The Truth That Shatters Anxiety: God Never Changes

Anxiety abounds. Is this a new epidemic? Or is it a part of the human experience? How must the Christian cope? We will talk about it.

I'm seeing the smartest, most prepared kids. and they're afraid to run their own experiments. They tell me they're getting ready, they're working on their skills, they're not yet up to it, and they constantly report to me about their mental health. how they're feeling today. They can't just take a chance and go with it.

Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Pastor Josh Schwartz and Ken Michael. Brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries, the ministry founded by Jan Markell. In our program, Pastor Josh and Ken talk to Pastor Johnny Artavanus, pastor of Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee, in this chaotic and stressful world in which we live. What must the follower of Jesus do to combat the evils and anxieties that are ever present? In the extended version, Pastor Josh and Ken continue the conversation with Pastor Johnny.

You won't want to miss it. If you are listening on radio, you can find the extended version ad-free on our website, olivetreeviews.org, or on our YouTube and Rumble channels. There are a lot of people that are struggling. There are people struggling before, but a lot more people are struggling now with this issue of anxiety, both in the church and outside the church. And sometimes we could say some things in the Christian community that are so unhelpful to people that are dealing with anxiety.

This is a continually rising issue in our culture. How many of the Gen Zers are struggling with anxiety? Help them out biblically. Why do we feel guilty if God has forgiven our sins? The truth of the matter is, if you're forgiven and you're genuinely converted, you feel worse about your sins than a non-believer does.

Yeah. Because now you have a new nature.

Now, the Lord has done a work in your life of converting you. You're not just justified, that is, declared righteousness and covered. Forensically, with the righteousness of Christ, but the Spirit of God has taken up residence in your heart. Your sensitivity to sin is more heightened than it's ever been in your entire life. Non-believers feel guilt and fear and anxiety.

That they don't feel the full weight of the reality of sin. It's not that we need to push anxiety away, pray it away, or prescribe it away, and then we can get our act together enough to have a relationship with God. It's actually through anxiety, not away from it or around it, but actually through anxiety. That is where anxiety is actually the opportunity for spiritual growth. This is Understanding the Times.

I'm Ken Michael, along with my co-host, Pastor Josh Schwartz.

Well, there's no doubt with everything going on in the country and around the world. People are afraid, it's uncertain what's going on, and they're downright anxious, especially young people. We're seeing online all of the apps that people are watching, especially young ladies. They're extremely anxious, and they're going to social media to find the answers.

Well, today we're going to talk with our guest, who's the senior pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also has a book out called Consider the Lilies. We'd like to welcome to the program for the first time Pastor Johnny Artavanis. Johnny, welcome to the program. Hey, thanks for having me.

I'm a blessing to be here.

So we're in the new year, and we know that oftentimes through the holidays and into a new year, there's people that are full of anxiety. And I couldn't think of a better person to bring on to help cope with anxiety and work through it. You've written a book within the last couple of years called Consider the Lilies. Can you walk us through that a little bit? For me, it started the heart behind this book when I was working in camping ministry amongst many students.

And one of the things that I realized quickly over time is that these students, although they were 15, 16, 17 years old, they were really anxious. But it wasn't just the students. It was their counselors. It was their pastors. And it became something that just became so rampantly, just rampant in my mind that I wanted to address it.

I went from that camping ministry to a Christian university called the Masters University. And there I encountered students who were unlike maybe the The kids that came to camp that were in Bible classes attended Bible preaching churches. They went to Bible preaching chapels, and yet the presence of anxiety was still persistent in their life. And now I am the pastor of a very multi-generational church, and yet this is still a reality that I'm facing as a pastor. People are.

anxious and I wanted to write a book that addressed this. And really, going back to my camp days, I began doing these optional seminars at camp just entitled, What Does the Bible say about my anxiety? And even though that kind of optional seminar was conflicting with the free time activities of paddleboarding or whatever it may be, students and pastors alike were really cramming into this little chapel that we had just to hear what the Bible says. And we can get to the nature and content and substance of what that book is about in a moment. But I think the heart behind it, the burden behind it, is that, as you've already mentioned, We live in an anxious world, you know, not just for those who are unbelievers, because that's only natural, but even in the church, this is something that people really struggle with.

You know, it's the number one negative prohibition in the scripture, meaning what God says, do not do more than anything else, is do not fear, which just speaks to the reality that this is something that is. Kind of a drift in the heart of humanity, either whether we're in Christ or not in Christ, to be anxious and to be worried. But only the Christian has the ability, as we'll look at, to have a peace that surpasses all understanding. Praise God. Yeah, and you're spot on.

And you mentioned that you deal with a variety of age groups. And let's focus on young people, because what we're seeing is not only are people turning to drugs, narcotics to relieve anxiety, but young people, especially young girls, are turning to social media. Tell us the impact that that has on their psyche.

Well, you know, I would say a couple things. First of all, we live in a world where 50 years ago, the way that you would process tragedy is one day at a time in the morning newspaper. You could only kind of. Digest the tragedy of the world as you read each day's newspaper. But now, people, just with a refresh of their thumb, they're processing tragedy and difficulty and despair.

Thousands of times a day, the average person spends seven hours a day looking at a screen, whether that be their phone, their tablet, or their television. And so, with that, they're consumed by materialism, covetousness, impurity. You know, Jesus says the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is full of darkness, your whole body is going to be consumed.

So, I think we understand that from a secular perspective. We also understand not only with girls, but with guys. Secular psychologists will link just the rise in pornography consumption with the rise of anxiety. That's just something Jesus alluded to, even for an unbeliever, that again, the eye is the lamp of the body. And he also says that if you're serving multiple masters, you're going to be conflicted inside.

And so, you can't serve the God of materialism and the God of the Bible at the same time. And so, this is something that Jonathan Hyde addresses. As well in his writing, just from a medical perspective, from a doctor perspective, that this is really consuming not only, yeah, young girls, as you mentioned, but I think one of the things that's interesting, and I mentioned this in my book, Consider the Lilies, the number one medicated demographic in America today is a middle-aged woman.

So we both do talk about this as a young person issue, but the most medicated demographic today for anxiety and depression is a 50-year-old woman.

So this is something that really spans all generations. We see it taking different forms in a young audience. I mean, I've had 13-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 17-year-olds come up to me crippled with anxiety, and their anxiety stems from APUS history or the thought, I've had three abortions. Will God ever forgive me? And so that really is a large, it's really a massive gamut of things that you're dealing with.

But that is the reality. We live in an impure. World that is also littered with uncertainty. And J.A. Packard talks about this in knowing God.

He just says that the world in which we live is a strange, manic, confusing place when you remove the God who made it from your mind. And so, anxiety, in one sense, is very natural when you look at the world. That's why Paul calls the peace of God something that surpasses all understanding. Because when you consider everything happening in the world, and this is really what takes place in the social media landscape, it's impossible to not be anxious if you're not rooted in the character of God. Amen.

And I think that's really important that you bring up not only is a young person issue, but it's a middle-aged person issue. It's a male issue. It's a female issue. It's an older demographic issue. But what's fascinating to me is how you brought up the most often used prohibition in the scriptures: do not fear, and that has to do with anxiety.

So this is a fallen world issue.

So can you walk us through that throughout the Old and the New Testament about how God gives hope and strength and peace to those who place their faith in Him to cope with these anxieties? Yeah, I think I would first just say, like, you know, first of all, when you ask the question, what does the Bible say about my anxiety?

Well, you first have to go.

Well, if the Bible does address this issue, then you have to know that God knows about the issue and he speaks to us about the issue in his word, which is comforting in of itself, meaning that sometimes people say, Well, what does the Bible say about anxiety? And they just make the assumption that God speaks to it without kind of realizing the precious comfort that that provides. That, oh, wow, okay, the Bible does say something about anxiety. That means God Himself has given us an answer that should buoy my anxious heart. And so, one of the things that I like to start with from a fundamental perspective is that many godly characters in the Bible really struggle with anxiety and fear and depression.

And I say this not just to establish some sort of solidarity, like, hey, we all struggle, you know, but to just to get to at least the point later on of how God responds to those. But in Exodus, for example, Moses is commissioned by God to go to the most powerful man on planet earth named Pharaoh and to demand that Pharaoh let his people go. But when Moses encounters God at the burning bush, Moses says, Send someone else. I can't talk good. He says, I have a stutter.

I'm not fluent in speech. He's nervous. He's fearful. He's anxious about that idea of going to this powerful ruler with a staff in his hand saying, let my people go. Elijah, you know, Jesus says the law and the prophets.

Moses is the lawgiver. Elijah is the law's most faithful prophet. Elijah is a man's man. In 1 Kings 18, he goes on this. duel of sorts, verse 850 false prophets at Mount Carmel.

He defeats the prophets of Baal. He says, only Yahweh is the one true God. He calls down fire from heaven, consuming an altar that he had doused with water. And then he tells everyone to slaughter these false prophets. I mean, this is an epic moment in Elijah's life.

And I say this, people are familiar with the story, but sometimes chapters are divorced from their following context. Because in the following chapter, Elijah, who just had this epic victory, he Runs and finds out that Jezebel, the queen, is trying to take his life. And then, in light of that, he flees from the promised land, sits down under a tree, and begs God to take his life. He's suicidal. He's so depressed, he just says, It is enough for me, God.

Take my life.

Now, I just mentioned two of the godliest characters in the Old Testament. Those are, you know, names that you give your sons. Those are the two guys that stand shoulder to shoulder with Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration in Mark 9. We can go on. And You know, Job is the most blameless man in the Old Testament.

Jesus, you know, God says, you know, he's blameless. 15 times that Hebrew word is used in the Old Testament. Only once does it refer to a man. That man's name is Job. Job's life is decimated by Sabaeans, Chaldeans, wind, and fire.

And in chapter two, he's sitting in a pile of dirt, scraping his boils with a shard of pottery as his wife tells him to curse God and die. But and he responds initially: you know, naked I have come from my mother's womb, naked I will return. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But by the middle of the book that bears his name, Job is saying that his whole life has been tuned to the sound of mourning, that he's a companion of jackals, those are nighttime creatures, and he's depressed. He's anxious.

He's asking God, where are you? We see that 16 times throughout the book of Job. Why, why, why, why, God, have you done this? And then just last example. And I say this, I think, just to encourage people.

There are 42 kings in the Old Testament. Only one of them is referred to as a man after God's own heart. That man's name is David. And David is a man's man, once again. He is son of David.

This guy has slain his 10,000s. But there are moments throughout the Psalms, 30% of them are lament. And there are moments where David says, every single night I make my bed swim with my own tears. Where are you, God? Why are you so downcast, oh, my soul?

David struggles. He's crippled with anxiety, with fear, with depression. For 10 years of his life, he's running from his father-in-law, Saul, as he is hiding in caves and thickets. And so you see these examples. And these are just a few examples.

And you have to ask the question, okay, if these are some of the godliest heroes of the faith type of guys, how does God respond to those who are anxious? And as we see in the book of Job, when Job asks why, why, why is this happening? God never responds with answering Job's why, but he responds with who is behind it all. And that is the way that God responds to all of these anxious individuals throughout the Old Testament: he responds by mounting the pulpit, so to speak, and proclaiming the depth and nature of his character.

So to Moses, he says, Moses, if you're anxious about your fluidity of speech, who made man's mouth? To Elijah, he proclaims his character. To David, he proclaims his character. And to Job, after 37 chapters of silence, God responds out of the whirlwind and says, Job, gird your loins, dude. And he goes on a manifesto that describes and details his sovereignty, his majesty, his omnipotence, and his wisdom.

And this is the way that God responds in the Old Testament. And I don't mean to filibuster here, but sometimes people say, well, that's how God responds in the Old Testament. What about the New Testament? And I always like to say, well, because our God never changes, neither does the prescription that he provides is the great physician. Meaning that if Jesus was to preach at AnxietyCon 2026, He would show up and he would say, Open your Bibles.

He would have nothing new to say. We have the sufficient word of God. And so in Matthew's gospel, When Jesus is addressing those who are anxious, and sometimes we think, well, what were they anxious about? You know, how could they struggle like we struggle?

Well, they were under a ruthless regime of Rome. It was Herod the Tetrarch who had chopped off the head of John the Baptist. It was the greatest man born of woman in 400 years. It was, you know. Rome that had cut, you know, that killed every baby boy in Bethlehem.

They were hated. And Jesus says, listen, don't be anxious. But he doesn't just provide that prohibition. He doesn't just say, cut it out, snap out of it. He calls them to consider, once again, the character of God.

And so. That is the major thrust of my book. Seven of the 14 chapters are on different attributes of God to provide us with peace and comfort, because it's not enough to just say, God, take away my anxiety. God doesn't want to just remove our anxiety. He wants to replace our anxiety with an act of trust in who he is.

And we can't trust God if we do not know God. And the way we come to know God is through the revelation of his word in the scripture. Amen. Amen. We have to understand the character of the God who loves us, who sent his son Jesus to die for us, and who truly desires an intimate personal relationship with us so that we can cope with the things of this fallen, broken, evil world.

And I think it's so important that you brought up that it's not how, it's who. And so thank you for bringing that forth. And no matter what age you are, you're not going to know enough about God.

So you need to study him and his character more fully to really be able to cope with the darkness of this world. Yeah, so true. And I think one of the things that we can delve into more is that all of these different antidotes that God provides to the anxious are rooted in an understanding of it's our mind, you know, throughout the scripture, meaning that modern psychology tells people that anxiety is the fruit of thinking too much. The Bible says that anxiety is the fruit of thinking too little about the character of God. And so we have to kind of, when Jesus says, hey, you know, consider the lilies of the field or consider the birds of the air, he's beckoning his anxious followers to engage their minds, to think, not to turn their brains off, but to fill their minds with the truth of who God is.

That is the sum and substance of the Christian life. You know, people sometimes don't realize this or maybe they forget this, but the Christian faith is the most intellectual faith in the world. It's all about how we engage our minds with truth. And so if we're not feeding our minds the truth of who God is, his sovereignty, his love, his wisdom, we're going to fill our minds with the things of this world, which invariably are going to make us anxious. This is why when Jesus says in Mark 12, we're told.

Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's not just God's will for our life. To love Him with our mind means that we are considering, grappling, meditating, like Psalm 1. It's that same word used of a lion hunting his prey to consider the truth of God. And so that that is the default thinking of our life is who God is.

So that when we encounter maybe troublesome circumstances in our life and maybe anxious situations, the default thoughts of our life are towards who God is and not to our own fears. Amen. That's so important to work through. And I think so often we have such a low view of God, but the reality is we need to continually raise our view of God and His love for us, His character, His consistency. I've been recently pondering His immutability.

My life changes, my attitudes change, everything changes all around me, but God doesn't change. And in that reality, that doesn't change helps me to cope with. Wow. He's immutable. He's unchangeable.

And therefore, I can rest in him and trust in him. Amen. Well, Johnny, we have another clip here we want you to listen to and get your take on it. What's sad, however, is that people know more about the Airbnbs in Florida. than they do about where they're going to spend.

All of eternity. By and large, Even within this church, I'm not talking down to you, I'm just acknowledging a reality that is convicting for even my own life. We know more about iPhone 17s. frame T V s Toyota sequoias Black Friday deals. Than we do about the place Jesus says he's gone to prepare for you.

It is astonishing. how little attention we give. to the place that we are going to spend. A gazillion years. And this is crippling.

and crushing for your Christian life. You're listening to Understanding the Times, the program founded by Jan Markel. I'm Pastor Josh Schwartz with my co-host Ken Michael. And with the new year, there are a lot of us looking for a new devotion.

Well, we have just the book for you. Until He Comes by Pastor Barry Stagner and Amir Sarfati is a 365-day daily devotion as we await for Jesus' return. We would encourage you to pick this up at our store. That's at olivetreeviews.org. We have free shipping in the U.S.

and Canada. This is a fantastic resource for daily devotions as we wait for the soon return of Jesus. Johnny, when I heard that message that you were preaching there a few months ago. And I heard you say those very words in your introduction. I was cut to the core because that is such a reality.

We know so much and think so much about this world and we have no clue about the greatness of what is to come. And Jesus died so that we could have eternal life with him in his heaven. And so I think we need to transition to talk about that because I don't believe that followers of Jesus are heavenly minded enough.

So let's walk through that message, those couple of messages that you did on the glory, the greatness of heaven. Should Christians Be heavenly minded.

Well, yeah, definitely Christians should be heavenly minded. I think for a few reasons. First of all, I think, you know, if you're going back to this idea of living as a Christian within an anxious world, you know, the great comfort that God provides to the anxious, you know, Jesus in John 14, he's just been telling the disciples that he's going to leave. He's about to tell them in John 15 that the world is going to hate them because they are followers of Jesus Christ. And then smack dab in the middle of that.

He tells them, don't let your hearts be troubled.

Now, how on earth could we not live where our hearts are troubled when we live in such a troublesome world? And then God provides his promise. He says, you know, in my father's house, there are many dwelling places. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And so one of the things that I was just reflecting on when I was teaching through John 14.

Is that heaven is the great hope of the Christian throughout this world? And sometimes we get so anxious about the things of this world and we forget that this world is just a temporary stay. This is a motel. D.L. Moody says that the best thing in this world is a pale barn compared to the mansions in the sky.

And yet, we kind of live our life as if this world is all there is.

So we try to people, you know, people say things like we're building our forever home. They become anxious about their jobs, their finances, their present. But even if you're going back to Matthew 6 with me, you know, sometimes we extract Matthew 6:33 out of his context. Jesus says, Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. He's saying to seek God's kingdom.

That's in the context of anxiety. You know, when Paul says in Colossians 3 to set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. It's because if our minds are set on earthly things, if we have little vision for the glory of heaven, then we are going to be wrapped up in the things of this world. And if we're wrapped up in the world, Things of this world, then those things are that which we treasure. That's Matthew 6, right?

Do not treasure things on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But it's going to be very difficult for us to not treasure the things of this world if we're not anticipating the treasures in heaven, which ultimately is Jesus Christ. And even going to 1 John 3: whoever has this hope fixed on him purifies himself even as he is pure, to fix our gaze on heaven. The future absence of sin and the presence of Christ fully in glory is a purifying effect in our life. It weans us from this world.

And so often, you know, when we just talk out loud about our anxieties, they are things that pale in comparison. Paul says it's light and momentary affliction compared to the eternal weight of glory that God is preparing for those of us who have placed our faith in Christ. And so, so important from a perspective. Or for us to kind of frame our perspective around where we're going for all of eternity. Yeah, Josh and I often talk about people spend way more time planning a two week vacation than where they're going to spend eternity, and that's the sad part.

So what is the best way That you found, because when I ask people about heaven, or my favorite question is: if you die today, do you know where you're going? What's the best way to explain heaven?

Well, there's the best way to explain heaven is you think about it in Matthew: it's the Father's house. You know, Jesus says, our Father who art in heaven. He says, you know, you know, let your light, you know, if you light shine so that they may seek your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven. Jesus says, in my father's house. There are many dwelling places.

So heaven, first of all, is a place. That word that Jesus uses in John 14, he says, I'm going to prepare a place. That's the Greek word topos, from which we get the idea of topography. Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is a literal place that we will literally dwell, you know, obviously in the future or not.

So obviously, we are going to not be disembodied wispies. We are going to be physical resurrected beings in the new heavens and the new earth. And we are going to dwell with Christ. Jesus says, and where I am, there you may be also, meaning that J.C. Ryle once said, that is the first and simplest and best part of heaven.

Jesus is there.

Sometimes the Bible. Talks more about what heaven is not like so that we can understand what it is like. For example, sometimes, you know, even thinking about elsewhere in scripture, against the backdrop of the Cretans, Titus says that we have a God who cannot lie, meaning it's just that's a contrast for us.

So in the realm of heaven, Peter says that we have an imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance reserved in glory for you, meaning that everything in this world is perishing, fading, it's defiled, but heaven has none of those things. It's a place where God will wipe away every single tear. There will be no more mourning, Revelation says, no more crying. Our reward is in heaven.

Sometimes we think about our love for Christ being the ultimate motivation for obedience, which would be true. But it says in Hebrews that Abraham was looking forward to his reward. It says that Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater than all of the riches of Egypt because he was looking forward to his reward.

So we're going to have our rewards in heaven. Our inheritance is in heaven. Our family and friends in Christ are in heaven. You know, it says of the The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that they died and they were gathered to their people. It's not just because their bones were placed in the same place, because we don't even know where Moses was buried.

It's because he was gathered to the people of God. And so we're going to be reunited with the people of God in heaven. But ultimately, it's the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see him in glory.

So I did a few different messages on heaven, kind of jumping out of John 14, because sometimes people give this idea. You know, Paul says in Corinthians, no eye has seen, no ear has heard. We can't even imagine all the things that heaven's going to be like. And we kind of use that as this idea that heaven is something we can't, we don't know how to describe.

So it's as if we're fourth and 40 on our own one-yard line, and we just have to punt the ball as far as we can and say we don't know what it's going to be like. But the next verse says, But to us, God has revealed these things through the power of the Spirit, meaning that God has given us enough. Through his word. to understand heaven so that it would totally thrill us and pump us out of our minds with anticipation that we cannot get, we cannot wait to get to heaven. That's why Paul says to die is gain.

And yet so many people have such a pale view of heaven that to die is their greatest fear because they think that this life is the best there is, but the best of this life is the worst thing in heaven because that is it's ultimately it's the place that God is preparing for us. And it's, yes, unimaginably wonderful, but God has revealed to us what it's like in his word.

Well, Johnny, time has gotten away from us. We want to thank you for joining us today. This is the radio version, but make sure you stay tuned for the extended version, which is on our website, olivetreeviews.org. You can catch it on YouTube and Apple in one place also. Johnny, how can people get in touch with you?

Yeah, you can follow along on, we have our Stonebridge Bible Church, YouTube is where all my sermons are posted. And then Dial In Ministries, our YouTube page or our website, dialinministries.org is our contact information. All of our podcasts, articles, newsletters are on there, dialinministries.org. And that has access to any of the other resources. And so you can check that out and our church website, obviously, but has our emails and stuff like that.

But yeah, thanks again, guys. Grateful to be on your show. Thanks for your ministry. It's a privilege to be here.

Well, this is the extended version of Understanding the Times Radio. I'm Pastor Josh with my co-host, Ken Michael. Today, our guest is Johnny Artavanis from Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Johnny, welcome back to the extended version. Hey, thanks for having me.

Johnny, we're going to play a quick clip and we want to get your thoughts on it. Christian resurgence? Gen Z is reversing a decades-long trend of a declining number of people in the U.S. identifying as Christian, with Gen Z men in particular being more likely to regularly attend religious services than millennials and even some younger Gen Xers, according to a 2024 analysis by political scientist Ryan Burge at the University of Illinois. What's driving many young men back to the church is a desire for discipline and structure in their lives, something that being part of a religious community can provide to them.

Two men can be a family and they can adopt kids, which I think is problematic. Two women can be a family, they can adopt kids. Marriage doesn't mean anything anymore. What threat is that to you if those two men love each other? Because you can point statistically to our society being eroded from within because two men automatically create an unstable household because that is not God's design for a family.

And you think that hurts America? Absolutely. Johnny, from that clip you just heard, we're hearing, and I'm sure you are, you have a lot of younger people attending your church. Is there a spiritual awakening happening with Gen Z? We're hearing, especially with younger males.

What are you seeing at your church? I think, I definitely think there's a spiritual awakening. I think there is a hunger for truth. I think that in general, over the last five years, I think even going back to the COVID pandemic, it created kind of just a desire to know what's true, what's not true. People started listening and reading, you know, and so I think that God is used in the church.

And I think there, you know, I'm always careful to use the word revival because that, you know, it's hard to even measure that in the time. But I think that there is. In general. You know, the removal of distraction. People are, you know, there's so many conflicting voices.

There's conspiracy theories. There's different ideas about what's what, what's reality. I think, yes, to answer your question, there is a search for truth, but I would say it's more in the Areopagus perspective of things where Paul stands up in Acts 17, and it's all these people looking for truth. They're all making altars to unknown gods. And Paul's the only one that has the answer and says, hey, what you're serving a God out of ignorance.

You're not serving the right God. And so I think there's both good and bad in this. That there might be people that are genuinely coming to faith in Jesus Christ, but there may be people just that are trying to find something because they feel the void, maybe more than ever, that their souls are barren and they want to find something that satisfies and thrills their soul. And that's something that only God can do. But that's why Augustine once says that our hearts are restless until they find the rest in God.

So I think there is a. A restlessness is probably the way that I would put it, more than anything that religion of any sort is feeling. And in some cases, I think that's people that are going to Bible preaching churches, but in other cases, it might be something that's totally different. It could be Buddhism. I mean, I know a lot of young men that are searching for enlightenment because they're looking for something that scratches their intellectual itch.

Yeah, no, that's a great point. I love the Arigapia illustration because that's exactly where we're at. There is a lot of truth seeking going on and a lot of people that want to fill voids, but there's only one true God who can truly fill the void. Yeah, Josh, and we're hearing, you know, young people are going to Christian churches, Catholicism.

Some are going to Catholic churches.

Some are going to churches that don't necessarily speak the full counsel of God because either the worship might be interesting to them.

So you're right, Johnny. We have to be very careful and make sure that we're guiding them to the right sources. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also another aspect of this, and Johnny, I want to get your perspective because I think you have a really good perspective here, is there's a lot that happened. We live in a dark world.

And I think you gave a really great analysis after Charlie Kirk's death.

So, can we walk through some of those observations? Because Charlie was a truth-teller, and he was a gospel-preaching truth-teller at that.

So, a few months ago, right after Charlie Kirk's death, you gave Gave about 11 observations, and I have them here. And I want to read them off and get your just thoughts as I read each of the observations.

So, the first observation you made was: Charlie was murdered for his convictions. What do you mean by that? Largely that Charlie wasn't saying anything that was should have been groundbreaking. He was just saying a man's a man, a woman is a woman, a man belongs with a woman, abortion is murder, Jesus Christ is the only one true God and the only way to the Father. And so, a lot of these things were why he was hated.

You know, people say things like Charlie was a bigot, Charlie was narrow-minded, that he was homophobic. Charlie was a really nice guy, and so he was killed because his convictions were staunchly biblical, and he did it. In a very diplomatic and charitable way, but it doesn't really matter if you teach the truth in a diplomatic way. And, you know, Jesus says in John 15, the world is going to hate you. That doesn't mean we have to be nasty about the truth.

It just means that truth by its very definition is exclusive. You can't take two things that are different and contrasting from one another and both be true. There's only one truth. And Charlie was really good in the, you know, kind of the arena of ideas of articulating that truth. And he was killed for it.

Josh, like Josh said, we live in a wicked world. How do we tell, especially young people, that not only do we live in a wicked world, but there's a spiritual battle going on that's influenced by Satans and demons. And these are real. How do we explain that to them without scaring them or freaking them out?

Well, I think first of all, it's helpful to understand, you know, that we live in a world where Jesus says it's ruled by the prince of darkness. He's called the prince of this world. Satan is, he's called the God of this world. He's called the prince of the power of the year. He prowls like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us.

I mean, Satan is real. Evil is embodied in a personal being named Satan. That's a reality of scripture. You can't ignore it. And yet, thankfully, You know, 1 John says, greater is he who is in us than he who is of the world, meaning like we have the power of Christ.

The battle is already won. You know, even going back to the book of Job, Job presents this confrontation and conversation between Satan and God. And in that conversation, Satan is a runt pawn and God is the king. It's not this cosmic tug of war between Satan and God. And then we know that in the end, God wins.

No, God is not having to flex his divine muscles against a formidable foe. God is the ruler, and we have all of the power we need in Christ to be able to live boldly for Jesus. And the worst thing that can happen to us in this life is just to be ushered into the presence of Jesus in the next life. And so I think that we live with a level of boldness knowing that the battle is already won. It's kind of like, I think, you know, when you watch an election and you're waiting to see if someone concedes, you know, like it's they give it up.

The battle has already been won, but Satan hasn't conceded. He's still trying to fight. He's still trying to do what he can. And so. So I think we have to recognize that we're in Christ.

We have the armor of God that is to protect us, but not just to protect us because we're not on defense. I think that's the main idea. Jesus says in Matthew 16, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail, meaning that we're on offense, that the goal of our life isn't just to keep Satan out of our backyards. It's to plunder the kingdom of darkness through the power of God. And we do that as we lean in dependence upon God.

Meaning in Acts 4, when the apostles get out of prison for preaching the gospel, they're told not to preach Christ any longer. And it says they get out and they pray for more boldness and the place was shaken. And so I think that we have to, first of all, understand that Satan is real. Evil is embodied. We face opposition.

This is a, you know, prepare your minds for action, 1 Peter 1.13. But we have the power of Christ. We have the Spirit of God. And we walk forward knowing that we're to redeem the time because the days are evil. God has placed us in these evil days to.

Proclaim the gospel of light in a world of darkness. And that's a huge privilege. I think sometimes people hang their heads about how dark the world is. And I like to tell people this is a thrilling time to be a Christian because this is exactly why we're here: to be salt, to be light, not in our strength, but in the strength of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. That's very, very important. And, Josh, you know, all of the prophets would love to be living in the days that we're living in right now. I mean, they long to live in these days. Yeah, and because we know that Jesus is resurrected and we know that he's coming back, and we get to be salt and light in a dark and dying world.

And so, it's a beautiful thing to assault the kingdom of darkness. Johnny, you also talked about how the world is wicked, but it will go from bad to worse. And we have to keep that in mind in light of Charlie Kirk. These things happen, this is evil, but it's going to go from bad to worse.

So, can you help us understand what that means? Yeah, just in general, you know, 2 Timothy 3, in the last days, it's going to go from bad to worse, meaning that the world is not bad and getting better. It's bad and getting badder. I think sometimes people view this as pessimistic theology, but it's just a biblical reality. Jesus says that the world is a dark place.

It's going to continue to get darker and darker until the one who says, I am the light of the world, returns. And so with that, that doesn't mean that we just wholly huddle and shake our heads and wag our fingers at the dark world. It means that we try to push back the darkness. And I've already alluded to it, that when Jesus says, you are the sight, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world. He doesn't say you are to be salt.

He doesn't say you are to be light. He says you are. Meaning, he's not telling, you know, I'm not a car guy. I don't know how to fix anything on my car. He's not saying, hey, you're a mechanic, you know, and I have to figure that out.

No, he's saying you are and. Because I say you are, that means you've already have the full capacity to be salt and light. Salt is a preservative of decay. That's what we are to do in this world. We are to push back the darkness, and light is our vocal influence in the world in which we live, mean that we don't just kind of have our own private convictions and we disagree with what's happening in Hollywood, but that we use our vocal influence to proclaim Christ, to preach the gospel.

To obviously function as godly citizens in the environment in which we live, to Push back the darkness and to shine a light in it as much as we can, which is the job not only of churches collectively, but of believers individually in the spheres in which they operate. And so, yes, the world is evil, but that's nothing new, right? That's what Paul says in Ephesians 5. We are to redeem the time because the days are evil. Every environment, every era, every epoch.

Is has its own evil. I mean, in the first century, there's rampant homosexuality. People were being dipped in wax and lit on fire. They are being fed to the lions. We look at our world and say, man, it's so bad.

But there's been different. You know, eras and epochs throughout history where every single generation has thought this is it, this is when the Lord is going to return. And so, I think obviously we're closer now today than we were yesterday, but we have a responsibility as ambassadors for Christ, 2 Corinthians says, to be able to proclaim the message of the gospel. That's what 1 Peter says: that we are to proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. And as those who are citizens of light, we would preach Christ to those in the darkness.

And that's both a responsibility and an immense privilege. You're so right in all of this. Have the tendency to turn into ourselves or to have a holy huddle. But the truth is, in a dark world, we must continue to be sharing the good news of Jesus because there are literally people whose souls are eternally at stake. And we must be sharing the good news of Christ over.

everywhere that he has planted us and places us. You also work through after Charlie's death that we live in a world that hates the truth, that God hates wickedness, God grieves over wickedness, God saves sinners, and you've covered all those things. But another aspect of it is that God is in control.

So how can we have hope to know that God is in control even when righteous people are put to death?

Well, we have hope that God is in control. First of all, we just have to believe what the scripture says. You know, we don't have a God who is wringing his hands together. Calling audibles with the angels. trying to salvage what's gone wrong.

You know, that's not the case at all. You know, Genesis 50, 20 does not say what you meant for evil, God turned into good. It doesn't say that. It says what you meant for evil, God meant for good, which means that God is never the author of evil. but he does use evil to accomplish his good and perfect purpose.

And so we look at the testimony of scripture, Psalm 93, 1, Psalm 96, Psalm 97, our God reigns, Psalm 103, 19. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens. And his sovereignty rules over all. God is not sitting on a lazy boy. He's not reclining.

He's not at a round table. He's not at a conference table. He's not in a stadium watching and observing. He's on a throne because he rules and reigns. And it says his sovereignty rules over all, which means God rules not over nations.

Proverbs says the king's heart is like channels of water. God directs it wherever he wants. He's not only sovereign over nature, as we see in Jonah, God appoints a great fish, a great wind, a great plant, a little worm, all that do his bidding. But God is in control of everything in our life. He's no more sovereign over Joe Biden than he is of Joe Schmo.

He is sovereign over every single individual because he is, Ephesians 1:11, working everything out according to the counsel of his will, meaning that God has a desired end, and everything in my life, and everything in your life, and in everybody's life, listening or watching, God is weaving all these things together as the grand weaver. We may not understand that. We may not see, we may not be able to connect. The dots, but that's why I like that story of. Corey Temboom used to talk about this in her book, that illustration of the Grand Weaver, that we only see the underside of the tapestry that God is weaving.

All these knots, you know, threads, disarray. But God sees the upper side. He sees what he's weaving. And evil, We call it the problem of evil. Like, how could a good God allow evil?

But as we look to the scripture, we see that the problem of evil is no problem for God. You know, he's not, we need no PR campaign for God. That's what you see in Amos, that's what you see in Avac, that's what you see in Romans. And so, you know, even if you look at Charlie's death. The truth about the gospel, the truth of Jesus Christ.

was a hundred times multiplied. you know, through the death of Charlie. Than through if Charlie had lived a million years. I mean, that was, you know, just so many people heard the truth. And so you see it even there, going like, hey, that's obviously so tragic for Erica, for Charlie's family, for his kids.

God does hate that wickedness. He grieves over wickedness, and yet God uses wickedness to accomplish his glorious purposes. And we're seeing that, I think, in people that have already come to know the Lord since Charlie died. Johnny, thank you so much for that explanation. It's been an encouragement to my heart.

But I think we'd be remiss without telling people. The greatness of heaven, but how they can get to heaven.

So, can you explain how someone enters in? to heaven. Yeah, you know, I don't have to be super creative. It's an important question. It's a question that was asked 2,000 years ago because Jesus said that I'm going to prepare a place for you.

In my Father's house, there's many dwelling places, and where I'm going, there you may be also. And his disciple says, Lord, we do not know the way. How do we know the way? How do we know the way to the Father's house? And Jesus answered in that well-known statement in John 14:6, he says, I am the way.

I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. Meaning that a couple of things. First of all, to go to heaven, you have to know the truth.

We live in a world of lies and deception and error, but Jesus says, I'm the truth. He doesn't just tell us the truth. He is the truth. The truth about God, the truth about man, the truth about sin, and the truth about salvation can only come through Jesus Christ as he speaks through his word. And so we have to know the truth.

That's Romans 10, right? It says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of truth.

So we have to hear the truth. To know the truth, and the question would be: well, the truth of what, the truth of who, and again, kind of in a vicious circle here, the truth of who Jesus is, that Jesus was fully God. You have to believe this, Romans 10:9. That believe in your heart that Jesus was God, that He died on the cross for your sin, that He was resurrected from the grave. That's not just something the Bible teaches, it's one of the most historically verified realities in history that we have a Jesus who conquered death and who ascended to the Father.

And so, when Jesus says, No man comes to the Father but through me, it means that we place our faith in Him. It means that we come and we submit to Him, we ask Him to be the Lord of our life. It means to turn from this world. That's in Acts 2:38. When the people are saying, essentially, we're convicted of our sin, we know we need a savior.

And they say, well, what shall we do? And Peter responds in 2:38 of Acts and says, Repent and believe. You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 10:13, and you shall be saved. And so it's not about what we do, it's about what God has done for us through the person and work of Jesus Christ. We bring nothing to the table except the sins that made the sin that made Jesus' death necessary and the wonder of the gospel.

Is that when we believe in Jesus, it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 21 that he became sin who knew no sin, that's Jesus Christ, not just to remove our sin, because sometimes people say, Well, that's what the gospel is: Jesus forgives us of our sins. And I sometimes say, Well, if all you had in the gospel is the removal of your sin, you would never stand before a holy God and be allowed to enter heaven because heaven is a holy place for a holy people. And so it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, he became sin who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, meaning that all of our sin, Jesus Christ endured that, he endured the punishment of God. That's Isaiah 53. And it says, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ, meaning that it's called double imputation in theological terms.

And sometimes people say we don't want to get wrapped up in all the doctrine, but the doctrine is what leads us to life. That Jesus not only takes our sin, he transfers or imputes to us his righteousness.

So that's why sometimes just on a quest of brevity. we say Jesus not only died for us. He lived for us. He lived the life we could never live so that he could die the death we could never. Die.

So that now, if we believe in him, Paul says over and over again, we are in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, which means that if we place our faith in Christ, God now looks at us, sinners, not only as forgiven, but as if we had lived the perfect righteous life of Jesus Christ. And then this is what it means to be justified, it means to be reckoned righteous before God. And so. I think sometimes we don't really understand the fullness of that. But bottom line, what do we have to do to go to heaven?

We have to believe Jesus, not just to believe he exists, because the demons believe and shudder, James says, but to believe him, which means to come to him in faith, to love him, to desire to obey him. And ultimately, all of those things are a manifestation of not just what we do, but it's what God does in our heart. He has to give us a new heart. That's John 3. He gives us a new heart that.

that yearns to know him. And so much could be said there, but we don't want to miss the forest for the trees. If you're talking to someone at a coffee shop and they say, what must I do to be saved? You just say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Yeah, that's an excellent point, Johnny.

So as we close out here, I think it's important. We kind of covered this in the first part, but we need to understand, and followers of Christ need to understand what the ultimate goal is, and that's to be with Christ. And heaven is our home.

So knowing that, what should we do during the time that we have left here on earth? That's a great question. I think, first of all, you can't live a life of wisdom without considering the question. You know, Moses prays. The only psalm ever written by Moses, Psalm 90, Moses kind of reaches that climax in Psalm 90, verse 12 and says, teach us to number our days so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.

Our life, the scripture says, is a vapor. It's a breast. Ecclesiastes describes it as chabel, which means it's like a puff of air on a cold Chicago morning. You see it for a moment and then it's gone. And so we talk about something permanent, which is heaven, and then our life is so transient.

C.S. Lewis says that this life is the Cover and title page of a book that will never end. And we spend so much of our life thinking about this life, but C.S. Lewis sums it up: in a billion years, the life we lived on planet Earth is just going to be the cover and title page. And so, how do we live in light of eternity is an important question.

Well, I think it's fundamentally we have to consider how we live obediently to Christ, that we no longer consider ourselves citizens of this world. That's why Paul says that we're citizens of heaven and we have to dwell on these things. We have to consider the hope that we have and glory. We have to be ask God to wean us from this world. 1 John 2, not love the things of this world.

We have to consider our ambitions. You know, is it all about this world or do we have godly ambitions? Not that being the best in business is wrong, but we can never consider those things to be the end, the end-all-be-all. And so, and I think ultimately. There is only one thing And this is not my idea.

This is... Known, there is only one good thing that we can do here that we will not be able to do in heaven. The food is better in heaven. The fellowship is better in heaven. The sights are better in heaven.

There's only one good thing that we can do here on earth that we will not be able to do in heaven. And that is to tell a lost sinner they can be reconciled to God. By placing their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And so that is our life's mission. That's why every single Christian is an ambassador.

They may be a janitor, they may be a teacher, they may be a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse. Or a pastor, but they are all called to be a part of God's mission, which is to make disciples so that. We would be able to honor Christ because we want people to know the love of God. And so I think that's so important because when we have our eyes on heaven, it really does put in perspective everything that we make a big deal of in this life. And so ultimately, we are to be faithful to Christ by proclaiming Christ to those who do not know Christ until we meet him face to face.

Amen. Well, Pastor Johnny Artavanis, thank you so much for your time. Just so encouraged by our conversation today, and I know that many other people will be as they listen to this and watch this. In closing, how can people follow you or get in touch with your ministry? You can go to our website, dialinministries.org.

That's where we release weekly episodes, podcasts, newsletters. And then our church, Stonebridge Bible Church. You can go to our YouTube. That's where my weekly sermons are posted. You can follow along.

We're in year three now, I think, of our study of John's gospel. But you can go there and you can follow us online. And so that's where all of our resources are eventually posted on Dial and Ministries or the church website. And so, yeah, I would love for those to be a blessing to anybody if so.

Well, thanks again for your time and thanks for joining us this week. Thanks so much for having me on, guys. Contact us through our website, olivetreeviews.org. That's olivetreeviews.org. Call us Central Time at 763-559-4444.

That's 763-559-4444. We get our mail when you write to Olive Tree Ministries in Jan Markell. Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. All gifts are tax deductible.

Make sure you visit our web store at olivetreeviews.org to purchase Amir Sarfati and Pastor Barry Stagner's new devotional Until He Comes. Tune in to the extended version of this week's program on our website, ad free at olivetreeviews.org or on our YouTube and Rumble channels. Anxiety is part of the normal human condition. But God is faithful and His Word gives us hope. We must continue to look up.

because all things are falling into place. It's all in love. And glory be unto your name Be unto your name.