Podcasts about Gehenna

Pastor Philip Jeffries Meadowthorpe Baptist Church http://www.meadowthorpebaptistchurch.com 330 Larch Lane, Lexington, KY 40511 (859) 523-3815

What do Dante's Inferno, the King James Bible, Greek mythology, Augustine, fart jokes, and Tommy Boy have in common? Unfortunately, they all ended up in our conversation about hell. In Episode 6, Part 1 of The Deep End, we ask a question most Christians assume has a pretty obvious answer: What actually happens to people who reject God? Then things get complicated. Because the Bible uses words like Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus—and they don't all mean the same thing. So what did Jesus actually mean when He warned about hell? What is Revelation's Lake of Fire? Does the Bible teach eternal conscious punishment? Does “the wages of sin is death” mean… actual death? And have Christians always agreed about any of this? We put three historic Christian views of final judgment on the table—eternal conscious torment, conditional immortality, and universal reconciliation—and ask each of them to explain the passages that don't fit neatly into their system. Fair warning: there's a decent chance you'll have a Tommy Boy moment somewhere along the way: “Did I eat paint chips as a kid?” But underneath all the Greek words, Church Fathers, fire, death, judgment, and theological arguments is a question that becomes a lot less academic when the unbeliever has a name: Can I trust God with the eternal destiny of someone I love? And that's where Part 1 takes us into the deep end.

It is a human cognitive defect that we call some animals good and put them on a pedestal, with dogs and cats on the highest pedestal, while labeling those we don't like as evil, including rats and roaches, whom we target for annihilation. The warped approach is an offshoot of our obsession with sin, a word that meant missing the mark. It has come to be associated with offending God and is saddled with moral baggage that would see the sinner destined for an eternity in Gehenna as punishment for a finite transgression. Humans are the only beings the God freaks claim have free will, a necessary component in the moral equation without which the knowledge of right or wrong, good or evil cannot exist. This gainsays the Adam and Eve narrative, exposing the Abrahamic deity for the evil bastard it is. Neither Eve nor Adam had a comprehension of good or evil before eating of the tree's fateful fruit. They could not be morally culpable for their act of so-called disobedience. Punishing not only them but saddling every human born since with Original Sin exposes Sky Daddy's dereliction of duty. He should have taught them to navigate life's challenges with integrity rather than punishing the unaware. Sky Daddy failed mud man and rib woman and had the nerve to blame them for his shortcomings.

This episode starts with a celebration of Dolly Parton's extraordinary generosity and cultural impact, then moves into a serious theological conversation about hypocrisy, leadership, and what makes a church spiritually healthy or toxic. Mike, Suzie, and Tim connect Jesus' warnings in Matthew 23 and Luke 12 to modern church culture, power, and the temptation to perform righteousness rather than live it.Why was Dolly Parton so universally loved, from the left to the right? Should Churches have a tax exempt status or does that malform the Church, structuring it like a business? How are we, today, to relate to the Pharisees and Jesus's warnings about their posture?Timestamps00:00 - Dolly Parton as a cultural and moral icon01:00 - Surprising examples of Dolly's generosity03:00 - Why Dolly is beloved across ideological lines05:25 - The question of doctrinal purity and salvation06:53 - Rob Bell versus Mark Driscoll and the “greater heresy” debate08:08 - Measuring a life by fruit, dignity, and consistency12:05 - Benny Johnson, Rome, and the irony of Christian empire language15:07 - Listener question: can 501(c)(3) status shape toxic church culture?16:40 - Suzie on tax status versus church culture18:28 - When tax structure becomes an opportunity for corruption21:37 - Tim on systemic abuse and why the model feels broken24:41 - Why leadership still matters in the New Testament26:08 - Ephesians 4 and leadership for church flourishing27:33 - Hebrews 13, submission, and the danger of abusive authority31:48 - Spiritual leadership modeled by Jesus, not American hierarchy34:29 - Paul's refusal to build status around himself35:51 - Teaching through the first woe in Matthew 2339:40 - Hypocrisy as “judging under” and split identity41:30 - The yeast of the Pharisees as corrupting influence43:49 - Fear, sparrows, and what Jesus says to disciples under pressure47:38 - Three ways truth gets exposed: life, persecution, and final judgment51:23 - Gehenna as a kingdom image, not a simplistic hell map54:17 - The God who judges also knows and loves you55:23 - Public confession, denial, and persecution56:17 - Tim on work, power, and the American dream as a church model58:38 - Why the point is not only identifying Pharisees, but avoiding becoming them61:06 - Suzie on famous failures, confession, and being found out in mercy63:35 - How secrecy and lack of truth-telling deepen corruptionAs always, we encourage and would love discussion as we pursue. Feel free to email in questions to hello@voxpodcast.com, and to engage the conversation on Facebook and Instagram.We're on YouTube (if you're into that kinda thing): VOXOLOGY TV.Our Merch Store! https://www.etsy.com/shop/VOXOLOGY?ref=shop_sugg_marketLearn more about the Voxology PodcastSubscribe on iTunes or SpotifySupport the Voxology Podcast on PatreonThe Voxology Spotify channel can be found here: Voxology RadioFollow us on Instagram: @voxologypodcast and "like" us on FacebookFollow Mike on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikeerreMusic in this episode by Timothy John StaffordInstagram & Twitter: @GoneTimothy

Words (Matthew 12)o   “For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks…I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”Thoughts (Matthew 5)o   “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment…But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.”Willingness to forgive (Matthew 18)o   “Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”Works of Mercy (Matthew 25)o   “Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?' He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”Doing the Will of God (Matthew 7)o   “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

Lust Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | August 30, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Pastor Eric J GlchrestIt's good to be with you this morning. I come bringing an exciting sermon to you.I'm glad you're here today. If you are new to South Run Baptist Church, I first want to say welcome. We are so pleased that you have chosen to join us this morning. I believe you're here for a reason. I do believe that God has brought you to this place at this time because he has something for you. I believe this of all of us gathered together here. But you should know you've come on a unique Sunday because we've been working through, well, actually, I was thinking about this. We're kind of like a set of Russian nesting dolls this year. So the broad theme is transformation. We've been kind of working on that all year long. And then we've been on this two ways journey where there's these two ways that Jesus offers us abundant life, but he says it's the narrow way, right? And so it requires some adeptness at traversing that narrow way. And then he talks about the broad way, which leads to destruction. And on the broad way, it appears that this is in many ways the easy way. This is the path of least resistance. And so we've been, the nesting doll has been on that path of least resistance. And to do that, we've been talking about the seven deadly sins, right? And so here we are, we're at the 7th of seven. And so if you've come for the first time this morning, you've come on a Sunday in which we are talking about lust. Before we get there, this is a test for those of you who have been with us the whole journey to see if you can name the other six. And if you can't, well, then we're going to start it all over again and we'll do it together. So say them with me and I'll parrot them back to you. What would one of them be? Enri. Gluttony, wrath and sloth, greed, I think we said anger, and vanity, somebody said. I think we got them. Those are the six, leaving us today's message on lust. Part of what we've been trying to do with all of them is also tie together how our technologies the phones in our pockets, the computers that we all sit behind every day, they shape us and they form us and they misshape us and they malform us into beings we were never intended to be. And so my hope through this whole time together actually has been to demonstrate to you that the object in your pocket is not value neutral, that it is having an effect on you in one way or another. And I can really think of no better example than this morning's topic. And so we will talk about some sensitive issues. I've tried to do so in a fashion that is sensitive to all of the various ears this morning, but do know that this is what we're talking about. Let's begin with prayer. God our Father in heaven, you look down at your children and you want what is good for us. You want what is best. You want us to live lives filled with life and abundance and all that is good. And God, yet sometimes we choose the lesser way and we find ourselves going down paths we were never intended to go down, being shaped into people we were never intended to be. And this morning, Lord, speak to us. Speak to our hearts. Speak to our marriages and our families, that we might live lives according to your word, but according to the grain of the universe that you have created, the good universe, the one we intend to live in, the kingdom of God. I pray this in Christ's holy name, amen. You should have gotten a handout when you came in, at least the adults in the room. Yeah, I'll take it, just to wave it around. At some point in the sermon, we will get to this. And this may end up being the most practical sermon I could possibly give to you where there's an actual handout that you can take home with you to give you some resources for how to walk this way well. The Bible has a lot to say about sex. If you've ever read the Bible in full cover to cover, you might be surprised about what you find there. And now that I think about it, I should probably use this as a pitch when I try to get you to read the Bible more often because sex sells and it's filled with it. even has a whole book devoted to it. Did you know this? It's called the Song of Solomon. who himself had 1000 wives and concubines and apparently knew something about the matter. If you think it's a prudish book or that its authors would clutch their pearls at the smallest innuendo, well, you've simply not read close enough. But if you're new to the Bible reading thing and you thought this way, you would be forgiven. Because often this is how we Christians approach the topic, sheepishly in whispers And I confess it's how I often approach this topic, especially from the pulpit. I get nervous and frankly a little weird about it, which is why I'm writing this sermon out rather than trying to go off script. It'll keep me from blushing, hopefully. If the Bible is okay with this topic, then we probably should be too. So I'm going to speak frankly about the matter while recognizing that our congregation has members of all ages listening right now. Parents, you shouldn't feel on edge for what is about to happen, but know that it might spark some interesting conversations around the lunch table that I think you're ready for. And in fact, I encourage these conversations. It's a hope that I have for all of us to be a little more open and in dialogue with one another about this matter. But that said, if at any point you feel the need to take a bathroom break with your child, please go right ahead. I won't be offended. In the beginning, God created the Garden of Eden. And he said to that first couple, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And I know of only one way to be fruitful and to multiply. There's also the matter of Genesis 2, 24, in which God tells the first couple while they're still enjoying the safety of the garden, that when the two are joined together, they become one flesh. Two bodies united into one body. Sounds like a description of the topic we're talking about today. which means to me that God creates it as part of the good creation. It is something that is beautiful, is certainly enjoyable, and I would even say it is spiritual. Two becoming one is a mystery. But don't take my word. It's what Paul says in Ephesians 5 when he compares marriage to our union with Christ. And he also raises the two becoming one mystery as a warning to the Corinthian people in 1 Corinthians 6, who are uniting themselves with temple prostitutes. And Jesus raises the two becoming one mystery as a way to affirm marriage and to limit divorce. Which is all to say, that Genesis and Jesus and Paul, they talk about two becoming one flesh as something to happen within the marriage covenant. The covenant binds two people together by law and by custom, and it requires that the two people remain together in sickness and in health and richer and poorer till death do us part. And why? because it is only this kind of union that makes it safe to practice the deep magic we call sex. There are two ways to preach a sermon about sin, one that I would call an Old Testament sermon and the other a New Testament sermon. The difference is subtle but important. The Old Testament sermon relies on the law. It tells you where the boundaries are. are external to you. For example, an Old Testament sermon tells you the rules to keep and then you simply keep them. Don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, don't break the Sabbath and so on. An Old Testament sermon on adultery would stick to the basics. Don't have sex outside of marriage and you're good to go. But A New Testament sermon, the kind that Jesus would give, drives us deeper to the heart of the matter. which is always a matter of the heart. Jesus is helping us fulfill the Old Testament promise that Jeremiah 31, 33 expresses when he says, I will put my law within them and I will write the law on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. Jesus is trying to write the law on our hearts and to do that, You must look below the surface, which is what Jesus is doing in his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5. Please turn there now and we'll read verses 27 to 30. You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Now some people want to read their Bible with a precise literalism that demands that every last passage be understood with no nuance. But let's all hope that Jesus is here using hyperbole. Pulling out your eye or cutting off your hand is a bold move. But I'll say in all of my years of church life, and I've had many, I've met a lot of people with a lust problem. but I've never met a single person wearing an eye patch. Here's what Jesus is saying in brief if you ask me. The root of the external act of adultery happens in your heart well before it happens when you walk into a bedroom. If you are to be a kingdom follower, living life abundant, then you will need to get radical in your attempts to root out the heart condition because the alternative is a road that leads to Gehenna, a place that elsewhere is said to be filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth. If you've ever known someone whose partner has cheated on them or who has been sexually assaulted or abused, or someone who has lost a spouse or a job or ministry because of this sin, then you know that the weeping And the anxious grinding of the teeth isn't just waiting on the other side. It starts in the here and the now. How many lives have been broken by this sin? How many marriages and families have been shattered by it? So let's talk about what's in the heart. When I was a kid, Before the internet existed in my house and well before the iPhone had the internet in everyone's pocket, I remember my mom telling me that I shouldn't look at dirty magazines. When my neighbor, Sam Weissman, came outside with his dad's Playboys, I ran inside because I did not want to disappoint my mom. And then later, about a year later, we were digging in a forested area at my friend's house. His name was Brian. And we dug up a stash of more magazines. And once again, I ran away back home because I did not want to disappoint my mom because I wanted to be a good boy. This was a different age and a time when temptation didn't follow you everywhere you went. The magazines stood waiting in a forest for years. But the screens that you take everywhere are constantly offering temptation. The internet made *********** readily available, cheap and easy to find. The smartphone, it made it available everywhere you went. The algorithm and social media learned who you are and began to feed you whatever it takes for you to spend more and more time on your device. If you're a boy or a young man, the girls too, the algorithm knows, and it knows that lust is a powerful drug, and so it is ready to feed you images again and again before you finally say yes. The magazines no longer stay put. They follow you home and everywhere else you go. Let's start with some statistics. Common Sense Media surveyed teens between 13 and 17 years old in 2023 and here's what they found. 73% have watched *********** online, 54% saw it by age 13, 15% by age 10 or younger. The average age of first exposure is 12 and 58% first encountered it accidentally. That's just the kids, the adults in the room. Barna and Pure Desire did a survey in 2024. Here's what they found. 54% of practicing Christians reported viewing **** compared to 68% of non-Christians. Among pastors, 67% report a personal history and then nearly one in five of those currently struggle. of practicing Christians view it weekly. 75% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women report viewing occasionally. And 62% of Christians agree a person can regularly view *********** and live a sexually healthy life only four points below the general public. Jesus says that lust is part of the broad Rd. that leads to Gehenna. But 62% of Christians seem to disagree. The statistics bear out something very important here. Lust and *********** is something that doesn't just go away when you get older. We must all learn to fight this battle, no matter the age. Running from the magazines weren't the end of my personal history. So for me, I know I need to stay vigilant about this. In my house, we talk about these things openly. We have rules and protocols that I want to share with you around our technology. If you were here for a Sunday morning Bible study, we've talked through some of these and you should have received a sheet of paper, adults, as you walked in that hopefully will guide you through some of what I'm going to say that we went a little deeper this morning in Sunday school. I think of lust a little bit like I think about the weeds in my yard. As long as there's a plan and a strategy that is actively keeping the weeds at bay, the yard is going to look great. But as soon as that stops, the yard goes untended. And then once you start looking for it, you start to see more and more weeds popping up here and there until eventually you look out and you realize there's weeds everywhere. And you wonder how'd that happen? If you're a child, it might happen like this. You're simply playing a video game and up pops an ad with a voluptuous woman in something that can't really be called clothing, encouraging you to visit her website. Or maybe you're simply on a website like me, Bible Gateway, preparing a sermon on lust when up pops an underwear ad. Yes, this did happen. Or you're on X or Instagram and they begin to put pictures and products on your screen that you're not really seeking out. But the more it shows up, the more you're interested and the more you click and then the rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper and deeper. And so what does one do in this situation? You should think of yourself and your marriage and your family in the middle of a castle, and your job is to protect it at all cost. You will want to put up high walls, thick walls, a big moat around all of it. And so I want to offer you some very practical advice in two parts. Part one is how to build the walls, and part 2 is what to do if your castle has been sieged. So the protection piece. The first thing I'd want to say here is that you cannot wait on the technology industry to keep you safe or to keep your kids safe. They will not build this wall for you. In fact, they are selling a drug and they are hoping that you get hooked and that your kids get hooked. You may have heard it before. There are only two industries that call their customers users, illegal drugs and big tech. Therefore, you must get radical and take matters into your own hands. Number 2, start with locking down your devices. There are computers and there are phones and there are iPads and whatever else you have in your house. Each will be a little different, but parents especially, both for yourself and for your kids, learn how to limit their screen time. Learn how to manage their content. Learn how to use what the tech companies actually do give you at their disposal to limit what is coming through those big walls that you're trying to create. Number 3, your computers are a little harder to lock down. And so in my house, we pay for something called covenant eyes. We pay $200 a year for this. It might sound like a lot of money. I think it sounds like a very little amount of money for the peace of mind that it gives me, knowing that I'm offering protection, another wall for my kids and my family to feel safe within. Whatever you choose, I would encourage you to once again get radical. Don't just find yourself floating down the broad Rd. just because everyone else seems to. Instead, you have to take matters into your own hands. Number 4, there is the matter of your internet or your routers. And you can try to create as high a wall and a moat as you can. And one tool in the toolbox is using your internet provider to block certain sites or to even automatically turn off at certain times of day. Let's say 1 A.m. There's no good reason for somebody to be on the internet at that point. Number 5, know that with all your best efforts, there will always be workarounds that you haven't thought of, which gets to the most important thing that I can give you. Have a good relationship. with loved ones, with your kids, especially spouses with each other. Have open, honest dialogue. Reduce the shame. It is the shame that drives you into the closet and into the darkness. And the only way out is to get rid of some of that shame and to be willing to talk about it. And so make this a regular conversation in your house. The more you do it, the less awkward it gets. Men talk to your sons. Women talk to your daughters. Have these conversations with your kids. And please, spouses have them with each other. The easiest rule, no devices in the bedrooms. If you're wondering, what's the one quick win that could come out of here as to how I manage my own household and what the kids can do and can't, This is probably the easiest thing that you could make happen right now. But what happens if the army has already sieged the castle and you're in the middle of a fight that you're losing and you are struggling and you can't seem to find your way out? Well, that's the backside of the sheet that I've given you. I've got 4 steps for you. Step one, step out of the darkness and into the light. It will have control over you until you tell someone who is safe and importantly, someone who will force you to do something about it. Men, I want to offer you this morning that I am safe and I will help you do something about it. I have heard stories from young boys to very old men and nothing will shock me, I assure you. Step 2, depending on your situation, and the level of your problem, you should probably find a group to meet with. There are lots of groups dedicated to helping people break their addictions, some in person and some online. Two groups I'm aware of and I know meet locally are called Pure Desire and Celebrate Recovery. I would start there if you're just simply looking. Number 3, develop a strategy and know where the weak points are in your defense. Share these with an accountability partner. For example, maybe you're on a work trip. We'll have your spouse keep you honest when you come home. Late nights or certain times of day. We'll just know when that is and don't be alone during that time. Maybe it's a certain device. Go ahead and ditch that. Is alcohol involved? It might be time to address that problem too. And know that stress will always cause you to do things you might not do when you're not in stress. So manage that. Fourth and finally, replace the bad habit with good habits. More exercise, a new hobby, intentional time with your family. We had this conversation, as I said, this morning with the Sunday morning Bible study. And it was brought in that we should certainly infuse all of these steps with a healthy spiritual life that loves God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength and our neighbors as ourselves and our spouses as ourselves. But sometimes we maybe keep praying to God and we say, oh, help me with this and help me with this and it never seems to go anywhere. That's what this roadmap is for. It has helped you if you've been there again and again and again and again. One final word I would want to give is to the spouses in the room, because the part I haven't yet addressed is that lust and adultery is not a victimless crime. There is often a spouse or a family that feel the effects of this betrayal. If that is you, know that God sees you too. And you too need help and you need encouragement. And the steps for what you should do are not the same as the above. They are similar. It involves talking to someone. Maybe it's finding a group. Some of the groups offer spouses groups as well. And so if the person who has hurt you needs to build their defenses, I would encourage you to build some of your own as well. Build walls and boundaries that they should not break in order to keep yourself from being hurt again and again. And develop lines that cannot be crossed and communicate those clearly and what would happen if they do get crossed. And finally, do things that will fill your soul as well. In the beginning, God created all things good. And this includes sex. But it is a powerful force. And a desire for it sits deep within us. And we live in a dangerous world where the temptations are everywhere. So let me encourage you to protect it. Keep it safe. Build the walls of a covenant marriage around it. Put them up high. Build a moat around it so that you keep temptation at bay. Talk to your spouses. Talk to your kids. Have these conversations regularly. Help is available. Victory is available. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, let us pray. Father in heaven, Jesus, King Jesus, who sits on the throne, who has power over all the universe, Holy Spirit who has been sent to us to live in us, to dwell in us, to cleanse us from the inside out, empower us this morning, convict us of where we need changes, Give us the path forward. Show us how we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds and to take on the mind of Christ and to live as you would have us live, O Lord. May we walk that narrow way, the hard way, but a way that leads to life abundant because Lord, we know that other way leads to the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. God, this morning, no doubt if the statistics bear out, some people hearing my voice right now, whether in person, online, or on a podcast into the future, they are wrestling. They are wrestling with something that has sat hidden for way too long. It is time to take the thing that existed in the darkness Bring it out into the light. Because God, you have a better way. You have a way that is filled with joy and freedom. So Lord, this warning, convict of sin, but also convince us that you are powerful enough to heal. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen.‍

Last week: contempt, two paths, a better word. This week: Jesus goes deeper. He's not after the spark of anger. He's after the fire we keep. In Matthew 5, Jesus connects lingering anger to murder - and then uses a word nobody expected: Gehenna. Not a metaphor. A real valley south of Jerusalem where the kings of Judah once burned their children alive. A valley so defiled that by Jesus' day it had become the Jewish word for final judgment. And He puts contempt on that continuum. In this message, Pastor David follows three movements - anger reveals what we worship, idols always demand life, and Jesus does the opposite. He traces it from Cain to Gehenna to the cross, addresses abortion with pastoral care and biblical conviction, and closes with the only question that matters: which path will you hand down? In this message: Why Jesus targets "remaining anger" - nursing a grudge, not a momentary flare The history of Gehenna - and what it reveals about idols and human worth Why idols always demand life - and what a culture looks like when it decides who counts A pastoral, biblical conversation about abortion and the Church's historic response Three closing practices: receive life, protect life, give life Key Scriptures: Exodus 20:13; 34:6–7 • Matthew 5:21–22 • James 1:19–20 • Romans 12:19; 6:23 • Jeremiah 19:4–5 • Psalm 115:8; 139:13–16 • 1 John 3:15–16 • John 7:37–39; 14:6

We return to the outer planes to investigate the oft-overlooked lower realm of Gehenna, to see what we can find there.Remember to like, share, comment and subscribe.Connect with us: teachersinthedungeon on Instagram and Facebook, @dungeonteachers on X, and teachersinthedungeon@gmail.com

Lucifer is not Satan. In this week study, we dig into the Hebrew name translated Lucifer in the king James Bible, Helel Ben Shachar. Scholar William Gallagher showed in a peer reviewed paper more than 30 years ago that Helel was the West Semitic (i.e., Hebrew) transliteration of the Akkadian deity Ellil. This entity was known by many names in the ancient Near East, including Dagon, Assur, El, and Milcom (and thus Molech). All of these entities were connected to the underworld whereas Satan is nowhere in the Bible linked to Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, or the abyss. The other clue pointing to Ellil et. al is the fact that this polemic is directed at the king of Babylon. In Hebrew, that's melek bab el, which literally means "King of Babel" or "king of the god-gate." We realize this is a unique take on a famous and well studied chapter of the Bible. But it's consistent with other scriptures, and it's a good reminder to ask ourselves whether our interpretation of scripture is based on the Bible itself or human traditions. Here's the link to the book by David W. Lowe, Deconstructing Lucifer, which shows how our understanding of Satan today is quite different from how the apostles viewed him: https://bit.ly/4cWhW9U Question of the week: Why do some scholars call Judea in the time of Jesus "Palestine"? Sharon's niece, Sarah Sachleben, has been battling stage 4 bowel cancer and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah. Derek's new book War of the Watchers Book One: From Baal to Balfour is now available at Amazon in paperback and as a Kindle e-book! It's also a part of a special offer at the SkyWatchTV store: Get War of the Watchers, Derek's previous book The Second Coming of Saturn, and a 13-part teaching DVD based on The Second Coming of Saturn for your donation of just $45! If you are looking for a text of the Book of 1 Enoch to follow our monthly study, you can try these sources: Parallel translations by R. H. Charles (1917) and Richard Laurence (1821)Modern English translation by George W. E. Nickelsburg and James VanderKam (link to book at Amazon)Book of 1 Enoch - Standard English Version by Dr. Jay Winter (link opens free PDF)Book of 1 Enoch - R. H. Charles translation (link opens free PDF) The SkyWatchTV store has a special offer on Dr. Michael Heiser's two-volume set A Companion to the Book of Enoch. Get both books, the R. H. Charles translation of 1 Enoch, and a DVD interview with Mike and Steven Bancarz for a donation of $35 plus shipping and handling. Link: https://bit.ly/heiser-enoch JOIN US IN ISRAEL (NOTE NEW DATES)! We will tour the Holy Land Oct. 25–Nov. 6, 2027 with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. For more information, log on to GilbertHouse.org/travel. Follow us!• X: @gilberthouse_tv | @sharonkgilbert | @derekgilbert• Substack: GilbertHouse.substacdk.com | SharonKGilbert.substack.com• Telegram: t.me/gilberthouse | t.me/sharonsroom | t.me/viewfromthebunker• YouTube: @GilbertHouse | @UnravelingRevelation | @thebiblesgreatestmysteries• Facebook.com/GilbertHouseFellowship Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! We truly appreciate your support. If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate. Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech! The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/. Gilbert House T-shirts and mugs! New to our store is a line of GHTV and Redwing Saga merch! Check it out at GilbertHouse.org/store! Think better, feel better! Our partners at Simply Clean Foods offer freeze-dried, 100% GMO-free food and delicious, vacuum-packed fair trade coffee from Honduras. Find out more at GilbertHouse.org/store. Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the left-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org.

Lucifer is not Satan. In this week study, we dig into the Hebrew name translated Lucifer in the king James Bible, Helel Ben Shachar. Scholar William Gallagher showed in a peer reviewed paper more than 30 years ago that Helel was the West Semitic (i.e., Hebrew) transliteration of the Akkadian deity Ellil. This entity was known by many names in the ancient Near East, including Dagon, Assur, El, and Milcom (and thus Molech). All of these entities were connected to the underworld whereas Satan is nowhere in the Bible linked to Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, or the abyss. The other clue pointing to Ellil et. al is the fact that this polemic is directed at the king of Babylon. In Hebrew, that's melek bab el, which literally means "King of Babel" or "king of the god-gate." We realize this is a unique take on a famous and well studied chapter of the Bible. But it's consistent with other scriptures, and it's a good reminder to ask ourselves whether our interpretation of scripture is based on the Bible itself or human traditions. Here's the link to the book by David W. Lowe, Deconstructing Lucifer, which shows how our understanding of Satan today is quite different from how the apostles viewed him: https://bit.ly/4cWhW9U Question of the week: Why do some scholars call Judea in the time of Jesus "Palestine"? 

This is the final video in Pastor Derek's series on Eternal Judgment, focusing on the final Great White Throne Judgment. At the end of time, all the spiritually) dead (unbelievers) will be resurrected and stand before Christ, will will sit on the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11-15), for their final sentencing and dismissal into the Lake of Fire. Understand about the Lamb's Book of Life, and the books of each man's life and works that will be opened that day. It is essential that we understand these truths and are prepared for God's Eternal Judgment, that will seal our eternal destiny.

This is the final video in Pastor Derek's series on Eternal Judgment, focusing on the final Great White Throne Judgment. At the end of time, all the spiritually) dead (unbelievers) will be resurrected and stand before Christ, will will sit on the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11-15), for their final sentencing and dismissal into the Lake of Fire. Understand about the Lamb's Book of Life, and the books of each man's life and works that will be opened that day. It is essential that we understand these truths and are prepared for God's Eternal Judgment, that will seal our eternal destiny.

Jase, Al, and Zach trace the roots of socialism, scarcity, and abortion back to a worldview that rejects God's design for humanity. Zach argues that socialism runs against the Biblical command to cultivate, create, and expand, while Jase connects that same survival mindset to ancient child sacrifice and the modern lie that children are liabilities. Al examines Jesus' warnings about Gehenna and shows how the Bible ties justice to the way people treat those made in God's image. In this episode: Genesis 1:28; Genesis 3:15; Jeremiah 17:27; Isaiah 66:24; Matthew 1:1; Matthew 1:18-19; Mark 9:42-50; Luke 1:14; John 1:1, 14; Romans 9:5; Ephesians 2:1-3; James 1:5-27; James 5:1; 2 Peter 1:3-4; Revelation 22:1-5 “Unashamed” Episode 1390 is sponsored by: https://homechef.com/unashamed — Get 50% off and free shipping on your first box plus free dessert for life! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 Zach's Hefty Bill Triggers a Reality Check 05:13 The Childhood Fear Behind Zach's Anxiety 11:15 The Dark History Behind Gehenna 17:31 Survival Instincts Under the Evil One 21:08 God's Commands & the Path to Flourishing 25:42 The Hidden Greek Word in James 31:24 The Commands Are Good for Us 37:39 What Jesus Really Meant by the Fires of Hell 42:50 The Hoarding Mindset Behind Fear & Scarcity 47:09 Why the Tongue is a Fire of Gehenna — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it take to spend more than two decades creating creatures, monsters, and makeup effects for Hollywood before finally stepping behind the camera to direct your own feature film?In this episode, legendary special effects artist Hiroshi Katagiri shares his remarkable journey from moving to Los Angeles as a teenager from Japan to working on films like Pacific Rim, Cabin in the Woods, Green Lantern, The Time Machine, and countless other productions. Along the way, Hiroshi reveals how practical effects shaped his understanding of storytelling, why independent filmmakers should focus on what they can control, and how years of experience creating creatures prepared him for directing his first feature-length horror film.The conversation dives deep into low-budget filmmaking, visual storytelling, practical effects, storyboarding, horror filmmaking, crowdfunding, and the realities of building a career in Hollywood. Hiroshi explains why aspiring filmmakers should stop waiting for permission and start creating immediately, how he produced award-winning short films with almost no budget, and why his passion project Gehenna became an eight-year journey of writing, planning, and persistence. For filmmakers, horror fans, and creative entrepreneurs, this episode is a masterclass in turning expertise into opportunity and passion into action.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Robert Fjällsby kommer från Karlstad, kallar sig Rob Coffinshaker och har sedan nittiotalet spelat i massor av olika band. Mest kända är The Coffinshakers som gör country med skräcktexter. Med sin mörka, djupa röst frontar Rob också de gothmanglande grupperna Die Oberherren och Underground Fire (vars nya album "Hollow grounds" är ett måste för Sisters of Mercy-fans). Ibland spelar han även bas i doom metal-projektet Timothy Griffith's Psychedelic Sunrise och gitarr i Gehenna, det milt sagt konservativa metalbandet från Forshaga som gjort låtar om att slå ner alla som har tribaltatueringar och kort hår. I nya "Hemma hos Strage" pratar Rob om hur han upptäckte att han kunde sjunga som Johnny Cash, om när han tillsammans med bland andra Tobias Forge och Nifelheim startade organisationen Headbangers Against Disco, om när Whale snodde en av hans textrader, om att använda sitt eget blod som trycksvärta och om sin kärlek till ZZ Top, svampplockning och mördarballader. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most of us got our picture of hell from a movie, a cartoon, or an angry preacher, not from the Bible. So this week Pastor David opens the Bible on hell and reads it honestly, as much and as little as it actually says.“Hell” is one word in English, but four words in the Bible. Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna got flattened into one, and a thousand years of medieval imagery got poured in behind it.Jesus describes Gehenna in pictures, not floor plans. Whatever else hell is, he keeps calling it a place of real and terrible loss.Hell was made for the devil and his angels, not for people. The devil isn't hell's manager, he's hell's first inmate.Jesus defeated hell, so you don't have to go. The keys of death and Hades are in nail-scarred hands.Every warning Jesus gave about hell, he gave on his way to a cross to make sure you'd never go there.Scriptures: Matthew 25:31-41; Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:31; Luke 16:22-23; Mark 9:47-48; Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 20:12-15; Luke 23:42-43; John 3:16-17Facebook: / believerscenter Instagram: / believerscenter Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerscenter First Time: https://believerscenter.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerscenter.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600#BelieversCenter #Hell #Grace #JesusThanks so much for listening to the Believers Center podcast! Service Times:   Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person)Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only)Follow us on Instagram @believerscenterTo learn more about Believers Center, visit https://www.believerscenter.com​​To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit https://www.believerscenter.com/prayforme

In Week 2 of The Truth About Hell, we ask the question: Has hell changed—or have we? This message examines what the Old Testament, Jesus, and the New Testament teach about hell, eternal judgment, and separation from God. We also explore the biblical meanings of Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and the Lake of Fire, while addressing questions about purgatory and God's justice. Hell is not simply a place of physical suffering—it is eternal separation from God's goodness, love, peace, joy, and favorable presence. Yet the gospel offers hope: through surrendering our lives to Jesus, we can be forgiven, made righteous, and restored to a relationship with God. Our mission is not to frighten people into the Kingdom but to lovingly share the truth of Jesus with compassion and urgency. Let love overcome your fear. Let eternity be your motivation.

Original Post Date: July 13, 2024 === Gospel Matthew 10:24-33 Jesus said to his Apostles: “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household! “Therefore do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Reflection The beginning of this passage speaks clearly that we are to become like the Christ, and that this process is filled with peril and darkness and struggle. And we're told over and over, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I've got you covered. I've got your back. I will not let anyone destroy you because you are loved. And everyone who can accept my love, who can believe thy love for them, is as intense as it truly is, then they will be able to love their brothers and sisters. But if they don't allow me to love him, they cannot do the work of the kingdom. Closing Prayer Father, we get caught up in trying to earn your love and prove to you that we're good enough to deserve your presence and your healing. Free us from all that knowing that you have this gift you long for us simply to receive. Give us an open, generous heart to receive the love, the gifts, the forgiveness, the grace that you want to sew upon us. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reading 1Jeremiah 20:10-13Jeremiah said:"I hear the whisperings of many:'Terror on every side!Denounce! let us denounce him!'All those who were my friendsare on the watch for any misstep of mine.'Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,and take our vengeance on him.'But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.In their failure they will be put to utter shame,to lasting, unforgettable confusion.O LORD of hosts, you who test the just,who probe mind and heart,let me witness the vengeance you take on them,for to you I have entrusted my cause.Sing to the LORD,praise the LORD,for he has rescued the life of the poorfrom the power of the wicked!"Reading 2Romans 5:12-15Brothers and sisters:Through one man sin entered the world,and through sin, death,and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned—for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world,though sin is not accounted when there is no law.But death reigned from Adam to Moses,even over those who did not sinafter the pattern of the trespass of Adam,who is the type of the one who was to come.But the gift is not like the transgression.For if by the transgression of the one the many died,how much more did the grace of Godand the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christoverflow for the many.GospelMatthew 10:26-33Jesus said to the Twelve:"Fear no one.Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,nor secret that will not be known.What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."

What does it take to spend more than two decades creating creatures, monsters, and makeup effects for Hollywood before finally stepping behind the camera to direct your own feature film?In this episode, legendary special effects artist Hiroshi Katagiri shares his remarkable journey from moving to Los Angeles as a teenager from Japan to working on films like Pacific Rim, Cabin in the Woods, Green Lantern, The Time Machine, and countless other productions. Along the way, Hiroshi reveals how practical effects shaped his understanding of storytelling, why independent filmmakers should focus on what they can control, and how years of experience creating creatures prepared him for directing his first feature-length horror film.The conversation dives deep into low-budget filmmaking, visual storytelling, practical effects, storyboarding, horror filmmaking, crowdfunding, and the realities of building a career in Hollywood. Hiroshi explains why aspiring filmmakers should stop waiting for permission and start creating immediately, how he produced award-winning short films with almost no budget, and why his passion project Gehenna became an eight-year journey of writing, planning, and persistence. For filmmakers, horror fans, and creative entrepreneurs, this episode is a masterclass in turning expertise into opportunity and passion into action.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

The rich man and Lazarus show the finality of judgment and the great reversal of the kingdom. True riches are found in Christ. The King offers eternal comfort to those who trust Him. Visit us online at: RenewalChurch.net

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Last week was part one of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of the Gnostic Union, and he explained to us a bit about who the Gnostic Union is and what they believe in. At the beginning of that episode, I read from the Gnostic Union website their history and mission statement. And my brother Billy called me up and said, “Oh, but there’s a point of their theology that’s all wrong. I know they’re ecumenical and all, but we mustn’t fall into the error of wrong teaching.” And, you know, I totally agree with that concept, not teaching anything that is incorrect or that doesn’t make sense, according to the Gnosticism that I share with you here. And it created a very large discussion between my brother and me. And I don’t even have enough time in this short introduction to go into the point that Bill brought up out of their statement of beliefs. So we’ll wait and we’ll do that when these interviews are all over and that way we can go into depth and give the topic the attention it deserves. You see, the Gnosticism that I share with you here mostly comes from the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi. And the Tripartite Tractate is a very unusual book. It is not a book of mythology. It is not a book of ancient myths concerning angels and demigods and great battles in heaven and so forth. It’s not that kind of book. We think of it as physics. It’s literally a book that describes the cosmology and the cosmogony, that is, how consciousness came to be transmitted from the base state of consciousness that we call the Father or the Source, and all the way downstream into, ultimately, us. We’re sitting here talking and thinking about it. This is pure consciousness we’re talking about. It’s not particularities. You understand? Gnosis itself we think of as that river of consciousness. That’s what gnosis is. So, I often say, if my dog can’t understand the gnosis, it’s not really gnosis—it's a knowledge claim. If a blade of grass or a tree in the forest can’t bask in the gnosis, then it’s not really gnosis. It’s a human knowledge claim. This is the reason why here at Gnostic Insights and on the Gnostic Reformation, we do not dwell in the history of things. We dwell in the understanding or the gnosis itself. The cosmogony and cosmology of Gnosticism that I share with you here is a logical step-by-step rollout of the consciousness of the Father or the Source. It doesn’t really matter what you call it. It’s the base state. It’s the matrix of consciousness itself and how it flows down to us. There are necessary steps described in the Tripartite Tractate for how that consciousness is differentiated and particularized and then rolled down. And how it is that we material beings are different than the ethereal beings. How could that have possibly happened? It’s like that. It’s a logical progression that necessarily comes out of an a priori statement of consciousness as the ground state. That’s quite a bit different than mythologies of how these angels fit in with these gods and goddesses down here on earth and so forth. Because those particularities definitely come out of the mind of humans. They can be inspired. Okay, I’ll give you that. But they are knowledge claims. They’re not necessarily gnosis and because of that they can go wrong. They can be wrong. Whereas starting with this a priori notion of consciousness ending up in us and how does that occur? By what means does that possibly happen? And how is it that we earthlings plug into that illimitable consciousness? That’s a different thing. That’s a description of process. That’s an understanding or a gnosis of what it is that we are part of. 15 steps in Gnostic Cosmology So I’m not knocking the history or the particularities that Bishop Wilson shares with us. But the gnosis that leads you to enlightenment is simply this: We come from the Father [El Elyon] or from the Source or from the Mother-Father or from the Great Mother—whatever you want to call it. We come from that Source, that unlimited well of consciousness and life and power and might and love. And then we will return to that. That’s all you have to know. We come from Above and we return to Above. And with that knowledge, that’s your base state. That’s what the blades of grass and the dogs and the trees all understand. All the rest of the particularities of who and why and how, those are just details being filled in. Some of them out of gnosis, but most of them out of tradition or history. So we’ll be proceeding now into part two of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of the Gnostic Union. And later on, we’re going to talk some more about the difference between mythology and the process of gnosis. That is what this podcast specializes in. That’s what my brother Bill and I have parsed out and discovered out of direct mining of the Tripartite Tractate. Our gnosis comes from that and it proceeds in an orderly fashion that doesn’t require any extra research. It’s all about gnosis and what must be. But here, let’s go back to this interview with Brother Wilson. **************************************************************** Cyd: Well, tell me more about your Bible that you wrote. What do you call it? You call it… Bishop Nathan Wilson: I call it The Gnostic Christian Truth Bible. I actually asked one of the older bishops that trained me, Bishop Jason, and he started that. So, I like the name. So, I thought, okay, I want to put Gnostic Christian in there. So, I was going to call it first the Truth Bible. He requested that, but I thought, well, Gnostic Christian makes it less likely for the Catholics to come after me as well, and the Protestants. Many do not like my translations. They are quite upset that I’ve done this, but they don’t put too much light on me. So, it’s best not to give me too much attention, basically. So, the less attention I have, the less people know about this, but which is something unique about mine. I don’t just offer my translations. I offer the original Koine Greek with it, so they can look at the actual text. So, even if my translation, say, could be wrong, they could look straight at that text and go argue with the text that they see, which I also wanted to include for their own reason, and when I included the alternative English, it’s so I might read it one way, but someone else is going to read it another way, and that can teach me something new. I feel, oh, I didn’t understand it like that. So, that’s why I wanted to keep that in there too, and a couple of words I kept in there were Greek. So, I kept Logos. I kept Kosmos, Zoe, Sophia, Archon. Magus. I kept all these words. So, very, very Gnostic, and you won’t find these in the English translations. They have gone out of their ways to censor them. I also kept the word daemon or daimon, daemon, so I did not put that down as demon because that’s not what it means. So, I kept the original Greek context of use, and I also add a Greek, Koine Greek, index in my translation so people can actually look at little snippets of what these words mean. So, I have some things in here. So, this is just on one page on basically all Greek with English meaning. So, there’s Logos, which I explained means God’s word, God’s authority, God’s reasoning, song, and speech, and utterance. So, when you see Christians speak that Jesus is speaking the Word, or in the beginning there was Word, they are doing a disservice to what’s being implied. This is the word of God. Very different, and even the word God we use is very English. I did keep up, but for the English sake of things. So, English people wouldn’t freak out too much on me, and another thing is also a safer mouthful, because this Word means supreme deity, deity of deities, which is very interesting. Otherwise, we would go into a god, which is lesser gods as well. So, we have a pantheon. So, it was very different, like even monotheism would evolve into what we think it is today, but in the ancient past with ancient Jewish people, they did believe in other gods, it’s just they chose to worship one god. So, this would be not the same as monotheism now, where you completely reject them as non-existent. This wasn’t that case. So, they had a very different mind. So I kept Sophia being wisdom. I mentioned this is how this is feminine wisdom, God’s feminine wisdom, coming from the Hebrew word Chokmah. Sometimes those are called Chokmah. So, I kept that in there as Sophia. Zoe, I kept too, meaning basically when you see eternal Zoe, that’s eternal life. So, that’s implying the feminine wisdom again, but also the spiritual benefits one receives with a spiritual relationship with God, or what’s with mine. So, I kept that in there. So, it’s very feminine, and that’s being removed. They would not want you to know that life is Zoe, and there’s other words they could have used for life or soul, but they chose to use the word Zoe, and that’s important. So, I kept that in there. And I’ve also got Megas. I’ve already mentioned that, but Magus comes from—here’s two words that are entwined, but the thing was the church has used a later translation, which would be terrible, but that’s kind of wrong, and this is because the language would evolve over time. It came to words Megus and Magos, which basically would be Magi, and then great and powerful, larger than life. So, Jesus was also called Iesous Magos. So, Jesus the Great, Jesus the Wise, has been censored because of Magus, and they don’t want you to know about Simon Magus. They don’t want you to know anything about Gnosticism. So, this has been censored, and I’ve also put some passages where find this. I kept Daemon in here, or Diamon. Gehenna, I also translated in here. I kept Gehenna. I did not use hell because hell is German. It’s realm of light in German, so it’s a Germanic word. So, I kept the word Gehenna, which is ultimately what we would kind of call hell, but it’s not what people think it is. That’s an evolved tradition. So, Gehenna or even Abaddon, these are two different words, but the same thing. Gehenna was the place where the soul was destroyed or purified. So, the text can translate to eternal punishment, but that’s not strictly bound to it. That’s more would be a later theology bound to that translation where it means period of time. So, it doesn’t necessarily mean all these different things. It’s like the word soma where it’s all about Jesus’ body. It can be living body, dead body, or a carcass, or even the living body of the church, which is more symbolic, but fascinating. I also kept in here a couple words, such as I explained Hades, which is mentioned with Sheol and how that’s separate from Gehenna. I’ve kept Helios, Selene, Astron, or Asterios, as well as Aletheia. These words are very interesting because they are all gods. They’re all Greco-Roman gods. So, the scholars or, I really should say, a Christian apologist, that state there’s no pagan gods in the New Testament—they are entirely wrong. It’s just that they have looked at it in a modern Greek eye instead of looking at an ancient past—they would have seen the gods being mentioned. So that’s very interesting. So when Jesus says that the stars and the sun is falling, he’s not speaking about the sun and stars. He’s speaking about the Helios, the Roman sun god is falling, and the stars and goddesses falling, as well as Selene, the moon, so the moon goddess. That’s the falling of the pagan Roman gods that was subjecting the Jewish people. So very different theology. So theology matters. So we have to look at how people believed back these times. [Jesus speaks of the stars, moon, and sun in Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:25, Luke 21:25. Assigning them as gods and goddesses is Bishop Wilson's interpretation.] The Jewish people did not like the Romans. Not saying that all of them did not. We had some that were pro-Roman. One of the Romans that was involved in the Jewish revolt, fighting against the Jewish people, was Jewish, which is cool. And he was related to Philo of Alexandria. So very interesting. I think he might be his grandson. Cyd: Let me jump in for a second as we’re speaking about gods and the God Above All Gods versus lesser gods. Is it your thought that the God of the Jews of the Old Testament, Jehovah, is a lesser god as opposed to the God Above All Gods? Bishop Nathan Wilson: Yes. Cyd: Okay, so Jehovah is the tribal god of the Old Testament? Bishop Nathan Wilson: Yes, a bit of a mix. So there’s two gods. Well, there’s a couple, if you’ve got to go every single god being mentioned. But what they’re describing is, say, Deuteronomy 32:8, you have El Elyon dividing up the nations according to the Elohim being children of El, and Yahweh received his inheritance from the most high God. So Yahweh was more like a guardian deity, basically. He was a brother of Baal. But some Canaanites believed that Yahweh was Baal. So Yahweh kind of came later after Baal. But the first to worship Yahweh were the Sashu of Yahweh. So they were Canaanite raiders. Hebrew was also a Canaanite language.  [The earliest trace of Yahweh isn't Israelite—it's desert-born. Egyptian inscriptions speak of the “Shasu of YHW,” nomadic peoples on the edges of Canaan, sometimes regarded as raiders. It suggests the name of Yahweh may have emerged out of the wilderness before it was ever claimed by Israel. Even Hebrew itself comes out of the same Canaanite linguistic world.] So I see the views—the ones that were worshipping El would be the ones that would become the Essenes or Jewish mystics. So the Essenes worshipped El. They didn’t worship Yahweh. They viewed Yahweh as a lesser god, which is one reason they challenged the temple, because they viewed, you guys aren’t worshipping God, you’re worshipping the lesser deity, you’re worshipping an angel. And so they rejected the temple. And the priesthood was corrupt. So then you also had the Magharians or Magarites. They were first century BC era Jews. They were proto-Gnostic, so that’s a scholar term. So they were Jewish mystics. They believed that Yahweh was a demiurge and that he was a lieutenant. So not an evil demiurge, but he was ignorant of the most high Father El Elyon, but that’s not a name to them. That was just a title meaning most high God. So they didn’t believe in God with a name, the unknowable Father, they believed was beyond sex as well. So Mother-Father, basically. So beyond all things. Too perfect to interfere with matter. And they believed that the Torah had been corrupted. So that’s fascinating. So that’s a group that we want to talk about. So we had about 25 different versions of Judaism during that time with all different beliefs. So what type of Jew was Jesus? This makes a big, big difference. So not all Jews worshipped Yahweh. Some viewed him as a lesser God and some viewed him as the devil, which is whack. So the only Gnostics or proto-Gnostics would use that word devil at that time. So we have the wisdom of Solomon, which is the first text adored by Christians that they would say, look, this is our Messiah mentioning he’s a dying and rising Messiah calling himself the Son of God and he’s been crucified. So this means that just like our text, he would die a shameful death. But this text mentions that through death, the devil enters the world. So the Pharisees didn’t believe in the devil. The Sadducees didn’t either. But what’s interesting about the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Herodians, which kind of made up both these groups, they were a part of both, just the Herodians mostly supported King Herod. They believed that either King Herod was the Messiah or his family would be, or they belonged to the Sadducees and didn’t believe in a Messiah. So the Sadducees didn’t believe in angels. They didn’t believe in an afterlife. They believed once you were dead, the soul turned to dust. God was too perfect to interfere with humans. So that’s an interesting belief. But we had different subsects of Sadducees that had a different opinion to that. They believed that God did interfere with humans, but we had total free will. So they could interfere with some things, but there was no Messiah. There was no angels. So they believed that a human could be a messenger of God. That was about it. So like Moses. Then you had the Pharisees. They believed that Satan served Yahweh. His job was to test humanity or seduce humanity away from God. So that way mankind had free will. But some Pharisees didn’t believe that. They believed that Satan, Hasatan, was just symbolic for mankind’s inclination towards evil. So they didn’t believe in an evil being. So their belief was that God ordained good and evil, basically, would use evil for his own will. So that’s trippy, very trippy. So the Pharisees had a very different belief. They didn’t believe in the adversary against God. They didn’t believe in fallen angels. Later on, they would take on this belief, borrowing it from mystics and zealots. So funny enough, they would be influenced by Jesus’ teachings, such as saving a life on the Sabbath. The Pharisees would not do that. But to be fair, some Essenes wouldn’t do that either. Some Essenes were very warlike, wanting to join God’s angelic army fighting at the Armageddon of the last days of the world. But these mystics, they are the only groups that believed in fallen angels and believed in a place of punishment. The only groups. And that’s fascinating. So they believed in a physical adversary against God. And these beliefs are carried on in the Christianity with the Armageddon day, or even the belief that God basically allows Satan to do what he wants, but he’s going to conquer over him. That was an Essene belief. They believed that Belial was the adversary against God, a fallen angel, leader of the fallen angels, and God would allow him the sin because he would destroy him in the end. So that was an Essene belief, but not all that belief. Some believed that basically fallen angels chose to rebel against God, so they had free will and that God would overcome them in the end. So that’s different. So we have to look at those beliefs because that makes a big difference in theology as well. And one reason I chose to keep daemon or daimon in the text is because this doesn’t mean Jesus is casting out evil demons, but rather, well, the ghost of the mystic belief of pagan gods were fallen angels. So he’s casting out pagan gods, or he’s just casting out unclean spirits, depending on what the definition of word is, because that daimon or unclean spirit, for instance, isn’t always referenced to a pagan god. It’s just someone who’s died vengeful or angry at God, and is now just a ghost causing haunting. So it depends on how it’s being used. So I kept those words in there. So if the word said unclean spirit, I kept that as unclean spirit. But if it was going into a daimon for a pagan god, basically I’ll keep it as that daimon, so they could choose how they’re going to read it. Because sometimes you’re dealing with two things at once. Sometimes you’re dealing with an unclean spirit, then a pagan god’s being mentioned too. So this archon ruler’s having little other minions subject under him. So we even have an archon ruler being mentioned. So an archon of the daemons, ruler of pagan gods. So other gods had dominions, basically. So they viewed these other gods having their own realms of power, which we also see in the Gnostic text. So I kept all that. I also kept the archon of the synagogue, which is a ruler of the synagogue. So it’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just political rulers that are mentioned. So an archon of the Gentiles, for instance, is just a ruler of Gentiles, just a politician. I have kept archons in the sense of Yahweh somewhat, I believe, as being the devil. Because in John 8:44, we have Jesus going up to the Pharisees and Sadducees and Herodians who made up the high priesthood. He says, You are of your father, the devil. But if only these Gnostic Jews believed in the devil and their God is Yahweh, who’s he calling devil? And then when the daemons are calling him Son of the most high God, they’re calling him huios, which means son. Huios tou theou tou hypsistou, which is Greek for Son of the most high God. But if you put this in the Hebrew, it’s Son of El Elyon. So this is what the pagan gods are calling him. So the lesser gods. And then he’s also saying that we’re all the children of El Elyon, which is also fascinating. And also the word for son they’re using just means child. It can be male or female. But again, they’re wanting a male audience. So they restricted it, which is a shame. Cyd: How about the word aeon? A E O N. What do you do with that word? You know, in my work with the Tripartite Tractate, it seems to me that most references of aeon in the New Testament translate it as time, a period of time, or the end of the ages, the ages. Whereas I tend to see it always as eternal beings from the ethereal plane. What do you think about that? Bishop Nathan Wilson: I love that. I think that too. I think it’s a mixture of all these things, which is also, I keep, it depends on the context of use. But a lot of times you do see the text that is referring to a higher being, which is beautiful to mention, especially when you’re looking at Gnostic works. But you do see this in the New Testament as well. So you see one text mentioning, for instance, who is this Sophia and this higher power? And that’s how the text can translate too, which is fascinating. So that means who’s this unknown higher power. And then it mentions about the Aeon. And so you see all this sort of stuff being mentioned. Yes, it means an eternal being or an angelic being, but it can also mean eternity or a period of time. So depending on the context of use. So words have power as well. So that’s interesting. So again, how it’s used can make a world of a difference. And it’s interesting when they’re using certain words because there are some times that they could have chosen to use a different word. So when they’ve used a certain word like that, that can change the entire context of meaning. Cyd: Right. Like saying there’s some reference to judgment at the end of the age. And I’m always thinking that it’s judgment from the Aeons when I see that. But I’m not translating from scratch, I’m taking biblical translation, so what do I know? Bishop Nathan Wilson: You’re spot on though. So you’re correct. So it can translate that as well. And we have to realize that we have different versions of Christianity. So that’s certainly appropriate for a first century understanding. Most people are looking at from fourth century. So you’re looking at it from a first century point of view. And so you’re ahead of others in that sort of case, which is beautiful to see. So that’s rare. And I chose to keep that for that reason. So people can have their own conclusions, not having it forced onto them. Cyd: You are very much into the history of things. You’re an historian. I am not at all interested in history per se. I’m always talking about what other people believed in other times. That is not pertinent to our gnosis here and now. So what do you view the purpose of this deep historical knowledge that you have concerning the Jews and the Essenes and whatnot? And is it necessary to go into all of that? Bishop Nathan Wilson: If you want to, I guess, teach from a historical perspective as well as a spiritual one, then yes. But if you want to go for spiritual, you can just go by the heart. There were plenty of spiritual teachers that were illiterate, that could not read, that could not write, and they had a beautiful message. So there’s something more powerful that we can receive within that you won’t obtain from books. But ultimately, you can also have wisdom gained from books. It can be a form of worship or a form of connecting with the divine as well. We have many forms of worship or many forms of experience what’s divine or having that intimate moment with what’s divine to reflect and to deepen our purpose. I wanted to know the historical man we call Jesus and ultimately put into practice what he put into practice. So I wanted to look at the history side of things and especially also, what’s another word I would like to use, decondition myself, decondition past beliefs that were harmful, that did not serve me and ultimately not serving others, and also find out that I was wrong about many things, which I wanted to know as well. So what brought me to this was to know the man we call Jesus, Yeshua, or Yehoshua, whichever term you like, whichever name you want to use. So I want to know not just that, but I want to know his practices, what he did with his life, how his first followers lived, how the first Christians lived, and what I could use for my own spiritual path and how I could put that into practice. So that’s why I want to look at the history side of things. I think if you want to put into practice the different techniques of all the many different Gnostics, then you’re going to have to look at some of the history side of things to find those practices. That doesn’t mean that every single practice is necessary for you. So what works for me might not work for others. What works for others might not work for me. So double-edged sword. Cyd: What sort of practices are you referring to? Are these rituals? What’s the practices? Bishop Nathan Wilson: I go into some of the ancient rituals as well. Some of them I might look at the prayers that they would use, the diet they would take, or means of worship. So how they would go about their forms of private practice. So that sort of stuff. And then I might apply it into my own life and see how I can go. There’s still more I’d like to go and check out more. So I’m still studying a couple of some of the ancient practices as well. So from different or religious perspectives as well. And then I can see how I can put it to my own form of use. So I looked at a lot of Jewish Christians, they would do the shema for instance, before their meditations. And I’ll do that as well. [“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength…”] They also did breath works back then, which would also induce a sense of intoxication if you want to use, or light headness. And in turn that can also open a new state of reality. So entering the spiritual realm can be a vehicle, if you will, to get there. So to open the mind. And that’s also a practice that’s been used in ancient past. And we can certainly use that today. We have modern practices, say like Wim Hof, that teach breath work in meditation. That’s also useful. So sometimes looking at the past, we do see stuff in today’s world that’s not really new. It’s just being basically reentering this world again, from past knowledge gained of old. And I find that in a lot of Gnostic stuff. When you look at history, you kind of see that Gnostics kind of did a lot of things first, that what we’re doing now that we think is modern, but it’s not. It’s ancient. Cyd: That’s why conventional Christians who read my books, they say, oh, you’re just all new age. And I’m like, no, it’s not new age at all. It’s ancient. Bishop Nathan Wilson: Which is a shame that Christians have been shut off into their own world, which is kind of funny. I actually tell most Christians that they are, in fact, new age, because these beliefs are ancient. And what they are going by is, depending on what version of Christianity, if you’re Protestant, that’s 16th century, I believe. Non-denominal, 18th century. Protestant, 16th century. Catholicism, late second century. Orthodoxy, as we know it now, would be about 14th century. But older Orthodoxy, which would be the split from the Catholic church, is fourth century. So it’s when you go to Gnostic Christians, first century, and we’re really the only groups that are surviving, the Jewish Christians got killed. They ultimately were wiped out or would convert to mainstream Judaism or would become Christian or Islam, they would follow as well. So some would be converted to Muslims, which is also interesting as well. We as Gnostics were also harmed by these other groups, by Catholics, Protestants, Muslims as well. At one point Zoroastrians, but that was only one particular era. And we’ve basically arisen from all that, from that underground, and we’ve still survived, which is fascinating. It’s beautiful that we have. And also the texts that have been rediscovered, this is not accidental. This is all happening for a reason. What’s divine is experiencing itself where it can experience itself and express itself again safely in today’s world. In ancient past, it was dangerous to have diversion after the fourth century, which is a shame because the Catholics would kill those who came before them. They didn’t like that. And they even knew that some of the Gnostics, they had older writings, but they still denied them, which is funny. So it’s why such the hate, which is such a shame. So it goes back to that control of power, my way or the highway, basically. And it was never meant to be like that. It was meant to be very universal. It was meant to be very diverse. The first Christians were Gnostics and Jewish Christians, a mixture between strict law observing Jews and a mixture of Gentiles. And then you had the Jewish mystics that became the Christian mystics, which is fascinating. That was the original groups. And the original groups would argue amongst each other. The strict law observing Jews wanted circumcision, where the mystics said, no, no circumcision of the hearts, let the Gentiles come. That’s fine. So even when we look at the word, say, ethnos, for instance, in the Gospels, when you see kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, these are the same things. So what they’re actually talking about is Gentile against Gentile and kingdom against kingdom. So the Jewish people didn’t have a kingdom at this stage. It was a mixture of Judea, Galilee and Samaria. So we’re the Samaritans. So that’s also something to take into account, too. So they didn’t like that. They were looking for a messiah to reunify the Jewish people, restore the Jewish faith and make Israel a kingdom again. And so some of them didn’t like the fact that Jesus wasn’t after this, for instance. So they didn’t like some of these teachings. It was a bit different. But if you look at the mystics, they had a very different interpretations. They did believe in a renewal of the Jewish faith, but a renewal back to El Elyon and a rejection of Yahweh. So that’s very different. So when you look at repentance, for Israel to repent, meaning for all of Israel to return back to El Elyon. And if you look at for the Gentiles conversion, that would be referring to not converting to any religion, but converting to God. So God outside religion. So fascinating. So you see all this in the original text. Cyd: And why do you suppose, this might be an unanswerable question, but why do you suppose conventional modern Christians are so, you know, extremely antagonistic towards Gnostic Christians? Is it fear or what? Bishop Nathan Wilson: Well, they’ve been told you're the enemy, basically. And yes, some of it is fear. Fear as well of the unknown. And also because of the need of an opponent. So they believe that they are doing a good thing. And if they don’t do this, they can be punished. So it’s the case of where a victim becomes an abuser. So most Christians have never even heard about Gnostics. It’s only the real ones who are into spiritual warfare, basically, and really full on extremist dogmatic ones that are familiar with, and apologetics. But they are now feeling like they’re losing the battle because more people were interested in Gnosticism and especially interested in other Jewish groups and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the Nag Hammadi. So they’re realizing their other texts and there’s other options now. And that’s great. And regarding even my translations, one reason I chose to do it that I did, I found out that no modern English Bible translates from one source material. They’re all a mixture of different sources. So we have the Codex Sinaiticus mixed with the Latin Vulgate, mixing with Germanic copies, and then mixing ancient Koine Greek into modern Hebrew, putting it back into Greek. And that’s not good at all. So we’re just changing—we’re swapping chapters because we feel uncomfortable with them. So I was mortified when I was looking at that. And so I realized I couldn’t trust basically my Bible anymore. So I thought, well, I’m making this myself. And then I thought, well, I’m going to release it. Let’s go and share it too and do what they will with it. And it opened a lot of doorways to me, actually. So that’s one reason I wanted to give that out so people can have their own faith in their own interpretation and also believe in the message of Yeshua, bringing people back to the Most High God, to the Unknowable God, the Living Father, the Mother-Father. And we also see the Mother being mentioned in other texts too. It’s just mostly blocked out by mainstream Christianity, which is unfair, unfair to women and unfair to humanity with their approaches. It’s been very violent. So we need to remove that violence because that’s nothing to do with Yeshua’s teachings. He didn’t teach us to go around fighting each other. He said, Those who are for me are with me. They don’t understand his message. They very much follow the Catholic teachings of Paul that they’ve been given. And so they can look at the Gnostic teachings of Paul as well, which are also in there. Paul’s letters, we now know they’re mostly all forgeries. We don’t have any original copies either. They’re all later fourth century and we have some second century fragments. But the oldest reference to Paul is from the Ten Letters of Marcion. And he’s the man who compiled the first Christian Bible. And some people can argue, some people don’t believe he was a Gnostic. Others think he was a Gnostic. I think he was a type of Gnostic because he believed in a demiurge. So he believed that the God of the Jews was Yahweh and not the Supreme God of Jesus. That is a very Gnostic belief. But the thing is, the word Gnostic was given to us by the Catholic church, was a way of separating us and identifying us. But we wear it as a badge of honor because we understand they’re just calling us knowledgeable Christians, which is kind of funny. So language is powerful and the Catholic church certainly forgot it. So because of them, we now use daimon as demon. So they’ve basically demonized Jesus. They’ve demonized the Holy Spirit, which is their greatest sin. And they’ve demonized God and every other God. So they don’t know what damage they’ve done. And that’s not good. So I wanted to reverse that damage and bring people back to what I believe is the message of Yeshua, of Jesus, and to have their own spiritual relationship with God, an individual relationship, which is something that I want to see more of. That’s a very beautiful thing. You can’t define that intimate experience without living it. Cyd: Right, right. Well, that's all we have time for in this episode. We'll pick it up again next week for part three of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of The Gnostic Union Church.  I like the way he talks, huh? Until next week, onward and upward and God bless us all.

Matthew 10:26-33Jesus said to the Twelve:"Fear no one.Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,nor secret that will not be known.What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."

Matthew 10:26-33Jesus said to the Twelve:"Fear no one.Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,nor secret that will not be known.What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."

Matthew 10:26-33Jesus said to the Twelve:"Fear no one.Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,nor secret that will not be known.What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."

Matthew 10:26-33Jesus said to the Twelve:"Fear no one.Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,nor secret that will not be known.What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO to this reflectionMatthew 10:26-33Jesus said to the Twelve:"Fear no one.Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,nor secret that will not be known.What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."

Friends of the Rosary,Happy Father's Day!As we read today, Sunday (Matt 10:26-28), Jesus, the Lord, is asking each one of us to be fearless apostles.To the Twelve, He revealed:"Fear no one.”“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroyboth soul and body in Gehenna.”“Even all the hairs of your head are counted.So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.Everyone who acknowledges me before othersI will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.But whoever denies me before others,I will deny before my heavenly Father."What our Lord said to His Apostles applies to all Christians in the practice of their faith, by being always truthful and honest in all our dealings,We must be a light shining in the darkness of our fallen world.Today's Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga is superseded by the Sunday Liturgy.Ave Maria!Come, Holy Spirit, come!To Jesus through Mary!Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.Please give us the grace to respond with joy!+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New YorkEnhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play• ⁠June 21, 2026, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time AJune 21, 2026  Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time.Our reading today is taken from the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus said to the Twelve: "Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father."The gospel of the Lord. Homily In the gospel, Jesus says to his disciples and to all of us: “Fear no one.” He says this as he sends them out on mission, knowing that they will run into serious opposition, just as he did. Jesus was sustained by his unshakable faith in God his Father, but we often have more difficulty. We learn fear from an early age. In high school especially we learn to fear the opinion of others. What do they think of the way I dress, or the way I talk. What might they say? Am I going to belong? It is amazing the contortions we are willing to go through in order to fit in. And if we are not careful, we can lose our sense of self. Fear paralyzes us and can even keep us from doing what we know is right. That is why the media uses fear so much to get us to do what they want, even if it is against our own best interests. So, Jesus explains: Do not fear those who can kill the body but can do no more. Fear the one who can put both body and soul in Gehenna. This requires faith in the God who made us and gives us new life in Jesus. In the first reading we hear the prayer of Jeremiah, who stood up for God against the powers of his day because he believed that God was actively on his side. Down through the centuries the martyrs have cheerfully gone to their deaths, not because they believed in a worthy project, but because they believed in the promise of eternal life that Jesus had given to those who are faithful. God does not fail in his loving concern for us, Jesus assures his disciples. “Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” So why does Jesus tell his disciple to fear the one who can put both body and soul in Gehenna? In the Bible, the Fear of God is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Psalms tell us that the Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That is because the Fear of God is something other than terror. We can stand terrified before the unknown or before some grave danger that threatens ourselves or a loved one. But God is no danger to us, God is the source of our life and the presence that brings joy and wholeness to our being.   Fear of God is not terror before the Almighty, it is reverence before the One who brought us into being and loves us more than we can possibly imagine. We want to avoid offending God, not because it will draw upon us the divine wrath in some sort of terrible punishment, but because we do not want to become like ungrateful children who do not recognize all the good that their Father or Mother does for them. The fear of God makes us want to become our best selves, and so honor the One who created and redeemed us. Because we want God's grace and loving presence in our lives, we avoid all that take us away from God. We take to heart Jesus' command to fear no one and nothing that would lead us away from God, and we seek to approach and imitate more closely Jesus Christ, because in him we have become children of God, to the honor of God the Father. May God bless you.   Fr. Karl E. Esker CSsR Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help Brooklyn, NY

Read Online“What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” Matthew 10:27–28When you pray, does God “whisper” to you? Do you sense His presence? Has He convicted your heart about Himself and all that He has revealed? Most likely He has, in His own silent way.God rarely speaks to us in visions or by audibly hearing His voice. Though He has done so, as has been recorded in the lives of some saints, even if He did appear to you in that mystical way, this is not necessarily any better for your salvation and holiness than the ordinary way He usually speaks.For most people, God comes in silent prayer, interior intuitions, and spiritual consolations. For example, one might be listening to a sermon and something jumps out, convicting one's heart or inspiring with a supernatural insight or hope. God's ordinary consoling activity in our lives must be “listened” to and responded to.Listening to the Voice of God means we discern the eternal Truth He communicates to us, such as do this or avoid that, and we respond to Him. This is our conscience at work: “Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths” (Gaudium et Spes #16).In today's Gospel, when Jesus says, “What I say to you in the darkness…” and “what you hear whispered…” refers to God's communication with us in that secret sanctuary of our conscience. Jesus says that His communication is not given only to us but must be spoken “in the light” and proclaimed “on the housetops.” While our faith is personal and intimate, it must also become communal by sharing it with others through our words and actions.Sharing our faith can be difficult. We might fear offending another who is not living the Gospel. In addressing this fear, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” Fear should never deter us from sharing our faith.When we live our faith openly and share it charitably and unhindered, others will react. Some will joyfully receive our shared faith, but others will not. Among good-hearted Catholics, when the faith we share with others is not received well, we often second-guess ourselves. We become sensitive to the negative reaction, which easily leads to worry and fear. Such fear must be overcome with love and holy sorrow if we are to fulfill Jesus' loving command.One way to do so is to regularly align ourselves with God's command rather than the fear inflicted upon us by the evil one. The one who can “destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” ultimately refers to God's just judgment, which we must ponder with the spiritual gift of Fear of the Lord.This holy fear is not a fear of punishment alone but a deep belief in and reverence for God's justice and truth. It is the kind of fear that compels us to remain faithful, seeking to serve God above all else, and courageously and confidently sharing our personal faith with others as the greatest act of love we can offer. A well-formed conscience, guided by the truth of the Gospel, gives us the confidence to speak with clarity and charity. It allows us to discern when and how to proclaim God's truth in a way that draws souls to Him. If we remain open to His voice and are willing to proclaim what He whispers in our hearts, we will become true witnesses to Christ, bringing His light into a world in desperate need of Him. Reflect today on the inner Voice of God, echoing in the depths of your conscience. Do you hear Him and respond to His Voice? If so, then do not be afraid to share your knowledge of God freely and charitably with others. Foster, instead, a holy fear that drives you to greater fidelity to God and the charity of sharing His love with others.Lord of perfect justice, You speak to us, day and night, revealing Your love and Truth to our souls in the depths of our consciences. Please help me to listen and to respond to You so that I can also courageously share Your love with others, without fear. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Andreas Wahra, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSource: Free RSS feed from catholic-daily-reflections.com — Copyright © 2026 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. This content is provided solely for personal, non-commercial use. Redistribution, republication, or commercial use — including use within apps with advertising — is strictly prohibited without written permission.

How can a loving God send people to hell? Explore the tension between divine love and the concept of hell to find clarity.This video addresses the difficult question of how a loving God relates to the reality of hell. It is designed for anyone wrestling with theological doubts or seeking a deeper understanding of divine judgment. We examine common perspectives on this topic to help you reconcile these seemingly contradictory ideas.By engaging with the theology of hell, you will gain a clearer framework for processing this challenging subject. Whether you are questioning your faith or simply curious about Christian teaching, this discussion provides a thoughtful way to approach the nature of God and hell.Subscribe for weekly theology breakdowns and comment below with your own questions on faith.We'll cover:• Why love and judgment are NOT opposites• What Gehenna actually means — and why Jesus used it 12 times• The C.S. Lewis framework from The Great Divorce that changes everything• What hell actually IS according to Jesus (it's not what hellfire preachers say)• How to hold this doctrine with urgency AND humility• What to do if this question is personal for you—because of someone you've lostThis isn't a comfortable episode. But it's an honest one. And by the end, you'll have a framework for hell and judgment that doesn't fit neatly into either the conservative or progressive box.------------------------------------------------------

Today’s Topics: 1) Gospel – Matthew 5:20-26 – Jesus said to His disciples:  “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle Saint Barnabas, pray for us! Bishop Sheen quote of the day 2, 3) Terry speaks on the importance of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and how that adoration is good four our soul 4) Oscar Delgado joins Terry to discuss his new movie: Sacred Heart – His Reign Has No End

Original Post Date: June 13, 2024 === Gospel Matthew 5:20-26 Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” Reflection The Pharisees were noted for following the letter of the law, but their hearts were not where God wanted them to be. What this passage is pointing out, is that we are called to always look deeply into who we are in relationship to those around us. Do we judge them? Do we criticize them? Do we call them stupid or foolish? It may not seem like such an important thing, but when you look at it, what it reveals is that we do what we're told, but we aren't becoming what we're called to be. We are called together to come to an altar and to invite God to enter into us, and to be a source of love and forgiveness. Closing Prayer Father, reveal to us how we treat each other. Make us more sensitive to our comments and our criticisms, so we can be aware of how easy it is to fall into a trap of a kind of righteousness about people who aren't what they're supposed to be. Make us loving, forgiving human beings. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jase, Al, and Zach discuss how envy, entitlement, and political promises to punish success can quietly reshape a culture that already struggles with work, maturity, and personal responsibility. The guys dig into the subtle road from desire to destruction, warning that ruin is often sold as personal freedom long before anyone recognizes it as bondage. Zach gets hilariously roasted by a stranger who had no idea he was insulting “The Blind” to someone who helped make it. In this episode: James 3, verse 6; 2 Chronicles 28; 2 Chronicles 32; Jeremiah 7; Luke 23, verse 43; 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 8–10; 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19–20; Matthew 5, verses 27–30; 2 Corinthians 12, verses 1–4; John 17, verse 3; James 1, verses 2–18; 1 Corinthians 15, verses 20–26; Hebrews 12, verses 26–28; Job 23, verses 8–11; 1 Corinthians 15, verses 42–58; Acts 1, verses 9–11; 1 John 5, verse 21; 2 Thessalonians 3 “Unashamed” Episode 1352 is sponsored by: https://www.wildalaskan.com/UNASHAMED — Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood delivered right to your door. https://myphdweightloss.com — Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "AL" to get 2 weeks free in the program! https://fastgrowingtrees.com — Get 20% your first purchase when using the code UNASHAMED at checkout. https://unashamedgold.com — Get a free 2026 Gold & Silver Guide and a no obligation consultation!  http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 Zach Gets Roasted for “The Blind” 03:52 Yay Italia! 08:48 Gehenna, Justice & Hell 14:37 What's Wrong with Mansions on a Hilltop 21:20 Paradise, Heaven & Being with Jesus 26:16 Laws That Can't Be Broken 33:33 What are Firstfruits? 40:15 Job's Faith When God Feels Hidden 45:35 The Resurrected Body & Victory over Death 50:09 From Idols to Idle Faith — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uncle Si enters his renaissance era with new teeth, new eyes, and a perfectly timed drop-in for a deep dive into the book of James. Jase connects James to the Sermon on the Mount as the guys explore why Jesus traced murder, adultery, and sin all the way back to anger, lust, desire, and the condition of the heart. Si calls James the “action book” and warns that the little things we excuse, from careless words to devaluing others, can grow into something far more serious than we realize. In this episode: Matthew 11, verses 16–19; James 1, verses 13–15; Matthew 5, verses 21–22; James 3, verses 5–6; James 3, verse 9; Genesis 2, verse 24 “Unashamed” Episode 1348 is sponsored by: https://myphdweightloss.com — Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "AL" to get 2 weeks free in the program! https://unashamedgold.com — Get a free 2026 Gold & Silver Guide and a no obligation consultation! https://meetfabric.com/unashamed — Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. https://vanman.shop/unashamed — Get 15% off your first order with code UNASHAMED http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Jase & Cole Both Lose Something 03:15 Uncle Si Enters His Renaissance Era 11:20 Wisdom is Proved by Actions 17:08 How to Live an Anxiety-Free Life 23:05 The Process That Leads to Sin 29:00 What is Gehenna? 35:55 The Tongue, Dehumanization & God's Justice 44:30 Jesus' Warnings About Lust, Adultery & Divorce 48:00 Uncle Si Says the Little Things Matter Most — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do purgatory and hell exist? The Catechism teaches us today about the existence and the meaning of purgatory and hell. We learn that purgatory is a transitional state of purification while hell is the state of permanent separation from God. Fr. Mike reminds us that nobody drifts into heaven because “we cannot be united to God unless we freely choose to love him.” Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 1030-1037. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Matt Slick Live (Live Broadcast of 05/18/2026) is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). Matt answers questions on topics such as: The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues! You can also email questions to Matt using: info@carm.org, Put "Radio Show Question" in the Subject line! Answers will be discussed in a future show. Topics Include: Lazarus, Rich Man, and Paradise/ Hades, Gehenna, Hell/ Eastern Orthodox Debate/ Faith that God Grants/ Can Water Baptism Save?/ Apparitions of Mary and Heresy/ What does it mean to be Spiritual?/ May 18, 2026

Old Testament Sermons / Speaker:Berry Kercheville Becoming “Good for Nothing” Jeremiah 13 Introduction: Illustrations are quite common in prophetical writings and especially in Jeremiah. When God gives these pictures it forces us to more plainly see our own present condition in his sight. Therefore, God gives us a photograph of how we appear to him when we do not live to glorify him. Chapter 13 gives us two vivid illustrations of how God sees Israel and therefore and warning to us. The Loincloth and Jars Filled with Wine, 13:1-14 The story: Jeremiah is commanded to purchase a loincloth, take it to the Euphrates (or Perath, NET, NIV, about three and a half miles from Anathoth), and bury it, then come back and get it. But when he retrieves it, it is ruined, “good for nothing.”  The “loin cloth”— “A short skirt bound tightly around the waist and reaching some way down the thighs.” Linen would the fabric used by the priests (Leviticus 16:4) and likely was worn as an undergarment based on the analogy God used.  The symbol of the loincloth is given in verse 11. Just as the loincloth would cling closely to a man's body so it was God's intention that his people cling closely to him and become “a people, a name, a praise, and a glory” to God. Is this the way you see your relationship with God?  Notice the word “cling.” This is the same as Genesis 2:24—“a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.” God is not a casual partnership, or something we do when it is convenient, or a part time effort. It should be evident in every moment of our lives that we are clinging to him. But they refused to listen and therefore they would become to God like the loin cloth, “good for nothing.” Well, what would you do with a pair of underwear that was all rotten with holes in it? Throw it away!  Look at yourself. You didn't just happen. You personally were created by God. But notice, not just created, but created to cling to God The question for us is quite obvious: Do we cling closely to the Lord or do we just “put him on” as an occasional “outer apparel?”  We should be reminded that everything God has done has been to create “a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.” When we do not dedicate ourselves to that purpose, we are literally good for nothing. No wonder God created Hell. It is like a trash can, a Gehenna garbage dump where what is unusable is cast. Therefore, God is giving us a choice, be a “vessel of honor” or decide to be trash. How did Judah become good for nothing? Pride! Here is where we can get confused. We think pride is simply thinking of ourselves too highly. No, pride has to do with our relationship with God. Verse 10 describes it as “stubbornly following their own heart.” We must read “heart” as our minds. In other words, we do what we want to do. We are like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, seeking and searching whatever our eyes see and desire.  Isn't it interesting that homosexuality is promoted by the word Pride? Without even realizing what they have done, we are called upon to be proud of sexual sins. Isaiah said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” Here's how pride works: Very early in our lives we set a fairly ridged daily life. We get accustomed to it and we like it. We seek and search out things to do that give us some temporary pleasure, things that distract us from our work and fill that empty spot inside of us that we don't like to think about. We begin to think our little worldly idols are the only way to fill emptiness. Our distractions may not always be things that are morally evil, they are just things we like to do. But God is not in the picture. Or maybe a little bit. “Church” can be a good façade to cover up the truth that I just want to live life my way. “Every jar shall be filled with wine” (12-14)  The people's response indicated that they thought Jeremiah was telling them something that was obvious. “Of course every jar will be filled with wine! That's what we have been telling you! We will continue to live in prosperity. Babylon can do nothing to us.”  But Jeremiah explains it is not the wine of joy they will be filled with, God will fill them with the wine of God's wrath. God will dash them against one another and he will show “no pity or spare or have compassion.” They will be destroyed. That is exactly what God later said the Babylonians would do to them (21:7).  Thus God gives us a strong reminder: mercy comes to those who obey God and keep his covenant. In fact, mercy and forgiveness are embedded in the covenant (Jeremiah 31:33-34). There is no mercy outside the covenant!  God's Pain Over Judah's Demise (15-17) Vs. 15-16 God pleads with them—“hear, give ear; be not proud.” God is not saying he will stop the coming judgment. No, it's coming. “Give glory to the Lord your God” are the same words Joshua said to Achan. His death was still certain, and so was Judah's. But they could still have an eternal hope if they would give up their ways. Consequences to our sins remain, but we can still find eternal hope. Vs. 17 God's tears. Ezekiel 33:11, “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” In our weakness and foolishness we may think that our sins are not hurting anyone. Well, that's not true, sin harms everyone around us, but what is especially not considered is that our sin harms God and is painful to God, even to the point of tears. He weeps bitterly for us just as we would for our own children.  The Shocking Consequences of Stubborn Pride (18-27) The problem with those who are prideful is they believe they can escape the consequences. “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11). “Yep! I'm not doing what I ought to do, but everything is going fine! I'm making good money. No worries!”  Then suddenly it happens… 18-19 The king and queen are dethroned. Even the cities of the wilderness are closed up and all Judah is taken into exile. What! That can't be! We were still offering sacrifices. 20-22 “What happened to your beautiful flock? Why are these special allies that you cultivated as friends destroying you?” It happened suddenly, like a woman in labor! But worse, why are we being violated like a woman in a siege? The answer is simple: it is the greatness of your iniquity! When judgment comes, that will always be the answer! 23-27 The inability to change. In spite of God's warning, they cannot change any more than an Ethiopian can change the color of his skin or a leopard his spots. God plainly warns us of the danger of procrastinating a change of lifestyle that is at best mediocre in serving God. The longer we stay in a lifestyle that does not give God our all, the more difficult it is to change.  The people of Judah are a perfect example. It became impossible for them to change! We think in our minds, “Oh that can't be so! I'm going to change at some point, I'm just not quite ready.”  What we don't realize is how deep in a pit our mind is already. We haven't just dug a little hole when we dabble a bit in sinful activities. Patterns and addictions develop in our brains as we practice sin. Sin detaches us from God. Every day we delay pushes us deeper until we do not know how to escape and no longer have the desire in our heart for God. It is what the Lord meant when he repeatedly accused Israel of having a hard heart and a heart of stone or when Paul referred to having a “calloused” mind (Ephesians 4:21). Wife: “I caught my husband watching porn. He was really sorry, but then I caught him again and again. I don't know what to do; he says he's sorry.”  Husband: “I found out my wife has had an affair. She is really ashamed and sorry, and she said it was only once. Should I just forgive her and let it go?”  I'm sure we would all say that if there is true repentance, it would be important to save the marriage. That being said, there is something most people do not think about. Those were not little sins that just happened and we should put it behind us. As Paul said, “…the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” These sins go deep and will be remembered and replayed for years to come.  Conclusion: Now listen again to the words: “This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.” Pride says, “I can quit my sins; I'm not too deep. What I'm doing is not that bad.” God has an entirely different take! Berry Kercheville The post Jeremiah 13: Becoming Good For Nothing appeared first on Woodland Hills Church of Christ.

Be Strong in the Lord Ephesians 6:10-24 by William Klock We've made it all the way to the end of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  For just over five chapters, Paul's been explaining how the church is God's means of taking what Jesus has done in his death and resurrection and turning it into God's new creation.  He's shown us how, in Jesus and the Spirit, he's given us back the vocation that Adam rejected.  We've been restored to our position as stewards of God's presence and God's wisdom and God's glory for the sake of the world.  Even more than that, as Adam was placed in God's garden-temple, through the gift of God's indwelling Spirit, you and I—the church—have now become God's temple.  And as Jesus has been raised from death to go be the new Adam, so in him and in the power of the Spirit, you and I are now called to put off the old, corrupt, lie-based way of being human and to put on the new humanity exemplified by Jesus.  And if we will be faithful to be fruitful and to multiply—whether by having our own children and raising them in the wisdom of the Lord or through our proclamation and living out of the gospel that brings others to the Messiah—Brother and Sisters, the temple will grow and grow and grow, carrying God's presence to the ends of the earth, spreading his wisdom—the way of new creation and the way of truly being human—to the ends of the earth, until God's glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. And having established that this is what the church is and that this is what our mission is, he shifted in Chapters 3-5 to the how of living out this new creation, to the how of putting off the old and putting on the new.  Don't listen to the lies of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Speak the truth and live the truth of God's new creation.  Put aside anger and wrath, and start living out love and grace and patience and mercy with all humility—just like Jesus.  And don't believe the world's lies about sex and money and power.  Be holy as God is holy and trust in his goodness and faithfulness.  In other words, as I said last week, stop trying to write your own story.  You're bad at it.  We all are.  God did not design us with the capacity to write our stories for ourselves (or to be gods, as Genesis put it).  Instead, trust in the God who gave his own son as a sacrifice for our sins, to set us to rights at such a great cost, and live the story he has written for us.  And the world will take note.  Live God's story, and you will challenge the lies of the world.  Live the story in which Jesus is Lord, proclaim that story and seeing that glimpse of new creation, of redemption and renewal, of mercy and grace people around us will believe.  But, too, live the story in which Jesus is Lord and you will challenge the Caesars of this world.  Live the story in which God is good and faithful and generous, and you will challenge the greedy, grasping lies of the world.  And the world, the flesh, and the devil will push back.  Or as Paul puts in Chapter 6, the principalities and powers.  They've lost, but they don't want to admit it.  They don't like to be challenged.  And this is where Paul picks up in Ephesians 6:10 with his final bit of wisdom for the Ephesians and for us.  [This is page 1163 in the pew Bibles.] “What else is there to say?  Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.  Put on the whole armour of God, then you will be able to stand firm against the devil's schemes.  The warfare we're engaged in, you see, is not against flesh and blood. It's against principalities, against the powers that rule the world in this dark age, against the wicked spiritual elements in the heavenly places.” Brothers and Sisters, know who your enemy is.  When things, when people, when systems push back against the gospel.  When we try to bring new creation to the world, when we try to live out the new way of being human we have in Jesus and the Spirit, we will experience opposition.  And it's critical we stand firm and fight back  But Paul stresses here: Know your enemy.  Because fighting the wrong enemy isn't going to win us anything. Paul knew this well.  Consider that he'd been a Pharisee.  The Pharisees were the party that traced its roots back to the Maccabean revolt two hundred years earlier, when the Jews rose up and threw off their pagan Greek overlords.  Paul—like most of his fellow Jews—grew up knowing that the enemies of God's people were the pagans: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greek, the Romans. In a couple of decades it would happen again in the Judean volt of a.d. 70 and then again in the bar Kochba revolt in a.d. 132.  Neither of those revolts ended well for the Jews. And when the Jews revolted, they went into battle with passages like Isaiah 11 in mind: The shoot from the stump of Jesse would come, full of wisdom and justice.  “He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins” (Isaiah 11:4-5)  But they added their spin to the scriptures.  The community at Qumran—the people responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls—the saw it this way: “With your sceptre may you lay waste the earth. With the breath of your lips may you kill the wicked…May justice be the belt of your loins, and loyalty the belt of your hips.  May he make your horns of iron and your hoofs of bronze.  May you gore like a bull…and may you trample the nations like mud…For God has raised you to a sceptre for the rulers before you…all nations shall serve you, and he will make you strong by his holy name, so that you will be like a lion.”[1] You can hear Isaiah in that, but then here the warrior girds himself up for battle, to trample the nations like mud.  He gores the nations like an ox and ravages them like a lion.  The picture begins with Isaiah, but it gets lost along the way.  In Isaiah 11 the Messiah's warfare ends not with a goring ox or a lion tearing flesh, but with the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the goat, the calf and the lion laying down together at peace and one like a little child leading them into a renewed creation where the lion eats straw like an ox. I fear we fall into the same trap.  Jesus said to his disciples: “Don't be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. I will show you who to fear: fear the one who starts by killing and then has the right to throw people into Gehenna. Yes, let me tell you, that's the one to fear! (Luke 12:4-5) Brothers and Sisters, God had always urged his people to stand firm and to put up a fight, but our enemy, as Paul says here isn't flesh and blood.  It's not the people, however wicked they may be.  It's the lies the devil whispers—or sometimes shouts—into our world.  It's been that way from the beginning when Adam and Eve believed the first of his lies.  It's the lie that we can write our own stories better than God can.  It's the lie that security or power is to be found in money or in politics or in sex or in education or in all the other things to which we look that are not God—all the things that use and abuse and manipulate and exploit others for our benefit.  It's the lie that we can fight the gospel battle with bullets or with politics or with violence.  Paul's people talked about principalities and powers—sort of angelic beings whom God had created and appointed to oversee the nations, but who had fallen under the power of the devil's lies.  That's how they thought. I don't know if that's how it really is, but there are powers—political, economic, sexual, intellectual—that perpetuate the devil's lies and keep us in the dark, keep us stomping on each other, keep us at each other's throats, keep us seeing everyone else as the enemy so that we never stop to think that the real problem is the devil and his lies. So Paul reminds us.  The enemy is not flesh and blood.  Yes, other people enforce those systems.  Caesar believed the lie that he was the world's lord.  And his soldiers believed that lie too, when they arrested Christians and threw them to the lions.  But they were not the enemy; the lie was.  It still is.  They needed deliverance from it just like we do.  The enemy isn't Mark Carney or Donald Trump.  The enemy isn't greedy bankers or crooked businessmen or the people who run giant pornography websites.  It's not the abortionist or the therapist pushing gender ideology.  They're flesh and blood.  They bought the lie.  They need a gospel resuce just like we do.  And so Paul warns us, yes, there's a battle, put on the armour of God, and stand firm, but know your enemy.  Take your battle to the devil and the principalities and powers that perpetuate the lies.  Don't shoot their prisoners when what their prisoners need is to know the truth, the wisdom of God.  Brothers and Sisters, to fight them, to take the battle to flesh and blood, is just to fall prey to another lie of the real enemy.  Paul says that weird thing in verse 12, that these wicked spiritual elements are in the heavenly places, but I think his point there is that—as he said back in Chapter 2, we are seated in the heavenly places with the Messiah.  In his death and resurrection, Jesus won the decisive victory and now he's enlisted us, not to just sit in the church and be holy until he returns, but to be the new humanity who takes his new creation to the ends of the earth and, along the way, confronts the lies and the systems and powers that perpetuate them and declares that they have been defeated.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “he must go on reigning until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”  Brother and Sisters, the church is his means to bring that day.  (See, this has turned out to be an Ascension sermon after all!) So, Paul goes on in verse 13, “For this reason, you must take up God's complete armour.  Then, when wickedness grabs its moment, you'll be able to withstand, to do what needs to be done, and still be on your feet when it's over.  So stand firm!”  Now, what is the armour of God?  Notice the echoes of Isaiah 11 here.  “Put the belt of truth around your waist; put on justice as your breastplate; for shoes on your feet, ready for battle, take the good news of peace.  With it all, take the shield of faith; if you've got that you'll be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.” Notice that everything about this picture is defensive except the sword.  Again, the Messiah has already won the decisive victory.  He's won the ground.  Creation once again belongs to him.  Our job is to hold it against the enemy.  And, notice, as Paul has said before and as he says here in verse 10: We stand in God's power and might, not in our own.  We know what this power can do, because it's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and now, as Paul has said over and over, we are “in the risen Messiah” and that makes us strong in the strength of his might.  There's an interesting parallel to this in Romans 4.  There Paul writes that Abraham was “strong in faith”, believing God's promise even though everything around him said not to trust this strange God.  He was strong because he trusted the God who had the power to accomplish what he had promised. Brothers and Sisters, we stand in that same faith, but unlike Abraham we have every reason to believe.  No one knew this God in Abraham's day.  You and I live with the witness of all the generations who have known and experienced this God ever since.  You and I live with the witness of the resurrection of Jesus, the greatest show of God's might in history and the event by which he has inaugurated his new creation.  If Abraham had reason to be strong in faith, we have reason to be even stronger.  So stand firm in the Messiah's battle and put on his armour to guard against the enemy who wants nothing more than to take back the ground he's lost to Jesus. As the Messiah puts on his armour for the battle in Isaiah, so should we.  It shouldn't be surprising that the first thing Paul says to put on is the truth.  All along he's been warning us not to believe the lies that have brought sin and death to the world.  All along he's warned us to be committed to the truth and not to be deceived by the lies around us.  In Isaiah 11:5 the Messiah puts on the belt of justice and faithfulness.  In the Greek “faithfulness” is translated as “truth”. The truth of God's creation and his new creation are the foundation of the gospel.  Isaiah saw the Messiah setting creation to rights, and to do that demands the truth to put an end to the lies.  The gospel proclaims Jesus' victory and the new creation that has come with him out of the tomb, the truth of the goodness of God's original creation and the truth of the goodness that he's now restoring it to.  Our calling now is to stand firm on that foundation and to wrap that truth around us like a belt.  The gospel is not about our feelings or our imaginations or what we think people will like or not like.  The gospel is about truth: God's good creation and Jesus' setting it to rights. But our main piece of defensive equipment is the breastplate—the breastplate of justice—or righteousness in some translations.  The Greek word means both.  Paul takes this image from Isaiah 59:17.  It's not just righteousness as we often think of it as moral goodness.  It's truly justice.  It's God's desire to see this broken world full of pain and tears truly set to rights.  In Isaiah 59 it's the divine warrior who goes out to bring God's justice to the world, but Paul understood that the divine warrior is Jesus the Messiah.  And he didn't go out to bash heads in order to bring justice.  He went in humility to the cross.  He gave his life to free us from sin and to wash away the stain of death, so that he could fill us with his Spirit and make us his temple.  And, in that, Paul's saying we're now called to follow in Jesus' steps to bring God's justice, his righteousness to the world as we live out Jesus' new—renewed—way of being human.  This is why Jesus talked in the Sermon on the Mount, about his people hungering and thirsting for justice.  It's our breastplate.  It's the thing staves off our own temptations to idolatry and greed that would otherwise cause us to bring more pain and tears into the world. And then the shoes of peace.  Another echo of Isaiah that Paul and the Jews knew so well: “How beautiful are the feet of the messenger who announces peace…who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”  Except whereas for people like the old Paul, this had become a hope of violent military victory over the pagans, in Jesus peace has come through his resurrection.  The enemy did his violent worst, and Jesus has trounced him with life.  And now he commissions us to be his ambassadors, running to the world to announce that in the risen Messiah, the king has returned to establish the peace that Israel had so long hoped for and the peace that even us gentiles hope for, knowing that the world is not as it should be.  Put on your gospel shoes! And then the shield of faith.  Paul seems to have come up with this all on his own.  He pictured flaming arrows that would set an ordinary shield on fire, but there were things you could do to prevent that—like stretching water-soaked leather over your shield.  Faith is like that, says Paul.  The Messiah's faith and then our faith that answers in return.  Faith will protect you from the enemy.  Don't let go of it. And then, back to Isaiah 59:17, the helmet of salvation—the helmet of “rescue”.  The divine warrior has won the battle and rescued the captives.  Brothers and Sisters, we've been rescued by Jesus, put that helmet on not only to stand your ground, but as with all these things, when we take up the Messiah's armour, we take up the Messiah's task.  He's rescued creation from the devil and now we're part of the battalion called to keep the devil from taking creation back.  That helmet of salvation reminds us—maybe that's why Paul puts it on our heads—that the Messianic mission is ultimately a rescue mission—to rescue creation and to rescue humanity from the enemies lies. And then there's the one defensive bit of God's armour: the sword of the Spirit, which Paul says is God's word.  The word is the gospel, the good news of Jesus, crucified and risen.  The word that fulfils Isaiah 11:4 where the Messiah smites the earth with the rod of his mouth and slays the wicked with the breath of his lips.  His breath.  In both Hebrew and Greek the word for breath is also the word for spirit.  Brothers and Sisters, Paul knew that when he proclaimed the gospel, God's Spirit went to work: confronting idolatry with the true and living God and sinners with a message of hope.  The battle isn't won with violence.  It's won with the good news of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  But Paul knew, too, that if we're going to stand firm in the Messiah, and if we're going to put on his armour, we'd better be praying, too.  He continues at verse 18: “Pray on every occasion in the Spirit, with every type of prayer and intercession.  You'll need to keep awake and alert for this, with all perseverance and intercession for all God's holy ones—and also for me.  Please pray that God will give me his words to speak when I open my mouth, so that I can make known, loud and clear, the mystery of the gospel.  That, after all, is why I'm a chained-up ambassador.  Pray that I may announce it boldly; that's what I'm duty-bound to do.” The military imagery is still here.  Like a sentry on guard: stay awake and alert.  Pray and persevere.  Don't give up.  The lies will swirl around you like a hurricane, but stand firmly in the truth of God's new creation and pray.  Connect with him in that mysterious and inexplicable gift he's given us to speak with and to be in communion with him.  It's one of the main reasons he's given us his own Spirit.  And here, I think Paul is again thinking of Isaiah 59 and the divine warrior, driven by the Spirit.  “As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my Spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth…from now on and forever” (Isaiah 59:21).  So pray.  Pray, pray, pray and pray that the Spirit will give you—will give us all—the boldness to speak God's word: his truth, his wisdom, his gospel into a world so desperately in need of them.  It doesn't matter if you're chained up for the gospel like Paul.  That's the gospel paradox.  God reveals his strength when we are at our weakest—just as he did at the cross. And then the last few verses of the letter.  Paul wraps things up saying, “It's important that you should know how things are with me, and what I'm up to; so our dear brother Tychicus will tell you about it.  He is a loyal servant in the Lord.  I've sent him to you with this in mind, so that you may know how things are with us, and so that he may encourage your hearts.  Peace be to the whole family, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah.  Grace be with all who love our Lord, Messiah Jesus, with a love that never dies.” Tychicus is making the rounds to let them know what's up with Paul.  Again, Paul's said it several times: he's in prison.  We don't know what else beyond that Tychicus would have told them about Paul, but it's telling that whatever the news is, Paul expects them to be encouraged.  And it doesn't seem that it's news of a soon release.  I expect Paul would have mentioned something like that.  Instead, Paul seems to expect them to be encouraged by his chains.  Again, the opposition he's facing is a sign that the gospel and the Spirit are doing what they're supposed to do, that the gospel is marching on, that (so to speak) Aslan is on the move, and the principalities and powers feel threatened.  And that's good news.  So, knowing his brothers and sisters are standing firm and fighting the gospel fight, he wishes them peace and love with faith and grace—the heart of the gospel, the foundations on which God's new creation is being built. And then that last word.  I'll close with that.  To everyone who loves the Messiah: grace.  Grace with a love that never dies.  The Greek word literally means “immortality”.  Brothers and Sisters, this gracious love will never pass away.  When the battle is finally over, when we have fought the good fight, when we have stood firm and kept the faith, when the church has finally done what she was created to do and expanded God's temple until his presence, his wisdom, his glory have filled the whole earth and Jesus has made a final end of death itself, when we have done what our Lord has called us to do and find—maybe to our own surprise—that we're still standing on our own feet in those shoes of peace, when there are no more lies and Jesus is Lord, then our love for him—which may feel so imperfect and inadequate today—but our love for him that kept us strong through the storm and the battle, will turn out to have been only the beginning of the great gift of love that we will enjoy for ever in God's presence and in his creation set to rights, in that new heaven and earth in which there are no more pain or sorrows or tears or death, only grace and love. Paul began his letter by directing our gaze back before the foundation of the world and now he points forward to day when not only are all God's promises fulfilled, but when he himself sums up all things in heaven and earth himself, the fullness of all in all.  And here in the in-between, in the middle of the story we stand: rescued by love, given a new gospel life in love, equipped with God's word and God's Spirit in love, and filled with God's wisdom that, following Jesus, we will be the new humanity—the firstfruits of his new creation.  Not only for our sake, but for the sake of the whole word over which Jesus the Messiah is already ruling as Lord. Let's pray: O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen. [1] The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, ed. F.G. Martinez and E.J.C Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 109.

Join Southwest Radio Ministries and  Watchman on the Wall. As Lise Cutshaw and Micah Van Huss connect the dots between the English word "hell" and the differing locations that "hell" actually depicts in the Hebrew and Greek. Micah describes the differences between biblical Sheol, Tartarus and Gehenna and who dwells there; hints at Jesus' connection with these underworld locations; and leaves us – mysteriously – with a teaser about angels and demons and their roles in the underworld.

Have you ever felt like the traditional version of Christianity sounds more like an abusive relationship than a message of love? Today, Mike Erre and Tim Stafford tackle a viral critique of the faith and dive deep into what it actually means to pray for God's will to be done on earth. This conversation moves past the idea of God as a cosmic tyrant to rediscover a Jesus who invites us into a better way of being human.In this episode, we explore the tension between our human will and the divine will, moving past the "fire insurance" version of the gospel that many are rightfully rejecting. We discuss why the church often fails by trying to "polish up" Jesus instead of letting his voice stand on its own. We also break down the phrase "on earth as it is in heaven," challenging the common belief that Christianity is just about escaping this world for a disembodied afterlife. Instead, we look at how heaven is invading earth to restore our humanity and the image of God within us. From the historical context of Gehenna to the surprising connection between holiness and the joy of play, this episode is a deep dive into the heart of the Lord's Prayer. We tackle the hard questions about suffering, judgment, and why the truth coming to light is actually the best news possible.Chapters0:00 Intro and the Best Friends Podcast3:45 Reading a Viral Critique of Christianity8:20 Why People are Walking Away from the Church13:10 Stop Trying to Dress Up Jesus18:15 Thy Will Be Done: The Heart of the Prayer23:50 Two Major Misunderstandings of Surrender28:40 Does God Cause Suffering and Cancer?34:15 Heaven is a Status, Not Just a Place39:30 Why Divine Judgment is Actually Good News45:10 The Truth About Hell and Gehenna51:00 Dehumanization vs. the Image of God56:45 Tasting New Creation Through Play and Community1:01:20 Previewing the Exodus and Daily BreadAs always, we encourage and would love discussion as we pursue. Feel free to email in questions to hello@voxpodcast.com, and to engage the conversation on Facebook and Instagram.We're on YouTube (if you're into that kinda thing): VOXOLOGY TV.Our Merch Store! EtsyLearn more about the Voxology PodcastSubscribe on iTunes or SpotifySupport the Voxology Podcast on PatreonThe Voxology Spotify channel can be found here: Voxology RadioFollow us on Instagram: @voxologypodcast and "like" us on FacebookFollow Mike on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikeerreMusic in this episode by Timothy John StaffordInstagram & Twitter: @GoneTimothy

Gehenna isn't on Google Maps and there's no Angel Annihilation for Dummies. To Miriam Feldman, list lover extraordinaire, this is an irritating oversight.It's fine. She's got this mission under control. Sure, her instructions are vague, and her team is trigger-happy, but she's got plenty of motivation to carry them to victory.Vengeance counts, right?Plus, if ridding the world of celestial menaces doesn't top up Miri's karmic bank, then stopping a vampire contagion will definitely earn her some good will.Unless it gets her killed. That's a distinct possibility.One which she refuses to worry about since she's got her shiny new relationship with a sexy wolf shifter to enjoy. And honestly, his family dysfunction is making hers look pretty damn insignificant.How's that for positive thinking? She's going to nail this.Happily-ever-after, here she comes.Ace of Shades, the thrilling finale, features a later in life romance, a heart-pounding mystery, and a magical midlife adventure.Read the complete series now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Is it a sin to marry outside your faith?” This question opens a discussion on the nuances of faith and relationships, including interpretations of 2 Corinthians and the concept of being unequally yoked. Other topics addressed include the implications of Matthew 7:6 on sharing scripture, the nature of particular judgment, and the meaning of being poor in spirit. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 04:45 – When discussing 2 Corinthians where Paul mentions not being unequally yoked, my protestant friend argued is it a sin to marry outside your own faith. I argue that Paul was giving his own opinion and not giving a commandment from God. Is this a proper response? 13:33 – Matthew 7:6 says don't throw pearls to swine. Would giving bibles to the homeless be throwing pearls to swine? 18:30 – How would I prove biblically that there is a particular judgement and not a resting in Christ until the final judgement? Do people go to Hades now or do they go to Gehenna? 37:05 – How do Catholics combat free grace theology using scripture? 45:38 – In John 21:15 Jesus says to Peter, “do you love me more than these?” Who are “these”? 48:30 – At the end of Acts, Paul was told he didn't do anything wrong. Why then was Paul beheaded? 53:01 – What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

Is hell real or have we completely misunderstood what Jesus actually taught? This episode cuts through the noise, exposes cultural myths, and tackles the question no one wants to answer: How can a loving God send people to hell?   In this episode, you'll learn: • What Jesus really taught about hell and eternity • The difference between Hades, Gehenna, and final judgment • Why purgatory and universalism don't align with Scripture • How to respond to “a loving God wouldn't send people to hell” • What happens to people who never hear the gospel • Why understanding hell fuels urgency for evangelism   Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free.  

Hope for Right Now Podcast–Desert Bloom, A Lenten Journey: Love Hurts While Walking with Purpose Founder Lisa takes time to write our next women's Bible study, Laura Phelps welcomes guest Caitlin Bean to the Hope for Right Now podcast for a seven-week series: Desert Bloom, A Lenten Journey. Lent is a time of sacrifice, preparation, and spiritual waiting—a time to prepare our hearts for Easter through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. For many of us, it has become about exterior performance, a “holy checklist” we begin on Ash Wednesday and struggle to sustain for 40 days. And preparation? Who has time for that? We are exhausted—after all, it was just Christmas! If this is how your heart feels at the start of Lent, this series is for you—offering practical encouragement, Scripture reflections, and simple ways to experience a more meaningful, peace-filled Lent. In today's episode, Laura and Caitlin talk about waiting in dormancy and why God's timing is perfect, despite circumstances screaming the opposite. Open your Heart to our key Scripture. John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Open your Bible to other Scriptures referenced in this episode. Romans 5:8: But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Mark 9:43–48: If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” 1 Corinthians 10:31: So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Isaiah 60:22: I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it. Deuteronomy 32:4: The Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are justice. Galatians 6:9: Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. Romans 4:20–21: No distrust made him waver concerning the promises of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Genesis 37:29: When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. Job 1:20: Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground and worshiped. Invite Him in with this episode's questions for reflection. Where does dormancy find you today? Are you fighting against the darkness, trying to busy yourself to keep the frustration of slow progress at bay? Or are you learning to lean into it, yielding to the season of the soul? Show mentions. For a limited time, get 15% off our Easter gift collection by using the code EASTER15. Hop on over to our shop. Sale ends March 19, 2026. Nazareth, “Love Hurts” Caitlin Bean and Laura Phelps, Desert Bloom: Discovering Unexpected Joy in the Wilderness Laura Douglass, @lauramdoug Matthew R. Please, The Definitive Guide to Fasting and Abstinence Dan and Stephanie Burke, Avila Institute Alli Koscal, Substack, “Finding Havens” Bible Hub, Topical Encyclopedia Let's stay connected. Don't miss an episode. Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform.  Want to keep the conversation going? Join our private Facebook community. Stay in the know. Connect with us today.  We are committed to creating content that is free and easily accessible to every woman—especially the one looking for answers but unsure of where to go. If you've enjoyed this podcast, prayerfully consider making a donation to support it and other WWP outreach programs that bring women closer to Christ. Learn more about WWP on our website. Our shop. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

In this Bible study, we explore the powerful final chapter of Isaiah and the transition into the book of Jeremiah. Isaiah 66 introduces one of the most sobering images in Scripture: "where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." This Hebrew idiom, later used by Jesus in the New Testament, points to the reality of eternal judgment and the seriousness of rejecting God. The imagery comes from the Valley of Gehenna outside Jerusalem, a place associated with continual burning and decay. Jesus referenced this same imagery in Mark 9 to warn about the eternal consequences of sin and the urgency of removing anything that keeps us from faith in Him. From there, the study moves into Jeremiah 2:13 and the powerful metaphor of "broken cisterns." God describes Israel abandoning Him, the fountain of living water, and digging their own broken reservoirs that cannot hold water. This vivid picture illustrates humanity's tendency to seek life, fulfillment, and security in things other than God. Throughout the teaching, we examine how these ancient warnings still apply today. People continue to build modern "cisterns" in money, power, relationships, pleasure, and self-reliance, yet only Christ offers the true living water that satisfies the soul. Jesus later stands in the temple and declares, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink." The invitation remains the same today: stop trusting in broken cisterns and come to the source of living water. Topics covered in this study: • Isaiah 66 and the imagery of the undying worm • Jesus' teaching on Gehenna and eternal judgment • The doctrine of hell and God's justice • Jeremiah's warning about broken cisterns • Idolatry an

Today’s Topics: Joshua Charles joins Terry for Friday with the Fathers 1) Gospel –Matthew 5:20-26 – Jesus said to his disciples:  “I tell you,  unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa,  will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” Memorial of Saint Gregory of Narek, Abbot and Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory, pray for us! Bishop Sheen quote of the day 2, 3, 4) In Part 2, Terry and Joshua discuss Early Father of the Church: Saint Pope Leo the Great

Read OnlineJesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20Imagine a wife asked her husband to go to the supermarket and pick up a pound of potatoes. Being literal, he went to the store, found a pound of potatoes, picked them up, set them back down, and returned home. When his wife asks where the potatoes are, he explains that they're still at the store. Confused, she asks why he didn't bring them home, and he responds, “You only asked me to ‘pick them up.'”While this example might be humorous, it illustrates an essential truth about following instructions. The husband might have technically fulfilled the request but missed the deeper meaning. In much the same way, the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' time scrupulously followed the letter of God's Law but often failed to grasp the spirit behind it.Jesus addresses this issue directly in today's Gospel. The Law, as given by God through Moses, was summed up in the Ten Commandments. But Jesus came to reveal the deeper meaning behind those commands. For example, He explains the true meaning of the commandment, “You shall not kill.”On the surface, one might think that as long as you don't physically murder someone, you are free from guilt. But Jesus shows that this commandment goes far beyond the act of murder. He reveals that the commandment also forbids less serious internal and external sins.Jesus identifies three levels of sin related to this commandment. First is anger. Anger is an interior disposition; of the three sins, it is the least severe. It begins with a judgmental thought or condemnation and often results in feelings of anger. Though feelings are not sinful, allowing anger to take root due to rash judgment or contempt is a sin, even if no further action is taken. Jesus warns that harboring anger makes a person “liable to judgment.”The second level of sin is verbal, specifically calling someone Raqa. This Aramaic term is a derogatory insult, meaning someone is empty-headed or worthless. Such an insult externalizes anger and reveals a more profound disdain for the person and a failure to recognize the person's worth in God's eyes. Speaking this way to someone shows a lack of respect for his or her dignity as a child of God. Jesus warns that those who commit this sin will be “answerable to the Sanhedrin.” In other words, not only will God hold them accountable, but they may also need fraternal correction from family, friends, or the Church if they fail to repent.The most serious offense Jesus mentions is calling someone, “You fool!” In biblical terms, calling someone a fool is more than just an insult; it is a condemnation of the person's character. In Scripture, a fool is someone who rejects God and lives in moral corruption, as in Psalm 14:1, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” To call someone a fool, therefore, is to cast judgment on the person's soul, associating that individual with someone who is cut off from God's grace. Jesus is stern in His warning: those who condemn others this way will be “liable to fiery Gehenna.”Reflect today on Jesus' teaching about the deeper meaning of this and other commandments. Lent is a time of turning away from sin and returning to God. If you struggle with anger, examine its roots. If rash judgment is at the heart of it, seek God's mercy and repent to find peace. If you've hurt others with critical or condemning words, especially if you've judged their moral character, confess this grave sin and remember that God alone is the Judge. Strive to fulfill not only the letter of God's Law but also its spirit, and your life will bear abundant fruit.My meek and humble Lord, though You are merciful, You are also just. I turn to Your mercy today, seeking forgiveness and grace to overcome the sin of anger and all that comes with it. Free me from judgmental thoughts, and help me love others with Your merciful Heart. Jesus, I trust in You.Image via Adobe StockSource: Free RSS feed from catholic-daily-reflections.com — Copyright © 2026 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. This content is provided solely for personal, non-commercial use. Redistribution, republication, or commercial use — including use within apps with advertising — is strictly prohibited without written permission.

Renue Healthcare https://Renue.Healthcare/ToddYour journey to a better life starts at Renue Healthcare. Visit https://Renue.Healthcare/Todd Bulwark Capital https://KnowYourRiskPodcast.comBe confident in your portfolio with Bulwark! Schedule your free Know Your Risk Portfolio review. Go to KnowYourRiskPodcast.com today. Alan's Soaps https://www.AlansArtisanSoaps.comUse coupon code TODD to save an additional 10% off the bundle price.Bonefrog https://BonefrogCoffee.com/ToddThe new GOLDEN AGE is here!  Use code TODD at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase and 15% on subscriptions.LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE at:The Todd Herman Show - Podcast - Apple PodcastsThe Todd Herman Show | Podcast on SpotifyWATCH and SUBSCRIBE at: Todd Herman - The Todd Herman Show - YouTubeNick Fuentes's Followers Have 330 Trillion Reasons to be Angry // When Your Morality Is Shaped Like Snot // Hell is PermanentEpisode links:‘Sioux Falls Man' Is Arrested, and There's Something Weird About the News CoverageMy biggest regret in life is that Trump will not be alive to witness our full takeover of AmericaOMG. Somali daycare manager speaks to the media after his “business” was allegedly broken into, claims student enrollment and employee documentation was stolen. You cannot make this up.Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison admits the Somalians were imported to vote Democrat: He says they even go out to ballot harvest for Democrats and the Somalians are used in multiple states to swing elections for DemocratsDemocrat Chris Murphy - who opposed the successful raid to capture Maduro - gets confronted by CNN for previously calling for him to be outed. CNN: "In 2019, you wrote an oped and you called for Maduro to be gone..."2020. Chuck Schumer criticizes Trump for not bringing an end to the Maduro regime. Schumer: "The President brags about his Venezuela policy? Give us a break. He hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime."What Does God's Word Say?Matthew 25:41, 46 (Jesus' words in the sheep-and-goats judgment):"Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels... And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."2 Thessalonians 1:9 (Paul on the fate of those who do not obey the gospel):"They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."Mark 9:43-48 (Jesus on Gehenna):"It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell [Gehenna], to the unquenchable fire... where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."Revelation 14:9-11 (spoken by a third angel as part of a series of angelic proclamations):"If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name."