and for, for the character traits. And often lately, if I'm having a hard heart with someone who's pretty wise, they'll always say to me, well, like, God gave you the character you were given, like to some degree there.

God, I mean,

Kyle: yeah. Yeah.

Gary: It's a fine line, but it's like, how do you, no, it's okay. I'm not gonna be that calm guy who's like just patiently sitting there like, like, or whatever, not, you know, like, I'm not gonna be that person that just never speaks off and says the wrong thing. Or like, I was to some extent, you know, the ability to speak truth or the ability to be a person that can speak into [00:13:00] a situation where no one else is speaking and speak bluntly.

And honestly when that's needed, you know, there's some baggage that comes with that character trait to some extent. And there, I'm, I'm not saying it's an excuse, I'm just wondering how much of that is. Hey, there's gonna be the odd time where, well, there's never an excuse. There's never an excuse

Kyle: for sin.

Gary: Fair enough, period. Fair enough. And so I go back off and apologize and sometimes people say, no, no, that was okay. And sometimes they, well, thanks for apologizing. No, that was ignorant. You shouldn't have said that. So I guess it's a journey, right? But yeah, sometimes in trade off, I just want to be that person that just says nothing sits quietly.

Deep thinker.

Kyle: I just think it's more that like your, your, the different character traits you have. Are the ones, your strengths are also gonna be your weaknesses.

Gary: Yeah, I guess, yeah. You're ex, that's a better way of describing what I'm trying to say.

Kyle: Yeah. It's like fire fire's great until it's, your house is burning down.

Like, you know, being blunt is super great if you're using it to say the right things, unless there's

Gary: street flies in the house, I. Then burn her down. This is for me and my wife have our biggest fights. Fruit flies. I hate

Kyle: those things.

Gary: You do too. Oh, I drive 'em nuts. Okay. She [00:14:00] says she's trying to eradicate them.

I'm like, you don't believe it. Well, just, there should be no fruit in house. First of all. If there's a fruit fly, just get rid of the fruit. Anything that put everything in fridge. Yeah. That's what we, nothing on the counter man. How did we go from daily dad quote to fruit flies. Trust me, fruit. It's the biggest fights in our marriage come from fruit flies.

Okay. Sorry. Moving on.

Kyle: Next topic, uh, last week. We're gonna do a book every way, by the way, at the end. And it's not gonna go to Patreon this time. No. Even though Gary said last time I was gonna go to Patreon again, but it's for the masses. Um. So this kind of two things here I'm gonna share. First is last week when, uh, you were leaving here after we recorded, you said, I quote a half Gospel is a false gospel that you were an Armenian.

Um, did I say it was an Armenian? Yeah. No, I didn't, uh, you alluded to it pretty strongly. Okay. We'll get, we'll get to that. And then I also have, um, and we'll talk about warism, those terms. I hate those terms. And Calvinism is, oh, I hate those terms. Me too. But it's a, this is a mailbag question. This is why I wanna talk about mailbag question.

So listener wrote in [00:15:00] quote, what are your thoughts on free will be before I actually share this, like the fact we're talking about this. Just have to be very aware that I am not like an educated, like I don't even like talking about it. We're gonna talk about, it's a mailbag question. We can give our thoughts.

Just, it's an asterisk. People will know we're just average full. Yeah. Just read your bible. Okay. Okay, here we go. Bail back. Question. What are your thoughts on free will? I have listened to your podcast a couple times and I think on the September 11th podcast, Gary had mentioned that God is sovereign and predestines.

What happens? Do we have free will or are we doing what God has ordained for us to do? Can we actually follow Jesus or is it something that we are ordained to do? Either way? I come from a reform background and this topic almost caused me to write Christianity off. Appreciate your thoughts.

Gary: You're up Perry, but they were one of the elect so they didn't No, I mean, bad joke.

Um, the [00:16:00] reason it bothers me is that when we start taking, like, these are two guys, these terms that like these.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gary: Yeah. These two, these are two guys that, yeah. Were Joseph Arminius and Yeah. And John Calvin. And John Calvin, who are probably, I'm guessing both very godly men and, and Christian men who are both together eating at the Yeah.

Right. They're in heaven. Yeah. Um, and I think that's, if people would just stop and think about that.

Gary (2): Yeah.

Gary: Am I saying the wrong thing? Like, was this army like. Like, I think I'm right. Like I think this is where I had this conversation with someone earlier today already. Some real estate clients were driving around in my truck and we were looking at property and they're, we started talking about different churches and like, like, it just, it shouldn't be that much of a, um, it shouldn't be what we're focusing our energy on.

The reason that it is in our Dutch reform background is because some of us come from a, what I would call a hyper Calvinist background where. And, and they said the opposite. They said they would never, [00:17:00] ever say that you didn't have responsibility, um, to seek God. But everything in practicality made it feel that way.

As a kid, I. Rightly or wrongly, I'm not even saying it was. The teaching, well for sure was some of the teaching. 'cause as an adult now I listen to it and I think, okay, I can see how, you know, when you're in your formative years and you're trying to sort things out and you just get hammered over and over the, the, the questioning and the doubting and the like.

I listened to your podcast yesterday. I was driving to Vancouver with my boy and I listened to, uh, the Reverend podcast. Yeah. Like. Brilliant one, one of the best ones I've ever listened to. Definitely anything better than I'm gonna say. So you can see, I would encourage everyone to listen to that. Um, but it was just, uh, this reminder of like, I guess I've always viewed it and I remember struggling with this stuff as a teenager, like being a teenager, not safe, just struggling with it.

Right.

Kyle: Okay. Before you get to your struggle with that, I'm gonna quickly define these two terms. Uh, no, I

Gary: don't like the, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm, I'm trying to, what I'm trying to say is. [00:18:00] Like to take something that these guys. They would not want doctrine named after them, and then have those doctrines pitted against each other.

And now there's, there's fighting in the church. Like the fact that we're using these, these terms to define our beliefs. No, of course, that's what they want. There's

Kyle: still gonna be people that are, that are confused by it. They're trying to put themselves

Gary: in these camp. No. Or they just

Kyle: don't know. Not to put themselves in this camp, but more just like, Hey, I want to be a Christian, or I want, I wanna understand this so I can like, better walk my faith and because it's being put into camps, whatever.

Because they're there, they're there, they're, and they're fair enough. They're, they're confused. They, they wanna know the answer. So Arminianism is that you have something to do with, um. Being a c, becoming a Christian, that you can decide outta your own free will to, um, follow God and you, God doesn't need to change you first.

And Calvinism teaches that God has to change you first before you decide what to follow Jesus. And very, like, I'm sure there's way better explanations than that, but basically those are the two things. And I think what this guy's saying is, uh, the question [00:19:00] coming in is that. Kind of how I grew up too was that like you couldn't do anything to be saved.

So you just had to sit back in your church pew and wait and hopefully wonder you got zapped and make sure you're in the right church. Pew, win the lottery

Gary: and make sure you're in the right church. Pew. Yeah. So let me throw this at you. If I were to say. If you are struggling and wrestling with your sin, and if you feel convicted of your sin, and if you feel that you need a savior, and if you were to say, ask God to save you, and you've like prayed to God to save you, would that not make you one of the elect?

Kyle: Yeah. I mean, if it's true affection that you are, I mean, I, I remember I used to lead lead guys group and I'd, I'd ask if you guys, if if someone here wants to be saved, raise your hand and all the boys would raise their hand and I said, you're all, you're, you're either lying or you're saved. Because if, if you want to be saved, you know actually because you want God, yeah.

Then, then your affections have already been changed.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. The problem is, is that if you took any [00:20:00] verses or swath of verses. By themselves without the other verses balancing them out. You could defend either of those points. Yes. You could defend either side. Yes. I mean, you can define

Kyle: it.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's where the problem comes in.

I think that people tend to, to grab the verses that they like, and I mean, I struggled with it in high school. What I was gonna say is I met with a, my parents pastor at that time, great guy, and he just said to me, Gary, like the. Whether you're elected or not, it's God's business. Like God tells you what you need to do.

You need to repent of your sin, and you need to, you know, confess your sin and you need to ask him to save you. That's what you're called to do. Yeah. You know, and then the Bible says, whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Well, yeah. If you genuinely call upon the name of the Lord, you're gonna be saved.

Right. And I think that in our Dutch culture, like everything is, everything's gotta be hard. It can't be that easy. Like, well, it's not that easy in the sense that most people aren't gonna do that. Most people are just gonna, you know, stay in the pit and stay in the trough. Right. But like, if you're actually feeling convicted of your sin, you know?

Yeah, I, I, I guess I just, [00:21:00] but I, but I,

Kyle: but do you believe that, um, God needs to change your heart before you believe?

Gary: I just think that, I think that God knows who's gonna. Turn to him. I think he knows that. I, I don't think that I know that.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gary: So I feel like, you know, what do you wanna call that? I heard one time explained before that was, do you believe that, that, um, people can lose their salvation?

No. You don't?

Kyle: Okay. Um, I heard one, one time explained before that, like that the gate of salvation is like a gate, whatever. And, uh, on, on the one side, before you come in, it says all our welcome. And once you're in and you look behind you, the other side of the gate says you are chosen. Um, and so like the, the 'cause it does say in, in scripture, uh, when it comes to election, um, it's that no one would boast, um, in, in what they did.

Uh, a

Gary: couple more things I wanna say about though. Uh, so I had a fellow send me, sorry, I'm interjecting here. Galatians five. I had a guy I got in too big debate about this at a get together on Saturday night. Okay? Um, Galatians five chapter, uh, [00:22:00] verse four. You have become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace.

What does it mean to be fallen from grace?

Kyle: When you're not experiencing God's grace, if you're trying to get right with him, by the law, I mean, that's like we, we often feel the most condemnation when we're like, you know, trying to do everything perfectly and we realize we can't. And then you're not in grace.

It's only when you admit to the fact that you can't and surrender to God and say, I can't do it anymore. Save me that, you know, you can really experience the freedom. It's giving up. It's not like trying harder.

Gary: So then it goes on to say for we through the spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith for in Christ Jesus.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. Yeah. So, but faith, working through love.

Kyle: Yeah. So it's not like it's something you've done or if you're like baptized or not baptized this, whatever, it's like faith in Christ. That's what you know the thing is. There's a really, really good book by Ian Murray called Spurgeon versus Hyper Calvinism, [00:23:00] that I would recommend to anybody listening.

Um, it's just super, uh, powerful. Or there's one by Spurgeon called around the wicket gate, W-I-C-K-E-T-I think it is. Mm-hmm. Um, that's also super, um, super helpful, um, if people wanna read that. But I also wanted to kind share the story of, um, how, how I came to faith. 'cause I very much struggled with this, so I went to.

I grew up in a, with like a Christian home, but, and, and, and, uh, but was never believed I was a Christian. Um, or not. I didn't believe I was, uh, going to heaven, um, anyways. And so, um, wasn't that interested in it and I just thought like it's. Boring. Um, and I can't do anything myself anyway. Like it didn't matter, right?

Like, yeah, just like it made no difference if I was drinking my face off or not because it was so hyper emphasized. It was a one-sided work of God. And so I, I just didn't, didn't think it mattered. And then I went to the Mercy Ships and I was 21 [00:24:00] just to be a better, uh, leader at the, um, uh, so no, just to get volunteer hours, uh, because I wanted to, uh, be an RCMP officer.

Um. We need a lockbox. No, we're good. Just keep going as you were. Okay. Uh, I wanted to be an RCP officer, so I needed to volunteer hours, so I went to, um, uh, west Africa to work on the work on the Mercy Ships there. And, uh, it was a, uh, there's like 500 people on the ship, um, like 40 different nationalities.

And, um, so I sit down for lunch one day and, and, uh, um. And a guy asks me, uh, like introduces himself as it says he is, and he goes, are you a Christian? I said, yeah, I'm a Christian. He goes, oh, that's awesome. He goes, when did you become a Christian? And I said, I've, I've always been a Christian. He's like, you had a John the Baptist conversion, like John the Baptist was saved in the womb.

And I'm like, no, I'm an unconverted Christian. He's like, what's that?

Gary: He had his hair on fire.

Kyle: What? What's it unfer to Christian? And, and I'm like, well, like I, I believe everything, but I, I don't believe in gonna heaven. And she was like, so then you're not a Christian. Like, no, [00:25:00] I, I'm a Christian. He's like, do you follow Christ?

I'm like, no. He's like, so you're not a Christian. And I had always thought, like, I wasn't like the save people that were in church because like I, 80% of the people in church didn't believe they were saved that they to grew up in. But I wasn't like the world. I was like this In-between world There was three camps.

Yeah, there was three camps. I was like, there's not

Gary: three camps, by the way. No, there's two. Many of our churches live as if there's three camps, but

Kyle: that's Catholicism. So it was the first time I realized I wasn't a Christian. I was 21. I didn't realize I wasn't a Christian. I was just like blown away by this.

Anyway, I'm on, on the ship for a while and there's, there's church there too. And, uh, it's very evangelical. Uh, the, um, the church service. So like there's a band up front and there's people in their hands, in their air, um, praising Jesus and that kind of stuff, which I wasn't used to at all. I was used to suits and, uh, no expression on your face.

And, uh, you know, like having no emotion in church and, um, any of that stuff. And so. Um, me believing I wasn't saved, went to this, uh, church service [00:26:00] and to my right, there was a guy, um, baggy pants on hat backwards and hands in the air. He's praising Jesus. And I'm like, man, this guy's for sure deceiving himself.

Like there's no way he's a Christian. He can't be a Christian and do that stuff. Um, whereas your black suit and, uh, deceiving himself. Yeah. And so anyway, which

Gary: a lot of people are deceiving themselves by the way.

Kyle: Yes, I would agree with that too. But anyway, so later there was a, a bible study and this, this guy who I'd been in my head judging, was leading the Bible study and I was like, I don't know if I should be here or whatever.

And, but then when he started talking, it was like hearing my parents talk about Christ and faith. And my parents were fairly open about that. I. And, uh, so I was like super confused by this. I was like, you know, like he, how can you look like that? Yeah. How can you look like that and like, do this? So I, I emailed my mom and I said like, um, mom, like, how come, how come this guy like, no.

I said to my mom, I said, I explained the situation to her. I said like, how come this guy saved? And like, and, and I'm not, I've, I've gone to the right church my whole life. That's literally what I said. And I prayed every night for a new heart. And you know, I don't have it. [00:27:00] And she responded to me saying, um, Kyle, the Lord, Jesus Christ wants you but you don't want him.

And I always went to church thinking, I want it to be saved, but God didn't wanna save me yet. But what I learned was, it's actually the opposite way around. God always wanted to save me. I didn't want to be saved. I was resisting it. I didn't want that. I wanted to go to heaven, so I didn't go to Hell. But I didn't actually want to be saved.

I actually didn't want God. And uh, and that broke me because it was just like I realized I was the guilty party. Like it wasn't like God's fault that wasn't saved. It's like I didn't want it. Uh, I just had to like come to that acceptance of that. I didn't want it. So

Gary: sorry. Gonna ask a question. Yeah. Do you feel like there are people in the church, like in the church that you grew up in, do you feel like there are people that are sitting there that are thinking that they have that excuse where they actually want to be saved and God just has not chosen them to be saved?

Do you think that's a legitimate thought?

Kyle: Yeah. Think gets that a lot. Okay. So I go home with that. [00:28:00] And, uh, you know, I wasn't necessarily living a particularly pious life, and so, um, I, I felt like I, I needed to be saved. I was like, man, this is like my fault now. Like, what do I do about this? So I would like go super hard into like.

Christian stuff and do everything right, but then the next week I'd be like, it doesn't make a difference anyway, so I'd go drink my face off, uh, and then I'd flip flop back and forth. And then it was like six months later, my dad preached on a sermon from Chronicles, I think it was Two Chronicles, um, uh, 15 verses 14 through 16.

And there's a piece in there where there is, Israelite are told by a prophet that they need to swear to follow God. And, uh, and I remember my dad saying to the church like, we need to swear to follow God too. Like we have to commit to him. And, and, uh, I'm thinking to myself, we can't, like, we can't stop, stop telling us to do these things.

We can't do like it's a one sided word God. But then he said, Jesus Christ already did this, um, for us. We only need to trust and believe in him. And then I believed, and, and that, and that was it. But it was, it was um, um, giving up and then the [00:29:00] affections change. I actually did believe that at that point, which is actually something that um, our church did at least on paper teach.

'cause there's something called the Cannon's Door, which is in the back of a most Dutch performed church, Salter books. And in the third and fourth had a doctrine, article 12. Um, it says that God changes our will and once our will is changed, we actually believe. So, um, 'cause there a lot of what pushback would be like.

You can't say I believe in Jesus, or like, because that's saying that you did it. Um, but this is actually saying no, God is change, renewing,

Gary: renewing your heart. Many things that are, many teachings and many doctrines that are, are what I would call not accurate. Come from a good place, they come from a resistance to something else.

Yeah. Like there's always the ditches. Right. You know, and I love it how whenever you go to any church, especially church like where the preaching that we're hearing even at our church or where I grew up or whatever, um, they always say the ditches and they're always right in the middle of the road. Right.

Whoever's preaching the sermon's God are right in [00:30:00] the middle of the road. And I just think like we're all somewhere in that spectrum and none of us, because we're humans, are in the middle of the road. Like we are all airing on one side and, um. Yeah. I just find the reason. Yeah. I just feel like

Kyle: there's actually a, one of your, one of your favorite pastors.

Um, mark Ko. Yeah. From Marc Hill. Oh

Gary: man.

Kyle: I had someone tell me how much you were squirming before I played that quick clip last time that you did not wanna watch it, man, you were getting uncomfortable with each chair. It was uncomfortable. So I used to watch him with my dad. We'd watch a sermon after like Sunday nights at church, and he explained, uh, this whole thing of, um, pretend you see a couple kids that are at the front door of a busy street, the front door of someone's house on a busy street, and they're running towards the street and there's a semi truck flying and you're screaming at them to come back and turn around and they don't want to come back and turn around last minute.

You're able to grab someone and, you know, and pull 'em back and, and, uh. He explained that as a, like, we're all running away from God and none of us want him. Um, but he [00:31:00] does pull, grabs him and pull us back. It's not like there's not, you know, some he's picking and some he's not picking. It's like, no, we're all running away and he's choosing to Yeah.

Save some.

Gary: I feel like anytime we as humans start saying, Hey, this is exactly what God means or is doing. Yeah. I think we're in a dangerous camp and I feel like it's, it's interesting that. Most of the people, whether they're a proponent of Armenian or Calvinism or somewhere in between, I feel like God just tells us what we need to do and so we need to do what we're we're capable of doing.

Yeah. And we would all agree, or most people would agree that listening to this, that at least ones are Christians are gonna agree that anything that we're doing is 'cause God's given us the ability to do that. So you wanna argue about the chicken or the egg, or however you wanna label the argument. I just feel like.

Ultimately we need to be saved. Ultimately, if we are saved, we should care that other people around us that we love are as well. And, and if and if we are believers and we trust in the Lord, we should be, our life should look different because of it. And I think that it should ultimately be, um, [00:32:00] you know, covered in love is what the Bible tells us.

And, and I think it's, Jesus says, or, yeah, you know. He will, they'll know that we love him by how we treat others. Right. And I feel like we miss all of that when we get into deep theological heated debates criticizing other Christians about their exact semantics of how they bring the gospel to somebody.

Right. And it's interesting, I say that while yet I feel very triggered by a lot of things that may be a bit Armenian. 'cause I grew up, when you're indoctrinated for 20 years a certain way, even though I agree with most of what I was brought up with, it's not like I disagree with it. I just think that when you put too much emphasis on one thing, you're.

You lose you, you lose focus of the main thing, which is Jesus. Right. And I feel like there's, that's what happens with doctrine, you know, and the doc. And there again, it all comes from a good place. It comes from, there was all kinds of false teachings. Let's narrow down exactly why we believe what we believe.

And there's dangers out there. So let's make it crystal clear on what we stand on. Well, ultimately you have a bunch of human beings who are flawed, who create this new book or whatever, you know, and there's three [00:33:00] of them in the back. You know, you talked about 'em, right? Yeah. And they're probably. Mostly.

Yeah, but

Kyle: I, but I found a lot of that stuff though. Like when I, so when I first became a Christian, I was told you to read the forefathers and so I would start reading these guys and stuff like that. 'cause the feel, start reading 'em and what they were teaching did not line up with the doctrine that we were taught.

Gary: Exactly. No, I would agree with you. I've read Spurgeon,

Kyle: I, yeah. And I, yeah. JC Ri or Brockel or any of those guys. Like, and, and so I agree. I mean, as much as I very much agree that hey, like. There's way too much debating going on of really small. Like, I'm really curious what RET thinks about this. 'cause he's like, I wonder how much of this stuff's going over his head.

He's like, what are you guys talking about? Why

Gary: are you even debating this when a waste of time?

Kyle: Yeah. Uh, but on the other hand of like, it's a real question for a lot of people that I've like, grown up with it and be like, man, like, like someone, someone's telling me to believe in Jesus. I've been told my whole life that I can't on my own, that I can't do anything.

Uh, like what? What do I do

Gary: now? Yeah. And that's a real thing. And I always feel like. And, and, uh, just the other day there was a sermon on it somewhere. I can't remember. I, the issue is

Kyle: that you can't, I wanna [00:34:00] add the story. So, issue it is not that you can't, the biggest issue is that you don't want to, that's your issue.

We don't want to believe in Jesus. Well look at that's a way bigger issue saying, I can't look, guys say I can't. You're saying it's an excuse.

Gary: Look. Yeah. Look at the guys in the cross. Right. You know, you know, one just kept mocking. The savior and the other ones just cried out and like, like he didn't, he wasn't sitting in the right church pew.

He wasn't, no, he didn't know the five points of Calvin. He didn't know anything. He just knew that he knew that this was a savior and he needed him. He needed him. Yeah. Right. And then through no doing of his own. And other than, you know, he was convicted in that moment. And there was, there was no sanctification, there was no good work, there was nothing forthcoming other than a horrible, horrible record.

And there was, in that moment, he was got to spend eternity with the Lord. So

Kyle: Alistair Begg is an amazing. Sermon on there and where he says like, what did that guy have to say when he got to heaven? And like, on what basis do you think are you're here? Yeah. Matt has quoted this in a sermon recently. It's pretty awesome.

And he's like, there's only one thing. Jesus. Yeah. That's the reason I'm here. I believe in [00:35:00] him, not anything he did. So, yeah. Anyways, I hope that, uh, verbal random ramblings was suffice to the question that came in. I'm

Gary: a little worried about how the person feels now, but they can set another one in. Yeah, they can send it it for more clarification.

Kyle: Oh man. We're at 38 minutes. Are we over? I gotta, I gotta shut her down here. One more Mailbag. Uh. Gary, not sure if it's intentional, but you let Kyle get off pretty off with some pretty easy answers.

Gary: LOL. Am I not skewing you enough or do you need, just need more adult supervision? We all need, you need more to know you need adult ion.

I think this is just a comment

Kyle: on, uh, one, one of our videos and so I thought I'd be like, oh, I'll, I'll ask. I'll just ask Gary live, see what you think.

Gary (2): You let me off pretty easy. I probably do.

Gary: Not privately. Maybe it's more different. Uh, I probably even could be tougher on you. You got a pretty thick skull.

Eh? You need to quit a you quit [00:36:00] acru. Okay, anyways. Gonna do my book giveaway. What's the book? The book is when quitting is not an Option by Arvid Low. That's great for the arminians. What quitting

Kyle: is

Gary: that could, could relate, could it relate to anything? Anyways, this guy is a senior. He actually just rode.

Rode his last ride. He's done competitive cycling, uh, won Guinness Book of World Records. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records as a senior, uh, for riding, I think from like Alaska to Florida in 30 days or something like that, or less than that on a bike. Um, he all, every dollar he's ever raised, and he's raised I think over $4 million in the last 10, 15 years.

He quit his job and just went to do this full time. Uh, every dollar he's raised has gone to Moleys Children home in Africa. Um, and what kind of

Kyle: home?

Gary: Moles? Moles children. It's a guy that has thou like thousands of kids in a home. How do spell, how do you spell that? M-U-L-L-Y. If somebody wants to Google it, okay.

You will find it. [00:37:00] It's based outta Manitoba. He's a a, a Winnipeg guy. He worked at a furniture store. He had like a vision or something, or God just put it on his heart. He went to his bosses, explained they paid him generously, gave him this blessing, and he quit his job to go bike full time. Starts with like a 30, 40 kilometer ride one day that he couldn't finish, which I can identify with.

'cause I just started biking a bit and I can't do hardly 20, 30 kilometers. Um, oh, actual biking or peloton biking. Peloton biking. Okay. Do you think I could do more or less real biking? Uh, I don't know. I think I would, I'm too worried about getting cleaned off the road if I go on the real road. 'cause I would like to bike outside.

Kyle: I'll just bike behind you. Let's

Gary: hit you first. I honestly, I mostly ride at like 11 o'clock at night and like,

Kyle: do

Gary: you actually like, have lights and like a reflective vest or you just

Kyle: go, no, no, a

Gary: Peloton 11 o'clock at night. Oh, that, I don't see that translating into safe riding on the road. Fair enough.

Anyways, whoever texts Kyle can get this book, um, it's an awesome read. It's really cool. And, uh, Maria and I have been support. What'd like, supported this guy? What did I like about it? Um, [00:38:00] I think it kind of, the thing I loved about it is, first of all, I. We in North America are very disassociated. Not all of us, many of us, especially in our culture, unless we've been on missions trips or spend time supporting people that are in third world countries, we're out touch with like, like most people don't have enough food.

Yeah, most people don't have enough food. And conversations that I have in a day are about how can I buy another farm for. 7 million or just like, which there's nothing wrong with, but like it's about perspective and it's about what's important. So we're called to look after the least of these as Christians, the orphans and the widows.

And this is caring for the orphans. So I believe that's important, which is why we support it. And this guy, he made that his goal to just raise a lot of money and he has fed hundreds of thousands of kids with his, with his fundraising. And uh, also I just feel like I love people that are mentally tough.

And anybody that can bike at 68 years old bike 400 kilometers in a day is mentally [00:39:00] tough. Like the guy's an animal. Yeah. Never met him personally. He just emails me and says, when he's having a fundraiser and asks for support. Yeah. And his, he always just asks you for a pledge per kilometer so you can pledge any amount you want.

It's pretty cool. He has some very generous donors and, uh, he just did his very last ride, which is what made me think of it. I read this book. He's not mentally strong doing another one. He's still per mentally tough, but his body is, his physical body is breaking down and he literally cannot ride. So.

Google it. If you have a minute, Google, Arvid, Lowen and whoever sees this first and texts, Kyle can get the book. Please give it away after you've read it. Uh, if the book sucks, uh, come back message to me. I'll give

Kyle: you your money back. Yeah. You could also message me on social media 'cause I'm not gonna give out my phone number on here.

But, uh, you don't give out your number in public or what? Just like. I don't want, like everyone texting me, you can reach out on social media. I want to get, uh, because

Gary: it doesn't matter. No, it's totally fine. They can reach you on social media.

Kyle: Yeah. Um, it actually reminds me of the perspective thing. I remember being in Africa and so it was Cona Creek Guinea on the horn of Africa, the city of like two or 3 million people.

There was like, [00:40:00] I think not even one traffic light in the whole city. It was just so, so poor. But I had an old Chevy Cavalier at the time, like an old piece of junk cavalier. And, uh, that would've been like one of the nicest vehicles in that city. And I didn't realize that if tell I was there and I was like, wow.

Like I just, you know, you, you complain about certain things here that you just lot the other world understands. So anyways, we're gonna go into overtime. Um, I'm gonna answer, answer a bunch more questions, um, that I will read off right now so you guys know. What you're missing out on if you're not paying five bucks.

I talked to a family member of mine, she wouldn't even pay five bucks. Okay. I talked to Gary about IVF, uh, is Gary Balding. Um, my psychedelics therapy story, I did psychedelics therapy on d covering mushrooms and uh, yeah.

Gary: Is Gary balding?

Kyle: It was very,

Gary: oh yeah,

Kyle: overtime. Okay. Thanks guys. See you next week.

Thanks again for listening to another episode of The Briefcase in the Barn. As always, really appreciate it. Like, comment, subscribe, share it with social media, any of that stuff. Uh, it helps a [00:41:00] lot also, if you, you like the content and you're benefiting from it. And, uh, wouldn't mind supporting the show.

patreon.com/furious Curious. I'll put a link in the description as well, or you can find that link in any of my social media bios. You also get access to, uh, overtime, um, episodes that way. So thanks again for listening, and I'll see you guys next week.

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