Independence Day After Hours

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.

So, sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours, and we are glad to have you with us this week, and we are talking about a topic that's pretty, what is it, current? Yeah. Like a current topic. Yeah, relevant. That's another word for it. Yeah. And so, what are we talking about today, Andy?

I thought that was David, but... No, David's not current or relevant. Yeah, that was like the joy ride right there. You've been holding that in for a while, I hear. No, you gave us a definition last time. But our topic is on Independence Day or the 4th of July. I guess, what is it, July 1st? Well, yeah. Independence Day is the 4th every year.

No, no, that's not... I know that. No, today's the 8th. Okay, yeah, today's the 1st. Yeah. So, we're just celebrating that by just bringing it to the remembrance of both from a natural standpoint, our natural freedom that we got when our country broke away from England and declared their independence, their freedom, and how it relates to our spiritual freedom.

I think it's just... The struggle is somewhat similar as we discussed in the previous show, and we'll do again, but just to be coming from independent from these tyrannical forces, whether it's a natural person like King George or whether it's Satan himself, that desire within us to have freedom, both from a natural side and a spiritual side is born within us. And it was our independence came at a cost, and we've talked about that. We talked about that in Memorial Day show. But just the fondness that I have for that, just that realization that we're free, that we're free and that there was a cost paid for that, but that we truly can be independent of Satan and dependent on God, whether it's from a natural or spiritual standpoint. Yeah, I'm glad we don't have a lot of English listeners at this point, because you may have started World War III by comparing their king to Satan, but that's okay.

You say tomato, I say tomato, you know, whatever. I didn't exactly do that. They do have a new king now. They do have a new king, yeah. Things have changed. The queen was a little better than the king, I think. King Chuck?

No, Charles. But at the time, there was that idea of really the liberty that we desired. I really believe that God, there's, I heard the quote that God was, I'm sorry, I'm having a problem. Israel was the first country that God called to be his own. And America was the first country that, I mean, he chose them. It was the first country that really chose God. I don't know if God's hand was working all that, but we set up all our laws, everything that we did was so that we can have freedom to worship and serve him. And he called the Israelites out first, but we kind of came over here and said, okay, we're gonna found our nation on God.

I know he was all up in it, but just something to think about. Well, thank you. Well, Kenny, you actually have the first clip of this show. If you'd like to tell us a little bit about your clip. Yes, I picked out a song that... Really? Yeah. Me and the musician, I usually lean towards them more than me. Shocker, Kenny.

Shocker. Y'all getting used to it. Anyway, but this song, I think puts kind of the finger on what they went for for us. Because they said, if we don't stand together, we're gonna hang independently. And that's the same way, really, in the church we need to be. If we don't stand together and put our shields together and our hearts together, and like, y'all guys work hard to have a band of brothers, people that can kind of see different points and bring them into you. And that's one thing I loved about this show is the different points that come in and perspectives that cause when we're together, like the 300 was in the early show, when we put our shields together, we can stand up against a much mightier force, right?

Because the force that's in behind us, you know, but I'll let you play this clip because it kind of reflects on our times right now. Okay. Okay.

Here we go. When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see. No, I won't be afraid. Oh, I won't be afraid. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.

A good song here, Kenny. Well, thank you. Is this the truth? Yeah. We've got to bond together.

If we don't have each other's backs, what do we have? That's a good point. Yeah.

That's a very good point. Rodney, you want to add something? No.

I don't have one. You grab the microphone and then you look right at me. I got a comment that I should not make. It is after hours, but yeah, you probably, but we'll go with the Holy Spirit on that one. I'll have to use a little discretion that I don't usually use. Okay. That's good. Well, thank you.

That's good. So, we do have another clip I'll play here in a minute, but thank you. Now, stand by me. Now, when you were talking about how strong we are, I was thinking about where it talks about the rope of three strands and how strong it is, right?

Right. And so, what are our three strands when you have something standing by you? Obviously, one of those has to be God. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, kind of all together. We'll treat them as one, right?

But what's the third cord? Right? You got you, you got God. Yes. Those people that God puts around you, right? The church.

The church. Other believers. Yeah. Allies. The believers. Yeah.

The real church, not what we sometimes call the church, but fellow believers. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, thank you. Any other thoughts before I get into the next clip?

Anyone want to add anything? Bueller? Bueller? Okay.

The fight for independence. Yeah. You know, it goes on day by day for all of us.

It does. Until we realize that, like Jesus said, take up your cross daily and follow me. He'll lead us through these battles. Do we let him? That's my battle every morning.

Am I really taking it up for him or taking it up for me? Because that's my real battleground. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. It is definitely. I can't find that freedom in the Spirit until I really submit to the Spirit to lead me. Yeah.

Freedom comes from letting go. Yes. Yes.

You surrender to win, you know. The flesh don't understand that, the people in the flesh, but the Spirit understands that. Right. Then we get now but then we get now his way to really develop that patience, develop that love, true fruits that satisfy our hearts. Thank you.

Danny, you want to add something? Yeah. I think, you know, we've talked about being born into this battle and this war, but I think the phrase that comes out of the core desires talk is we're born into a love story set in the midst of war. I think as I said, and I think that's important in what we're talking about because, you know, God does love us and he hadn't just thrown us to the wolves, so to speak. You know, it is him pursuing us in the midst of battles and wounds and that kind of thing.

And so he, we are his bride and it's kind of hard to picture this group of guys as a bride, but I'm just saying, you know, yeah, that takes faith like beyond measure right there. David, why'd you get the uncomfortable smile on your face when he said that? Just the picture of you in a dress.

I was wondering if it was going to be orange like your shirt or, you know. You know, I hear you say that so often it's wearing out. I'm trying to figure out why he's picturing that. I don't understand that. It's a common conversation we have to have. I'm in lack of sleep. Yeah, we'll call it that. He is sitting in Robby's chair.

He is sitting in Robby's chair. That went south quick. It did go south. You know, that's my fault probably. Probably not. I started that. Well, you probably did. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we'll go with that one. All right, so we'll go ahead and go to this next clip. This is actually my clip and it's from the movie Independence Day. And so this is a speech that the president's giving and if you haven't seen Independence Day, it's like, I don't know, 20-some years old now, so I think you've probably seen it and it probably plays every 4th of July, I'm guessing.

24 hours, I think. Yeah, if you haven't seen it, you got a chance in three days. But yeah, so what's happening is the... It's like the Christmas story around Christmas. It is, yeah. On repeat.

Probably on TBS 24 hours if you said, David. But no, the movie is about the earth is being attacked by aliens and so the earth has to band together to fight against them because it's an overwhelming enemy that they're up against. So bless you. Individually, they're not going to be able to make it, but collectively, they have to work together. So let's go ahead and listen to what the president has to say and we'll come back and talk about it.

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind, that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest.

Perhaps fate that today is the 4th of July. And you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday. But as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, we celebrate our independence day.

Today, we celebrate our independence day. Well, that should fire you up a little bit, right? Yeah. Yeah, it sounded pretty convincing, Dave. It sounded convincing, David.

A couple things about that clip that really kind of hit me. You know, first of all, you know, when I look around Christianity, there's more segregation than there is unity. You know, and as long as the enemy is still able to do that, our chances of standing together to fight against a common enemy doesn't work. You know, Lincoln once said, a house divided shall not stand. Right? Well, you know, the church divided won't stand either. And the enemy's been really good at dividing the church.

Right? And it's not just dividing us from non-Christians, but from each other. You know, we want to argue about the color of the carpet, or the, you know, the pews, or whether to not have pews, or what type of music, or all the things that at the end of the day, does it really even matter when we're facing annihilation?

We're facing an enemy that Jesus very clearly says comes to seek, kill, and destroy. Right? But I live my life most days like that's an afterthought. You know, and that's what this clip really meant to me was a reminder of, you know, I am facing that battle. Yeah, I'm in a love story and I'm very grateful I'm in a love story, but there's a lot of war going on around it. Right?

And I need to rise up and fight better, you know, for the people in my life, for my own heart, you know, to try to win that battle one step at a time and look more towards unity than diversity, you know, amongst other people. That's what I do love about this group. We all come from different church denominations, church backgrounds, things like that. You know, we don't have a lot of common things from the standpoint when you look at Christian pedigree, you know, we're not from the same thing.

Right? I mean, we're kind of like mutts. Yeah, but we are, but God uses this group to really help each other first and foremost. And from that love from one another, that support from one another, hopefully help others, right? Kind of find their way along just because we're just a little bit, maybe further ahead than some saying, Hey, come on, we can, we can do this. And there's people ahead of us saying, Hey, come on, we can do this.

Right? That's what Christianity is supposed to look like. You know, I, I think I'm probably, if you've seen the movie, I'm probably more of the Randy Quaid character. I was going to say cousin Eddie was the hero. He was a hero. You know, that life would say, you know what, you're not, you're maybe not got the, the, the training, the, you know, the pedigree.

Again, I hate to use that term, but to, to, to do this, but God doesn't look at those things. He looks at the heart and he says, no, you're my warrior. And I have you for this specific battle. And you were uniquely made for this battle. Right. And at the end of the day, you're the only one that can step up and fight that battle with the help of your friends and your family and those other people, not on your own, but first and foremost with God and with the people I put in your life to support you.

So I'm off of my soapbox and on a tirade there, but anything you guys want to add to what we're just talking about? No, I just, right there was for such a time as this. Yeah. Right. You know, that same thing, it, it, there's a time he put us here for this reason, the next generation, every generation pushed down the next generation. Right. Because, Oh, they're not like us. And they're just this or just that. And there's a lot of truth that comes in that because stereotypes are made from observation of what's going on, but yet God is putting his people there for that reason, for that time. And we should be looking for what we are to do and say, okay, God, you've got the next generation.

And not to be so worried all the time about every little petty thing. Yeah. I agree. Let's see.

I think Rodney touched on a little bit earlier. It's just understanding that spiritual warfare that's going on around us. You know, I I've been in church pretty much all my life, walked with God. And until I came into this ministry, I'd never heard that I've made agreements with Satan. You know, it's just something that I've, I've done, you know, and, and, you know, and when you look at it from that aspect, it really adds new light to it.

You know, what am I doing here? But it's also, there's so many, you know, Christians professing Christians that don't really acknowledge that we have a true enemy. I mean, many times you hear them say, oh, this happened because of God. You know, but they don't recognize that we're fighting a battle. You know, that the enemy is looking to, you know, kill and devour. You know, I mean, it's, it's crazy. Once we recognize that we have the enemy, what he's doing in our life, then it gives us an opportunity through Christ to really fight that battle the way Christ wants us to. Yeah.

A couple of the greatest tools the enemy uses is first and foremost, which we talked about on here a lot is I'm not here. You know, it's just you and God. But one of the worst things he's done is convinced a lot of Christians out there that everything that happens, God says, I want it to happen.

Right? Now God can use everything and scripture does say that, right? It can use everything to his glory when we let him do that. But it doesn't mean that he ordained everything to happen that happens, right? When you look at the choice of free will, right? And then people's free will impacts other people.

Right? And so whatever, what I choose to do with my free will impacts my kids greatly. It impacts my coworkers.

It impacts you guys. Right? When what we do with what we're given impacts others. And when we always think that that's, you know, God must have meant that to happen or this wouldn't have happened. Well, that's a really faulty theology from the standpoint of, you know, I think there's lots of times God's heart is breaking and he's, you know, heartbroken over, you know, what his kids are going through.

Right? And if we think otherwise, man, how cruel of a God would that be? You know, when, when a child dies or there's a tragedy or whatever may happen, you know, you, you look at that and go, well, you know, God's heart's breaking in that as well.

Yeah. Jesus prayed a lot for our unity. And, you know, we talked about unity a few minutes ago and that, you know, Lord, let them be one as we are one, because I mean, obviously if it wasn't a problem, he wouldn't have prayed for it.

So, and, and the enemy does kill, steal, and destroy, and he divides. And I think the, if I've got my, I know Robby's going to cringe, but in the Greek, you know, I know this is a Hebrew show, but Oh, he doesn't, he doesn't touch a Greek. You're okay. I'm okay.

I'm good. Well, he does with salad every Tuesday. Yeah.

Every single Tuesday. The word, the word, uh, for division is Diablos, which means devil. So where you see division, you can smell a devil. Yeah. You know, part of my battle growing up as a kid, you know, when I first accepted Christ, um, I was probably one of those kids that did it because it was afraid, you know, I was doing it because I was fearful of, I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to, you know, end up in, you know, fire and brimstone kind of thing more than I was pulled to God. Yeah. It was, it was very much a fire and brimstone church that I grew up in and, you know, and looking back and I just was kind of having that revelation. We can talk about it earlier.

Rodney was, that's probably more of my story was that was the case. And then what was really the worst thing about that was, is my, my church never talked about spiritual warfare. It never did.

I didn't know it existed. And so first time I got hit with it. And when you grow up with a, you know, philosophy of it's just God and I on the stage and God's not going to mess up, it's just like, wow, you thought you're a Christian, but look how horrible you really are.

And he just would pile on and pile on. And, and honestly that went on for, for years until I read Wild at Heart. And we're talking from teenager to 2002, roughly, you know, and I was born in 63. So that was much longer than you've been around. Yeah. And so, yeah, that was really tough. And so growing up, not knowing about this battle was out there, but feeling beat up by it every day, you know, and just feeling, well, that's just me.

It's just me messing up yet again, you know, or not knowing about agreements or not knowing about things. And I'm not downplaying churches. Churches play a vital role and most, most churches, you know, kind of stay in a theme, right? They're a grace oriented church or they're this oriented church.

And, you know, they kind of stick with the flavor of, you know, this one kind of area, right? Or we're going to love others well, you know, one of the things you're, as you were talking, Danny, Jesus, you know, talked a lot about unity, but the one command he gave us when he left was love one another. Yeah.

Right. He could have told us lots of things, but I think he knew that that's what we're going to struggle with the most, you know, is truly loving one another, Christian, non-Christian, whatever that looks like. I mean, it's almost taboo, like, as you're talking about with the spiritual warfare, talking in churches and stuff. I know I grew up Lutheran and I can tell you, I mean, of course, you know, the Bible verses read about the armor and all that, but I mean, we never really talked about, I mean, some of the stuff I just learned about bootcamp with you guys, like, you know, yeah, there's a target band on my bag.

Yeah, those arrows hurt and they're pretty low sometimes and it's in spots you don't really want to hit. Could anybody relate to onward Christian soldiers marching us toward? No.

No, not really. I sang it in vacation Bible school. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I heard you're singing, I don't know. I didn't say sing it well, I said I sang it. Make a joyful noise. It wasn't joyful.

It was a noise. But going back to your point about the larger story, you know, it says in Galatians 4, 8, 9, formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more? And that's one of the things we have to remember about our independence is that we need to maintain that independence. The enemy would love to come back and take that from us. That was the story in the revolution is that they wanted to pull anyone that was on the Patriots. I mean, you see it in the movie, The Patriot. They go after the people there and try to scare them back into, no, no, we don't want this.

It's not worth fighting for. And the enemy would love to get us bound back up in the same place that he did. And I love that scripture because it pretty much spells it out there. Pete Boulay Yeah. The enemy tends to fall into the same type of things when he's dealing with individuals.

And we've talked about on the show in the past, but the first one is, I'm not here. And so he likes to play the absentee role. He likes to do that well. And when he can't get away with that anymore, then he slips into intimidation.

I'm going to overwhelm you until you can't take it anymore. And then eventually he'll get into negotiation. If you just leave me alone, I'll leave you alone kind of thing. And he's a liar. Yeah.

He doesn't mean any of that, you know? And so as soon as we start taking the bait, we're already done again. And, you know, as you were talking, Andy, you know, we face, you know, there's a lot against us. You know, you have the world, the enemy, and the old self, right?

The flesh. And those are hard to keep killed off. You know, I mean, you know, keep away in your life to keep them at arm's length anyway. It's hard to do.

And there's so many times I honestly feel like the characters cipher in The Matrix. The other one says, you know, I know the steak isn't real, but it tastes real. And I'm going to eat it right now, you know? And I don't like being like that. But there is a pull sometimes to say, you know what? I'm just tired of fighting this fight. I'm just wore out. You know, I need a break. I need some time.

And whatever that looks like, I don't care. And most of the time, honestly, it's stepping away from God. Right? The one thing that you need, the one anchor you need is what he somehow convinces you to step away from. You know, and you don't realize you're just jumping right out of the pan and into the fire. We've talked about false competitors here, those things that bring you relief instead of restoration, which would be God. And a lot of times those are the things that we tend to go to. To me, those are the very enslaving things, the things that you become dependent on instead of it being dependent on God. And they're really placeholders.

They're fillers. They're something that our flesh is attracted to that's going to displace God. And, you know, that's what we're talking about here is just trying to be free from that continually. Being mindful of it and understanding where we're at is half the battle. Because a lot of us, we walked around ignorant to what was really going on. And at least you're aware of it now.

Now I find myself catching myself a lot more of being tempted back into those things. But it's still, like you said, it's a battle every day. And the enemy's not stupid. He knows how to not make a stake look like a stake. It's like shrouded in, you know, there's deception there that makes it a little bit more difficult to see what's going on. Yeah. I promise if you look at your life, there's themes. Yeah.

The way the enemy has attacked you. Now he may disguise it for a little while, but when you keep looking at it closely, it'll still come back. You know, the things that he's always called you, he's still calling you. He may just use a different word, but it has the same meaning. Is that a synonym?

I think that's the right thing, right? I'm looking around the wrong room here. I wish Jim was here.

I was about to say, I'm not Jim. Yeah, yeah. Right. Okay. Andy, I think that's why it's important.

I need to get a thesaurus, Andy. That's right. Have a support system. You know, not only, I mean, you're not doing it by yourself, you're doing it with God, but then you have your church or, you know, your band of brothers to really kind of pull you back. Fellow warriors that have been in similar battles can say, Hey, I've seen this before. And then, you know, that that's applicable to a battlefield, the same kind of thing. You know, I've seen that battle. I was there.

I mean, it was, I was there. That was what I faced a month ago. This is how you handle it. So, yeah. You know, and with our culture being very much a youth driven culture, you know, we tend to try to throw away the people that have the best advice.

You know, the sages that are out there, we discount them or we, you know, kind of don't really lean into them the way we need to. And that's, what's been great about this whole group has been able to lean into people at one point that was much older than me. And as I've been in this group longer, I'm becoming more of one of the older ones. Now you're like the older one.

That's right. An older one, not the oldest one. I didn't say oldest one. I said close to oldest one. Well, now I'm in the middle, upper middle, but still middle.

We're about to see a revolution going on right here. But it's important to have your friends check you. I mean, you just called me what?

Was it two weeks ago and said, Hey man, I'm just checking on you. I want to make sure you didn't check out. I mean, that's important to have because the enemy's going to steal that from you and be like, Hey, nobody really cares about you, man. Don't. Yeah. They may say you're your friends, but you know, you're, you're at a spot that you have this all together. So it's a good thing you're here tonight or it's going to drive your house.

Anyway, I'm just kidding. Guys. Thanks for listening to us this week. And we're going to talk more next week. We're going to talk on the topic of what are you doing this summer to restore your heart. And so we'll talk with you next week, go to masculine journey.org to register for the bootcamp. This is the truth network.