Does Aliens Existence CONTRADICT The BIBLE? Exploring Aliens vs Christianity with @WiseDisciple

One of my favorite up-and-coming YouTubers. I don't know if it's it's okay to call him that. He's he's much more than just a YouTuber. Um, Pastor, apologist, debate expert, and founder, leader, face of Wise Disciple YouTube channel, Nate. Let, uh, Nate Salah. Did I say that right?

You did. Thank you. I did. Yeah. Thank you very much. Okay, so, uh, I've been following you for, I've been following your channel for a while, and I think it all kind of, well, you do debate analysis. Is that fair?

Yeah, that's right. And what really got me excited was in your Aliens video. I reacted to it, and that, that was amazing. So I want to get into aliens with you for sure.

Okay. Uh, but before we get into aliens, which, which I'm extremely excited to talk to you about, for folks who don't know who you are, give us just a brief introduction and a little bit maybe about your story.

Yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me, by the way. I really appreciate it. Yeah, so I was, um, I, I came up in Vegas. Um, grew up in church. Uh, my parents were actively involved in church, but I was unsaved.

Okay. And so at 17, I told my parents, I'm out of here. I don't want any more of this stuff. And they were devastated. And I went and lived for myself until I was 30, when I actually did get saved.

Wow. And so coming, coming to that late, I was, I was a very obnoxious atheist. And so the first thing that I needed to do as a new Christian was figure out this Christianity stuff. It had to make sense to me logically. And so that's where apologetics became part of my seminal for formation as a Christian.

So you lived the majority of your life as a non-Christian. And you say, would you say atheist? Full-on anti-Christian?

I mean, my, my pastors did their job. Like, they taught me the scripture. I grew up in church. It's just that I, I just rejected it. I treated it like it was a club, and every Sunday morning, we see the same people, we know and say hello and smile, and then after that, it doesn't mean anything.

Got you. I'm just going to lower your mic just to sm. So you see face. There, there we go. Okay. So, so by the time you're 30 now, are you, would you, would you say you're a theist? Would you say you're Christian? Like, what, what would your paradigm be in terms of like, before you get saved? Like the, let's call the last year before you come to faith.

The last year. So like, looking back now as a Christian, I recognize this. The last year before I became a Christian, it was a series of events where God was bringing me to him. Um, my worldview was coming crashing down, I guess is, is what you could say. I lost somebody close to me. I, I held him in my arms and I watched him die. And it was ugly. And I felt what William Lane Craig calls the, the existential dread, the, the end of my life, mortality. I really felt it.

Who did you, who did you lose?

Uh, my cousin, but he was like a brother, you know. He, we all looked up to him. Mhm. And so when he passed, I started having nightmares. I just really felt the weight of the fact that not only am I going to die, but all the people I love are going to die. And the last straw was my father. My father was in a horrific accident. He broke his neck.

Oh my gosh. And we thought he was going to die. And I just went out the neuro. I was having a conversation with the neurosurgeon in the hospital. Mhm. This was in San Diego. And I, I didn't even hear what he was saying. I just went out into the lobby and I just fell in the bushes and started weeping. And at that moment, I said a prayer for the very first time. And it was just, help. You know? And I felt the Lord. Mhm. I felt a peace come through me. Mhm. And it went all the way through my body. And I was able to get back up and go back in and help my family take care of my dad. And, um, but I had to make sense of that after the fact. Like, did I have too much beans? Like, what's going on? What was this weird, uh, feeling that I had? And so that's when I went to church and I started really paying attention to the things that my pastors had taught me when I was a kid. And all kind of came together for me.

So as a kid, you never prayed or anything like that?

I prayed to please my parents. Okay. At five years old, my mom pulled me in the closet. She said, say the sinner's prayer. And I did it to please my mom. She just closed you on it. She, we need you to say this prayer. Okay. Yeah. And so you did it.

I did it. She was happy. I was happy that she was happy. And that was the extent of it.

Wow. And so as you grow up, would you say you had a Christian worldview that guided you, or would you say there wasn't as much Christian paradigm to your perspective?

So I grew up in Calvary Chapels. So these, these are verse by verse through the scripture people, you know. And, and that's, that's definitely a, a benefit of going to a Calvary is that's what you're going to experience. And so I, looking back again, I would say that my pastors did their job. They taught me in the scripture, everything that the scripture has to say. The, the, the Christian worldview was there. What I would critique, and I, and I do it lovingly, is that they forgot to tell me why any of it was true. And so that's where, as I got older, and I started wanting to do the things as an unsaved person, I wanted to do the things the Bible said you should, should not do. I took all that knowledge and I treated it as a story and I rejected the story.

Wow. Wow. That was great. So they taught you the Bible, but they didn't teach you why the Bible was true.

That's right. That's so good. Yeah. Wow. That's interesting. Um, so you have this series of events. Your cousin passes and your dad almost passes, but he, he ends up making it.

Yeah. And he's still alive. He's still alive. Yeah.

And that kind of is, is God pulling you towards him.

Yeah. That's right. Wow. What a trip. Um, it's interesting because I, so I grew up Armenian Apostolic or, or part of the Oriental Orthodox stream of the church and heard a couple Bible stories, but it was a lot of emphasis on tradition and Apostolic succession and all that kind of stuff, right? And the door that I came into the church through, like getting saved through, was the apologetics arm. It was, it was reading, uh, the New Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.

Yes, sir. So the mo, I would say within a two-year window of like dating a girl and starting to go to church, like I got into apologetics pretty quickly. And that was kind of what sealed the deal for me.

Okay. When did apologetics play into your journey?

Almost immediately. Almost immed. Okay. Because like I said, I mean, I was an obnoxious atheist. I had a, it's funny, uh, I still in touch with this person, but I knew a Christian back when I was in my early 20s, and this is when I was coming up in Vegas. And she would say things to me that many Christians say, you know, and they do it with the best of intentions, but it, it would just make me upset. And she would say something like, well, do you believe in God?

Mhm. And I'd say, of course not. And then she'd say, well, he believes in you. And I'd be like, girl, I'm going to. So it's funny because we shifted. As I got older and I got saved, she fell out of the faith.

That, same thing happened to me with the girl that got me going to church. Really? Yeah. For, she fell up. Yeah. For full on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now she's back in and on fire. So praise God for that. But, but, um, yeah, so almost immediately, like me just having this attitude against God and everything, I needed to get some answers to the questions that my pastors, like I said, never bothered to teach me. The first thing I got into was the minimal facts of the resurrection by Gary Habermas.

Um, and that actually inspired me to want to go to school where Gary taught. And now Gary's a friend. And wow. It's fascinating.

Go over those facts for folks who don't know what they are.

Well, there's, so it depends on, you know, who you talk to because William Lane Craig has his version of the minimal facts. But when you think about the resurrection, especially from a sort of a skeptical perspective, the way that you come to the conclusion that Jesus resurrected is not that you just take at face value what the scripture says. You treat the scriptural accounts as facts that you can then sort of put together as Lego pieces, a picture of the best explanation for those facts. Right, right. And so one of the facts, like I said, there's, there's, there's a lot. One of the facts is that he, Jesus died. Mhm. Um, and, and you take the scriptural accounts of him dying, you know, the soldier piercing Jesus' side, blood and water coming out. Um, another fact is that the tomb was empty. And we know that because of course, of the disciples' accounts, and then the disciples, uh, going on later to many of them being tortured and killed for saying that they had eyewitness, uh, they had seen Jesus as part of their eyewitness testimony being alive. That goes into that. But then also the fact that the Jewish leaders could not produce a body when the disciples initially claimed that Jesus was alive and that the tomb was empty. Um, and then another one is that enemies of Christ who were pursuing and sort of, uh, persecuting the followers of Jesus Christ flipped and said that they actually saw Jesus alive. And so the point, and we're talking about the Apostle Paul, James the brother of Jesus. And so if you put these facts together on a figurative table and just look at them, Mhm, the minimal facts asks you to give the best explanation for those facts. And it, in my opinion, is that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Yeah. Yeah. James, James is an interesting one because it's like, you know, Jesus' brother didn't follow him during his lifetime. And then Acts 15, while, while they're debating how they're to engage with the Gentiles, yeah, James gives the final word, you know, or seemingly gives the final, like say, in terms of what the, the protocol is for Gentile Christians. And so, yeah, I've always, I've always found James to be a fascinating one. And because he, because that's, I mean, like if you're talking about being convinced that your brother is the Son of God, you know, like that's a big deal, right? Especially when you hear in other accounts that initially his family members did not believe. And so we don't have the full picture. I mean, we just have, they didn't believe. Then all of a sudden, here is James, right, as a, as a full figure, as one of the leaders of the church. And you go, wow, what happened in the interim?

Right, right, right, right. So in this sequence, you, you grow up Calvary Chapel. Uh, you kind of say the fake prayer as a kid, uh, but you still go to church. So you get a lot of scripture poured into you, which Calvary Chapel was this?

So we moved around a lot. Um, I was born in Samoa, and then my parents moved to the states when I was one. And then we just moved around chasing jobs. My parents. So it was always a Calvary though. So we went to Calvary Albuquerque, Skip Heitzig. Um, we went to a Calvary in Texas. We went to the Calvary that was out in Las Vegas. Calvary Spring Valley. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah. I feel like Calvary has a, a fairly balanced. They're pretty uniform, and it's fairly balanced in terms of just the teaching of the Bible, going through the verse by verse, you know. Uh, their continuationist, but they're not like full-on carmaniack, you know? Like, I think there's a, there's a good balance there.

Carmaniack. I like Carmaniack. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a. I, I don't know if I coined that or not, but I like. I call myself a charismatic with a seatbelt, you know? Uh, oh, that's good. Yeah. Like I believe in the gifts of the spirit, but I'm not like flailing like a fish or, you know, waving flags.

The flags. I feel like the barometer of how charismatic are you is flags. Like, do you got flags or do you not got flags? If you got flags, you're teetering on carmaniack. We've all seen those guys too. Oh, yeah. Waving them flags. Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen those at a Calvary Chapel though.

No. Not at a Calvary. Not at Calvary. Yeah. Because, because they're balanced. Yeah. You know. So, so you grow up Calvary. And so I'm trying to get to where like you, like switch from, I'm a cultural Christian to, God doesn't exist. Like, when did that happen?

Oh, um, it was when I was a teenager. Um, I, I, I grew up pretty much mimicking the things that, uh, my parents were doing and saying, okay. But as I got into my teenage years, my adolescent years, I mean, there are things that the Bible teaches as part of God's desires for us in line with his design for us, um, that are just counter to our, our flesh. Mhm. And I wanted to chase after the, my flesh.

Okay. And so as soon as I felt that point of tension, that's when I started distancing myself from the Bible and finding excuses and ways to do it. But ultimately, and if you would have asked me at 14, 15, 16, I would not have been able to articulate this. But now as a grown man, looking back, I can say this. Like, I, I ended up treating the Bible as a story and just rejecting it. So at 17 is when I finally had the courage to tell my parents I don't want to go to church anymore. And it devastated them. And and then I just, uh, I went about for 13 years until I was 30, doing everything and experiencing everything I was told not to. Which kind of leads into my interesting relationship with the occult and the paranormal.

Okay. Before we get into that, would you, do you think it would have been more helpful had the ways of God, God's wisdom, God's laws, been communicated in a way where you understood as a teenager, they're actually for your best interest? Or do you think that wouldn't have made a difference? Because I feel like sometimes we just tell young people rules. Like, yeah, don't have sex with your girlfriend. And they're like, but why? It feels good. Right? Because God, it's like, that's not an answer. You know, whereas like, I remember early on, like, don't have sex with your girlfriend. Why? It's like, oh, because I almost got her pregnant and then she was about to have an abortion. And I don't want to have any part of getting somebody pregnant as a teenager. And or catching an STI. And or being in a situation where a woman could have an abortion without my consent. And you know what I mean? Like all of that, like, like that came alive to me really quick. And no one had to explain it to me. But I feel like often times that isn't very explained. Like, or it's like, it's explained from a purity culture standpoint. Like, sex is gross, sex is bad, so save it for the one you love, right? Like these very like counterintuitive narratives. Whereas like, I almost feel like if we articulated that, like the ways of God are empirically in our best interest. Yeah. Whether that's sex ethic, whether that's how we handle our finances, whether that's how we take care of our families, like all of these things, I think are in our best interest, the way he designed them. Uh, and the way like the, the Gospels and the Proverbs and the Epistles talk about these things. Do you think, uh, do you think that could have helped you?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I work for an organization now where we focus on training the next generation, so adolescent years, young adults in a biblical worldview. But that requires a sort of magic sauce, a secret formula to making faith come alive, making, uh, making creating an environment where students can own their faith. Because the reality is, you know, a lot of students that come to us, grow up in church, it's my story, grow up in church, but the statistic is still true. Three out of four students will leave the church at some point, even if they're active in youth group. And so at my organization, it's called, you said three out of four?

Three out of four. That's a lot. Yeah.

Well, the, depending on which statistic you're looking at, the numbers vary, but it's either two out of three or three out of four.

Wow. That's still a majority. That's, that is a majority. Wow.

And, and, and what, what would you say the crux of that is?

Well, and, okay, so then they probe in, why are you leaving the faith? There have been studies that have, uh, sought to find the answer to that question. One of the number one answers is, I had a question about the faith. I went to my mom and my dad, they didn't have an answer. And so I left. Wow. I went, I had a question about the faith. I went to my pastor, he didn't have an answer. And so I left. And so this gets at the heart of the issue, I think, is how do we get kids who grow up where their mom and dad is on fire, but that's the environment in which they grow up in, but they don't own their faith? How do we get them to own their faith? And there is a, there is a secret sauce. And it, it really comes down to a couple of things. One of them is meaningful processing of information. Okay. But that means, that looks like an environment where, uh, students are able to talk about what's going on in their, in their life. Life. They're talking about their struggles, and they're asking questions, and we are giving them answers to, to provide a, a relevant connection between the Bible and their lives. Which is funny, because that's exactly what Jesus did with his disciples.

That's good. That's good. In the context of community, in the context of conversation, in the context of small group. That's fair. Ex. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's good.

So what are some of those questions you think are the most commonly asked questions that kids, teenagers have, parents don't have an answer to, pastors don't have an answer to, or, or, or they have an answer, but they don't, don't maybe they don't articulate it super well?

Yeah. Well, the number one question is, uh, why did God let this bad thing happen? Why did God let my sister die? Why did God let my cousin die of cancer? Why, why the problem of evil? That's the number one question. It's always been the number one question. I was sitting with Clay Jones, in my opinion, he's like the leading voice in this area. And he's a, he was a professor at Biola, but, um, he wrote a book on this, the problem of evil. It is the number one question that all students are wrestling with. Everybody is wrestling with it. Mhm. And, and we Christians really largely do not have a good answer.

Yeah. What, what, I mean, I think there's answers. They're just not always the best one. Like, if you take it from the Calvinist perspective, then you're like, well, because God predestined it. Right, right. Like, always. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. God predestined this horrible thing to happen? Right, right. Uh, and if you take it from the Armenian perspective, it's like, well, because of free will, right? Like, because of people, people are broken and therefore sin the world and therefore this is why we have sickness and disease and evil, right? You know, so that's like the, the two answers. But neither of them is necessarily like satisfying. You know, and that's the trick. Yeah. Is that whatever logical answer you can give to the problem of evil, the questioner is coming at it from an emotional side. Yeah. And so that splits the question into two categories: the logical side of the question and the emotional. And we always, especially those of us in apologetics, we always answer the logical and we forget that there's an emotional component. And that's more important. And on the emotional side of things, there largely is no answer. And that's why this will always be the number one question, in my opinion. You know, I, I would say emotionally, perhaps narrative helps. Meaning that like, in my life, I, you know, unfortunately have gone through sexual assault as a kid. I didn't have my dad in my life. And so I was, I was identifying functionally as an atheist, like I am an atheist at like 11. You know, lost my virginity at 11, got arrested at 11, like debaucherous, debaucherous child I was. Wow. And I, and now I can look back and I could say, man, it, the scriptures are really true. Like, all things work for good for those who love God, are called according to his purpose. Or I think of Joseph, you know, that what you meant for evil, God has used for good. Right. And so I could honestly look back and say, those things that were, that were there, that were so awful in the moment, that I, I didn't understand, like, why would God allow these things to happen to me, be even before the age of being a teenager, like, why would these terrible things happen to me? Um, I could look back now on hindsight and be like, yeah, but, but those things were meant for good, you know? And so maybe, maybe the, the narrative aspect, like sharing people sharing stories of things that happened to them that were awful, but then when you zoom out 30,000 feet, you go, yeah, that was, that sucks. You know, but like, it could have been worse. And yet those are the very things that led me to where I'm at now, which is, which is good, you know? Yeah. But I don't know, I don't know if that's fair because I feel like there's people that probably gone through similar things that like completely collapsed under the pressure and didn't, you know what I mean? It didn't, uh, uh, suffering produces character, character, perseverance, right? Like maybe folks don't go through that. You know? Yeah. I mean, I, but I think you're right. And, and maybe I'll just say the same thing that you said, just using different words. Mhm. You know, again, if we understand that the question, the problem of evil is kind of split into categories, if we're really trying to answer the emotional side of the question, then it comes down to Incarnation. Answering the question. And what I mean by that is Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, you can be the smartest person in the room, you can be the best, have the most gifts, but if you have not love, you're nothing. That's good. You're a sounding gong, right? And that's it. Is we lead with love. That's also John's, uh, primary concern in First John, yeah. We lead off with love. We love these people with these emotional issues that they're struggling with, because that informs the question in the first place. And over time, as we Incarnation represent Christ, um, we lead them to the logical answer. And I, I think that's great. No, that's good. I think, I think that is great. I think there's a lot there. And I think I think the gospel is also like a great thing. Like, if we talk about bad things happening to good people, like, you don't got to go further than the cross. You know, that's right. Jesus, perfect, just, helped, just served, gets crucified. Like, what? That doesn't make sense, right? It's the tragedy of all tragedies. But the resurrection happens, right? He's, he's, it's there's a, there's a, there's a, this, the story, this very, like Jordan Peterson, head-spacey, right? But the sto, the story in and of itself has a beautiful narrative that I think takes evil and and uses it for good. Amen. You know? And so I think it's, uh, yeah, I think I think that's, that's tricky.

What would you say are some other commonly? We move away from the issue of evil. What are some other commonly asked questions?

Oh, that, yeah. Well, you, I mean, you mentioned it. So the sort of, why, why can't I have sex with my girlfriend? That's, I guess for adolescents. Yeah. But I was thinking of, um, sort of, you know, the, the Calvinist, uh, uh, the thing that they seem to be focused on the most is free will. So if God is sovereign and he's in control of the universe, then what does that mean for human freedom? Mhm. And, uh, that's probably the second most, in my opinion, the question that's asked. As a young adults pastor myself, I saw that all the time.

So what, what say you?

Yeah, so I mean, my typical stock answer is, uh, is not probably satisfying because, let me acknowledge this, right? In our culture today, in the 21st century, we are very, we're very impatient. And so questions like these that are meant to lead us to the scriptures and spend the rest of our lives answering and savoring that answer, we want the answer in as much time as it takes to microwave popcorn, or else we're not satisfied. And so that's my answer. Doesn't fit into that. But basically, we have two types of categories of teaching in the scripture. On the one hand, God is in control. And it appears even in that control, sometimes that means control over human beings. And then there is all kinds of scripture that presupposes that humans are free. Mhm. And so then the question is, you have to decide which one takes precedence over the other. Mhm. Um, and that's all I say about it. That's really all I can say. If you want to, so, so other people try to lean too far over the skis of scripture and provide explanations that the scripture does not. I don't want to do that. I just want to acknowledge those two categories and leave it there.

That's good. That's good. What would you say? Any other ones that come to mind? Questions?

Yeah. Yeah. Then, then the other questions are, I mean, especially in the realm of what I do on YouTube, and you've probably seen this too, right? Like, well, where is good evidence for your God? You know? And that's again, to me, I see that as an emotional outburst, not an actual legitimate question. Mhm. Yeah.

Evidence thing is always funny because it's like, what, what do you mean by evidence? Right? You like, what, what are you saying? Like, do we have evidence that, uh, do we have evidence today that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in the specific narrative that history has told, right? You know, like, what do we mean by that? Like, um, do we have DNA evidence? Yeah. You know, do we have, like, I don't know, like, do, do we have, I don't know, like, so when we're talking evidence, I just think that's such a, it's a disingenuous question, right? Because to have evidence, you would need a time machine and a video camera.

Well, I think you're touching on it. Is it a loaded question? Because the, the evidence, as defined by the people that usually ask this question, is so reduced down to only something that is actually physical and can be produced in a, in a laboratory experiment. That of course, because if you define evidence in that way, yeah, you won't find any evidence of a God who is spirit. I mean, that doesn't even make any sense at that point, right? Right, right. Um, but I would say, is there, is there enough there beyond a reasonable doubt? And I would say, absolutely. Right. If we're looking beyond a reasonable doubt, I would say there's more, there's more than sufficient evidence to point to God as who he claims to be, and Jesus as who, you know, the resurrection, all that kind of stuff. And you kind of just rebuild it.

Um, where, where do you think the, like, the future of all this is? Having dealing with young, young youth and the rates of deconstruction and the rates of deconversion? Like, do, do you see light at the end of the tunnel? Do you see things like what you're doing with, with Summit? That's the name of the organization, right? Yeah. Um, things you're doing on your YouTube channel, things I'm doing on my YouTube channel, the additional, uh, resources and access and media. Do you feel like things are getting better and there's going to be more, you know, like more progress made? Or do you feel like, ah, it's folks are going to continue going down this road to deconstruction, deconversion? Three out of four teens will leave, or do you think they'll leave and eventually come back?

So a number, do a number of, and I'm a living example of the ones that leave and come back. So that's true. It's funny because you make me think of, so I'm going to answer your question. I'm going to take the long way. Jesus says in Matthew 6, uh, there's this really weird one-off sort of thing that he says in the middle of his teaching. Mhm. He says, um, the eye is the lamp of the body. And if the eye is now, some translations say clean, healthy, Mhm, but what he's really saying is good, to in the Hebrew, um, then your whole body is filled with light. If your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. How great is that darkness, right? That's a Hebrew idiomatic expression. What he means is, if you have a good eye, that means you're a generous person. And so if you're a generous person, you'll see the world very generously, radically generous. Okay. This, this takes us back to creation. God looks at creation because you got to ask the question, Roussain, why did God take six days to create something that he could have just snapped his fingers and he could have just created in an instant? Mhm. And the thing is, what we see is God creating on one day, separating light and dark. That's it. But then he says, that's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. God is showing us that he has a good eye. And we, like God, need to have his good eye. And if we do, then we'll be radically generous, not only with our money, but also with the way that we view the world, the way we view people. So my answer to your question is, I'm going to have a good eye and say, I think this is going to a great place. I think, um, what we're seeing right now is maybe a repeat of of the late '60s. Mhm. Mhm. But, you know, we came out of the late '60s, and there was a boom, particularly in apologetics and theology after that. I know that. And I think that there is going to be a repeat like that.

Huh. You think this boom can help cause revival?

Amen. I do. And we saw Asbury months ago. It's exciting. I, I pray that more, more revivals. I just got goosebumps when I asked you that. And you answered that. I think, uh, that's good. That's good.

Okay. So, um, let's talk about some of the debates on that you've kind of reacted to and you talk about on your channel. Sure. Um, you've covered quite a few. You used to teach debate when you were a high school teacher, is that accurate?

Okay. And there's a huge difference between like, who has the better argument and who's the better debater.

That's true. Right? That's true. So like, we were talking about offline. We were talking about Leighton Flowers and James White. Right? I think James White, I would never, I would never in a million years want to debate James White. Like, even if I thought I had the, the, the, the best argument. Yeah. There's just nothing like reps. Right? 150, I think debates he's had formal debates. And so I think there's nothing like reps. Right? Where I feel like Leighton Flowers actually has the more coherent biblical position in terms of soteriology. Yeah. In terms of soteriology, with regards to how we're saved, right? And, and how that works. But, but James White has the better debate skills and debate tactics. No doubt. There's no doubt. And so, uh, so, so what did you make of that debate specifically? And what are some other, we can get into a couple other debates that you've watched or, or that, that like, I've been standouts to you?

So yeah, thank you for, thank you for the question. It's, that that was years ago. Um, I think what stands out to me was kind of exactly what you said, which is in terms of format, in terms of what you're supposed to do on the debate stage, it was very clear that James White did, he outperformed Leighton Flowers. The, I think what it came down to for me was the title of the debate. The title of debates are important. So now I'm going to speak more like on the formal side of things, not what we usually see on YouTube, um, in terms of debates, but like when you go into creating the resolution of a debate, it must be in the form of a declarative statement, as something that can be defended and something that can be negated. Mhm. That's not what happens with a lot of debates. A lot of debates are in the form of a question: Does God exist? MH. And so then you don't know who on either side of the debate, what their roles are and what they're supposed to do. But if you say, the God of the Bible exists, that's a declarative statement. That now you know the person that takes the affirmative for that is going to argue that God does exist, and the person that takes the negative side is going to argue against. And so with the title of the debate on Romans, like it literally was, does Romans 9? And now I'm forgetting, but it was something about Romans 9, does Romans 9 teach Calvinist soteriology? I forget what it was. And that's where Leighton really needed, in my opinion, he really needed to handle the text of Romans 9, but in a way that that followed the flow of Paul's thought. And in my opinion, he didn't do that. What he did was he came to the debate with a presentation against Calvinism, right? Made a lot of great arguments, by the way. Yeah. And, um, but didn't fulfill the sort of responsibility that he had as a debater.

Yeah. Why do, why do you think he did that? I, and by the way, I love, I, I love Dr. Leighton Flowers, and I, and I hold to more of his soteriology, but why do you think he did that?

You know, I don't know. So none of my degrees are in psychology, so I'm, I'm not sure why. I don't know if it's just lack of experience. I, I really don't know. I, I do know that, so I haven't seen too much of Leighton's stuff. And I, I actually stumbled backwards into it, like this was requested. I didn't, you know, set out, go, I'm going to get Leighton Flowers. That's not it at all. Um, he actually responded to my debate reaction, and, uh, and we, we got into a little bit of a back and forth, but I have no ill will at all towards Leighton. But I, I just, I wonder if maybe, yeah, it was just lack of skill, lack of experience. Yeah. He, he does like to speak in the way that he presented himself at that debate on a regular basis. So maybe that's just his style.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember, I, I remember obviously I'm biased because I like the argument of that better, right? Of of specifically soteriology. But I remember also like, yeah, you know, it didn't, uh, it turned into a Calvinism versus, uh, a Calvinist debate instead of like a Romans 9 debate, which did seem kind of perplexing at the time. Yeah. You know, uh, okay. I'm, I'm looking on your channel. Some of the things that that I, uh, uh, oh, I've, I've watched. Um, let's talk about, I want to see your take on this Matt Chandler, Steven Furtick debate. What did you make of that in hindsight? And do you think that Matt's warning to Elevation was, you know, because it, we're talking Elephant for context, we're talking about the Elephant Room. Elephant Room, they sat down, they talked. Matt seemed to really push back on Furtick minimizing theology. And kind of like, if you want a deep theological church, like this isn't it for you, right? Right. And, and Furtick kind of said it was like, hey man, like, I'm an evangelist. I'm trying to reach people for God. And like, as, as they've kind of decade a decade later now plus decade plus, you know, uh, there's definitely some sus parts about Elevation in terms of some of their views and some overlapping the New Age and Furtick kind of saying some bizarre things. And ever taking ownership. I always point out the whole, I am God Almighty, misstep. That never, ever, ever, ever, ever got acknowledged or cleaned up. You know? And, and, and Chandler, who I think has has found a, a fairly robust, I would say healthy theology, and not just theology, but like church structure and all that kind of stuff. So what do you make of that in hindsight?

If I remember, I zoomed in on like one specific aspect of that overall discussion. And it was really more about, um, who should, who should the church focus on primarily? Should it be those who are already in the seats, or should it be bringing in more people off the streets? That's right. And so, uh, I, I just evaluated who, who was doing a better job in that regard. Yes. But just to show my cards, my number one, and this was something that led me as a pastor, my number one, uh, verse that that helps me to think through that question is Ephesians 4. Mhm. And so in Ephesians 4, you know, Paul is talking about all the offices and roles of, uh, men who are in the body of Christ and what they're supposed to do. But it culminates in one task, which is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Mhm. And so my, my view on that is that ultimately, I think Chandler had the better argument, that is, that you begin primarily with those saints who need to be equipped. Mhm. So that they can go out and spread the gospel. Right. If you revert that or invert that, and you become the, the sole person at the stage who preaches the gospel, then it creates this kind of weird thing. And I'm sure you've seen it, I've seen it, where, you know, from this, from the pulpit, people will say, well, invite your friends so they can come hear the gospel. No, that's not what you're, you're supposed to be the gospel. You're supposed to go spread the gospel. And you're supposed to equip the saints that are in the congregation to go out and multiply. That's the Great Commission. So, yeah.

I've never understood. I mean, I guess I've understood it. Church scripturally seems to be for the believer, right? Like it is the local gathering of believers, the ecclesia of believers, right? Right. And so I've never gotten the idea of like, let's make Sunday morning as palatable as possible for the non-believer. Like, I, I like the idea of like, let's be excellent. Let's make sure the music is solid. Let's make sure the environment is is welcoming. Let's make sure the the preaching is good. But to the point where you're trying to constantly tip the scale every Sunday to the non-believer in the room, I, I just don't get. Like, I don't get the logic for that. Like, and I don't even think it has to be a binary. Like, I don't think it has to be either or. Like, I think if you, if you put on a, a Sunday morning where the Bible is preached, where, uh, people feel welcomed and, and, and like they're, they're invited into something, and the environment, you know, is is reasonable, right? We don't have to go full on, you know, Disneyland vibes, right? But like, it's like, you know, there's AC, you know, like, it's not super hot, right? Right. I feel like you could kind of eliminate even that need for a false binary. Right. But I, but I never understood that, like the seeker-friendly, you know, type of approach to stuff. It just, it, you know, I'm, and I love Rick Warren, but like, I'm going to use one verse, you know, and like rail on for five, five minutes, and then use one another verse and rail on for five minutes. And these these verses aren't in the same chapter, they're not in the same book. They're just like these random verses. I, you know, again, I just, I, I think it's a false binary that's unnecessary.

No, I totally agree. And I mean, you could, somebody should do the work of studying how we got here from like an anthropological side of things, from the church side. Yeah. Is it Billy Graham? Is it like the, the, the structure and the format that came out of, you know, sort of his evangelism and all that stuff? Was it before that? Yeah. I, I don't know the answers to those questions. But we certainly are concerned, many churches, with being very seeker-friendly, which in and of itself is not a bad thing. Paul in First Corinthians says that, you know, his concern there, because the spirit was moving like crazy in the Corinthian church, but his concern is that God is glorified and that those who come in off the street are not confused. And so that's all where all the stuff comes in about him talking about order of worship and all that stuff. Um, but that entails that people are going to come in off the streets because the spirit is moving, right? So that means that of course, we must take into consideration that people are going to come in and hear the gospel for the first time. But do it in a way where primarily we are equipping the saints. I've sat in meetings, and maybe you have too, because you were, you were a pastor too.

Well, I was on staff at a church. I never got ordained. But yeah. Okay.

Well, then you were behind the curtain and saw what was going on. Like I've seen these meetings. It's like, how do we talk about church like a, a funnel? Mhm. And how do we get, you know, people in the top of the funnel and bring them all the way down to the bottom of the funnel?

So gross. It's so disgusting. That's like, cuz funnels for people who don't know, funnels is like, uh, customer acquisition, business. It's marketing, right? Which is like, a ministry, in my opinion, shouldn't be viewed in the same way.

Exactly. Yeah. And somehow it's just crept in. Yeah. To the church. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I think what, what happened was, if I had to take a wild guess, I feel like the Calvary Chapel explosion of the Jesus movement was then followed by changing demographics in the explosion of cities like Orange County, right? And then people started flooding these cities, new cities. And then that, that's when you started seeing kind of like the Saddlebacks and that whole thing, right? Um, and again, I, I know, I know Rick, I've met Rick, I don't know him really well, but I, I like, I love, I love Rick. But I think some of it is just probably the changing demographics, perhaps the up creeping in of business language and business talk, you know, uh, into ministry, which again, like, I think, I think there could, you could do good business in the sense of like, good bookkeeping and doing things with integrity and clarity. But I think sometimes when, when we're talking about discipling people and making sure people are equipped, and then you're using language like, like top of funnel and avatar, and, you know, who's the avatar for your church? And it's like, wait, what? You know, I think they had Saddleback, Saddleback Sam. I don't know if you ever saw that.

No. You never saw that? No.

So they had like Saddleback Sam. And Saddleback Sam is in his, you know, early 30s, and he has a family. And Saddleback Sam is a working professional. And Saddleback Sam, it's this whole like, they created like an avatar of like, who to go after. It's a marketing persona. Yeah. Yeah. Which again, which is which is funny.

Do you think that, do you think that even in that, folks get plugged into those churches and they?

end up at different churches. I think that happens a lot, actually. Yeah, because, I mean, if you think of following after Jesus as a journey for the rest of your life, um, yeah, people, people begin somewhere, but where they begin doesn't mean that's where they're going to end up, right? And so, a lot of these churches end up becoming, uh, your, it's almost like buying a house, you know? Like, you have your starter home, but that's not your forever home. People have starter churches, but that's not their forever church.

That's interesting. "Starter church." I like that. Okay, so talk to me about, uh, the Ben Shapiro, uh, "Pint with Aquinas" conversation on Sola Scriptura. Do you think Sola Scriptura, or the notion of Sola Scriptura, could be a stumbling block when we, we're discussing these things? Meaning that, I feel like Sola Scriptura gets straw-manned by, by our Catholic brothers and sisters often. Um, you know what I mean? And it'll be like, you guys just, I remember, did you see the Candace Owens thing?

Candace Owens and her husband. I caught a couple minutes of it. Yeah. Candace, that would be a fun thing for you to react to. Candace and, uh, Candace's husband hosted a conversation between her husband and Allie Beth Stucky, who, yeah, just not the representation I would have preferred, uh, for a conversation about that. But, uh, someone said, like, you, you know, we didn't have access to the Bible. And so my husband asked me, like, the Protestant Church wasn't around until the 1500s. So, you mean to tell me that no one was saved until the Protestant Church was established? And it's a lot of just, I feel like, straw-manning when it comes to Sola Scriptura. The Reformation, only, only Catholics can be, uh, only Protestants can be saved, and everything before that, the church was corrupt, right? Um, unpack some of that for me from your perspective.

Well, so, I'm, I'm just, uh, at the outset, going to warn you, I'm not, I'm probably not very well-versed in this, in this area. Um, but I will say a couple of things. Um, as a matter of fact, uh, Gavin Ortlund, is, we were talking about this, he's probably the person to pay attention to and, and to listen to. He, he, he did a great job of, of that specific debate. Oh, he did. That he did. Debate, yeah. Breaking that one down. Yeah. With regard to Sola Scriptura, a lot of people, actually Protestants as well, I think, misunderstand Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura is not saying that it's the Bible alone that we see as our source of authority, right? It's that the Bible is at the top of the hierarchy of authority. That's right. So, we do entail, um, religious leaders, doctrines, covenants that we, um, as Protestants have sort of formulated over the years. We do incorporate that, if your church is doing their job, um, into how we think through doctrine and theology. But Sola Scriptura has to be there at the top because that guides us and helps us with people who will err. We're still sinners. We love the Lord, but we're going to make mistakes. And so, the, the word of God has to be our standard.

That's good. And that's, that's our, that's our issue, I think, with Roman Catholicism, is they're going to say, no, actually, the word of God is, is equal and on par to the Pope and the Magisterium. And, and, and that's our primary critique. Um, if I remember with the, the video, though, with Ben Shapiro, it was more about lust and, um, pornography. And my critique was, you know, we need to go to the scripture. Why? Well, it's so, I have Catholics that watch my channel, and they said, oh, you're trying to force Sola Scriptura on a Jew. And I was saying, no, the reason why I'm saying we need to go to scripture is because if you're going to have a conversation where you disagree with someone, so now these are debate principles, you're going to need to go to an authority that they actually accept. It would be this, it's just as true if you were talking to an atheist, you need to cite sources and of authority that, that your interlocutor will accept.

That's good. And with the, a Jew, what are they going to accept? With the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament. And so that's where I was saying, you need to go, and you need to understand what the word lust means, and you need to figure out how to, how to engage with a Jew if you're going to want to try to change their mind. You, you can talk all you want. I think Matt Fradd was appealing to sort of the Catholic view of lust. And I mean, you can talk all you want about it, but all you're going to do is virtue signal. And I say that very gently. I actually like Matt Fradd quite a bit. Yeah. Um, so, so there's that. Uh, the other thing you would asked me about was, um, what was the other thing you asked me? I lost my train of thought.

I lost my train of thought too. Ben Shapiro conversation, lust, Sola Scriptura. Can, can the, the straw man of Sola Scriptura become a stumbling block? I think that was the second part of the question. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because we don't understand what it actually means. And so, yeah, I think a lot of, and I've probably witnessed this, you've probably witnessed this too. The comment section on the YouTube channel is so interesting. They're, they're bad, man. They're bad. It's so interesting. Respect to you for still reading them. I'd try, but, yeah, anyway. But, um, yeah, and you can see this back and forth, but, uh, you, you just, it becomes readily apparent that both sides don't really understand Sola Scriptura, right? But, like I said, the proper definition is, it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

In terms of the, the conversation around lust, yeah, I thought that was, that was an interesting one because it, it was spurred by Dennis Prager, who kind of found all these, like, loopholes of like, yeah, well, you know, if your wife is sick and she's a paraplegic and like, I don't mind if you're going at her. Like, I'm like, these are the most extreme examples, right? That he kept kind of referring to, right? Uh, but from my understanding, in the Jewish tradition, like, they're very much so, I don't care what, what you think, I don't care what your motives are, how do you behave? Very pragmatic, right? Where in, in the Christian tradition, like, no, no, no, no, the motive matters, the heart matters, the intent matters, the thoughts matter. Like, it all matters. How something gets accomplished is just as important as what gets accomplished, you know? So, if you stay married for 30 years, but you're looking at porn and you are, you know, leveraging, not leveraging, but like lavishing in lust, but like, I've been married for 30 years. Like, that doesn't, that's not the same as like, I've been married and exclusively faithful with all my sexual energy to my wife and my wife alone. Yeah. You know? Like, it's different. Like, just, I think we just have different parameters around that.

It's totally right. What I found interesting was Prager is, was not, uh, Shapiro. And, and I guess Shapiro cited some other Jewish leaders. They didn't agree with Prager. And so then it showcased this division of interpretation between all of them. Um, Prager is more, I think, a reflection of looking at the law. And Prager didn't say this exactly, but there is a sort of a, a Jewish, uh, rabbinic teaching style which is called putting a building a fence around the Torah. I think I talked about this in the video that I did. But you build a fence around the Torah in the sense that when you have a certain command, mhm, like, don't have sex with someone who's not your wife. Well, you end up, in order to safeguard that that will never happen, you end up building a fence like 50 feet, figuratively, away from having sex with another woman. So then it becomes not only don't have sex with another woman, don't look at another woman. Not only that, don't work at a facility, like, you can get crazy with it. Don't work at a facility where other women are. And that ends up kind of building a fence around the law. Mhm. I think Prager is, has looked at that and and interpreted that as, what can I get away with? What can I get away with before I actually hit that fence? That, that fence around the Torah. Interesting. That's the wrong way to look at it. And I think Shapiro is coming from the other side. And he acknowledged this with Fradd, that yes, we are very action-oriented as Jews, but the end result is that our heart is transformed through the practice of obedience, which is actually very friendly, I think, to Christian. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

Well, well, I mean, again, in the Christian tradition, do we behave and then have a heart change, or are we operating from a heart change and therefore we behave? Yeah. Right? We would say we're operating from a heart change, being born again, having new desires, and the power to be obedient to God. That's, uh, Philippians chapter 2, right? Yeah. Um, gave us new desires and the power to, to obey, to obey God, right? That's right. And so, I think it's, it's a paradigm shift where I would say, yes, in other faiths, you are behaving, and then your, your heart doesn't really matter as much. You're behaving in Judaism to do the right thing. Just do it. In Christianity, we definitely believe in a heart change. We believe in a change of desire, and then we do the thing. Yeah. You know? That's right. Amen. Amen.

Let's talk about aliens. My part. Here we go. Okay. So, your video on aliens is brilliant. I loved, I loved that you pointed out the very obvious, the fact that it's probably another dimension that people are having encounters with, yeah? Right? Not physical people in this dimension, or, or, or, or in this universe, right? Yeah. And you said that was because of the, our planet being in a, how, what was it? Goldilocks zone. Goldilocks zone. Now, there were people in the comment section, in my comment section, that were like, no, he's wrong about the Goldilocks zone. There's a, there's other planets. You know, do you want to address that? Because it seemed like pretty straightforward. Your argument seemed very linear. And, and I thought, great. Well, thank you. Yeah.

And I appreciate the opportunity to clarify because at the outset, I'm going to say, I'm not the expert on aliens by any stretch. So I didn't say anything, you know, from some deep, extensive research that I've done. I'm sort of bringing, I guess, to the conversation, things that better men have said, better people have investigated. Um, so there's that. In "Privileged Planet," which is a really great book, and it's, it was an eye-opener for me. The Goldilocks zone is really a, a, a way of thinking about a planet that exists to, that is, uh, has the elements that are conducive for life to thrive. It doesn't, it doesn't give us the beginning of life, so biogenesis. It just gives us, when there is life, how life would thrive. And that comes down to a couple of elements, if I remember, like water, um, carbon, we're carbon-based creatures, temperate, uh, living. So, like, the temperatures are just the right amount so that plants and flowers and creatures can grow and thrive. What's interesting is, um, and this probably comes mostly from non-believers, but probably some believers, is they'll look, so we have looked with technology out into the reaches of outer space, and we've seen planets that we think have water. Don't know, cuz, you know, we're not there. But, um, and then we go, oh, no, see, that's also the Goldilocks zone. No, the whole argument is that it has to have all of the elements that are conducive for life to thrive, right? But even then, let's say, Ruzon, which there is no, as far as I understand, there is no planet that we've discovered with our technology in the furthest reaches of outer space that has all of the elements. Even if it did, you still have to explain biogenesis. Where did life begin? If you're a non-believer, you say abiogenesis, which means it just happened. There was a primordial goo and lightning hit a crystal or something. That's the famous Richard Dawkins explanation. But I mean, you still don't have that with other planets. So we still have a problem.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so, and, and I've heard other people describe the, the same exact thing. Like, from a technology standpoint, there, there is nowhere that could potentially have this, these variables to travel from. Like, it's impossible to travel from. But you're going, you're saying deeper, there's no planets that could even have that's right, the capacity to travel from. And then you said that the, it would have to be from a different galaxy, is that correct? Or different universe?

So, I got pushback too, um, on, uh, which, by the way, thank you for shining a spotlight on that. Yeah. That was a great video. Thank you for making a video. It's funny because I don't want to divert too much. I didn't want to do that at all. Oh, really? That was part of a live stream. I took that question, but on the inside, I was like, man, I don't want to answer this question because I don't want to be like the alien guy, you know? Like, I'm not, I don't feel confident in that level of expertise as opposed to other, my other stuff. Sure. But anyway, I answered it, and praise God for that. But, um, one of the pushbacks that I got from my video was, um, well, what about Mars? Mhm. Well, you talk about other galaxies, which was what I was saying is, yeah, other galaxies, you have to travel thousands and thousands of light years to get here, right? They said, no, what about Mars? And I'm thinking, to, I didn't say this in the comments, but I'm thinking to myself, brother, stop watching movies. Mhm. Like, this isn't Transformers: Dark of the Moon, you know what I mean? There's no, there's no life on Mars, dude. And if it is, it's not, right? It's not intelligent life. Yeah. I mean, as far as, it's ridiculous. Like, the argument of Mars is is silly. It's silly. And so, yeah, you, so, so for any type of meaningful life, you're talking thousands of light years away, which would have to break the laws of physics, is that correct?

Well, as far as we know, in terms of sentient beings who can be alive physically, yeah, they would have to live for like, 25,000 plus years just to get here, right? And that just seems improbable. Now, I could be wrong. All of this could be wrong, and I'm, I'm saying stuff that later will be proved to be incorrect, and I acknowledge that. But I'm just saying, from my vantage point, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not just me. No, no. I, I, and again, I've, I've talked to friends that are scientists, and they've kind of said the same thing, like, it's very unlikely and improbable that something that, that all of that can happen, you know? Um, they would have to be so technologically advanced and, and so different. And the, the constant, like, uh, kind of cliché image of aliens, you know, is is super, it's kind of the same. You know, see them. But you pointed out that in other parts of the world, they're different. In other parts of the world, they were, they're kind of, uh, some, some of them. Unpack that for me, because that was very interesting.

Yeah. So, there's a, there's a really great book, and now I'm forgetting it, but it's written by a guy named Bates. B-A-T-E-S. Gary Bates, I think it's called "Alien Delusion" or "Illusion" or something. And all he did was he went and, because it's very hard to find one place that has all of the data collected in one central location. This book comes pretty close. So, I just, I would recommend that book. Um, and he pointed out that when you look at accounts, because I think I talked about classic abduction syndrome cases, they'll talk about the description of the people that have quote unquote abducted them. And, yeah, if you go, like, in other places, I mean, they don't look like gray beings with big black eyes, like what we see here in the United States. Sometimes they look like tall Nordic beings. Sometimes they look like Bigfoot. They look like other things that, and again, this is an inference on my part, is probably more palatable for that side of the world. We, we think big, you know, gray or big black eyes, gray beings, probably because of the movies that we've been influenced by. Um, and also some of the accounts, you know, from 1948, Roswell, all that stuff. But that would be my argument.

Yeah. Now, before we, we, we talk about the tie-in to the occult, which was very interesting. Um, you said you had some experience with, with the occult prior to coming to salvation. What was that like?

Well, it was minimal. But I, like I said, so I rejected, uh, the gospel. I rejected my parents' faith. And so I just decided to go, it was very rebellious. I decided to go in the complete opposite direction. One of the things that I was fascinated by ever since a boy was the paranormal. There was a, I'll never forget, I was in, I think it was middle school, sixth grade. There was a paranormal section in my public school library. And I just went through there and got a bunch of books and started reading. And it was just a fascinating topic for me. By the way, no explanation from the church side to sort of tie it into a biblical worldview. Um, so these were unanswered questions. So when I, um, I mean, it's not funny. I chuckle. It's just, I chuckled because the Lord protected me. I, I taught myself how to read tarot cards. I, uh, started communicating with spirits. Grabbed Ouija boards. We went to haunted locations. It was a lot of, they do this now on the History Channel or a, uh, whatever the other channel is, you know, ghost, ghost detectives or ghost investigators. I was doing that before those shows existed, you know? And, and being obnoxious, inviting spirits to manifest themselves. Um, so in my house, I had a house in Vegas for a while. Yeah. The spirits would manifest themselves, but in benign ways. I mean, I had nightmares of people attacking me in my sleep, and I'd wake up, you know, sort of grasping at the air, trying to fight my attackers. Lights would turn on and off. Doors would open and shut in my, in my house. Mhm. I think the worst one was, and I, again, this is, uh, but I went to a house that, uh, a friend of mine had said he, he thought it was haunted. He had experiences there. We communicated with the spirit, uh, with a Ouija board. Not much happened, but I just felt like I wanted to film it. So I, I grabbed my camera. We came back a week later, and we went into the house, and all the entire floor, carpet and tile, was covered with dead insects. Yuck. It was, it was incredible. And I was like, wow, that's, that's kind of creepy. Mhm. That graduated to other stuff, you know? I, I learned how to hypnotize people. Like, I just was, it was a free-for-all. And aliens, um, I lived in Vegas, so we went to Area 51. I went out there twice. And I went past the point that you're not supposed to cross. You're wild, man. I was an idiot.

You just went for it, huh?

I went for it. I got busted. So if you, I don't know if you've been, but like, there is a sign.

No, I've never been.

No, I have no desire to go. Not, not chasing aliens, man. Yeah. Don't. It's not. And I didn't see anything. Yeah. But I'm just saying, I went to, I figured out where Area 51 is. There's a turnoff that nobody knows about, but I found it. And so me and my friends went down there. And there's a sign that says, cuz it's Groom Lake, it's a, it's a government facility. There's a sign that says, "If you pass this point, we will shoot you." Of course, I went past it. And because if I can describe it, and hopefully I don't get the government's watching this, there's a, there's a winding road between two tall hills. And so I just wanted to see the facility. So we're, we're, we're coming around the bend, and there's more hills. And so I'm telling my friends, let's get out and let's climb up the hill and look over. We climb up the hill, and I bump right into a six-foot-tall, uh, metal tripod with like, measuring equipment on it and video camera. And I freak out. So we run back to the car and we peel out and leave. And then like, two minutes down the road, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. That was nothing. Let's go back. So we go back, and I get out, and we were met with, uh, military police.

What did they say?

They, they didn't say much. They just, they pointed and told us to turn around. That was it. That was it. And that was God's grace. Yeah. Because that could have been worse. They could have shot you. They could have shot you.

So, so you're enamored with all this stuff now. Talk, talk was, were, excuse me, yeah. And to the point where you were hypnotizing people.

Yeah. It's, to me, it was a joke. And, and that's what I want to like, relay as a takeaway. I thought it was all a joke. People, people dabble with stuff and think it's, think it, think it's just fun and games, or maybe think that there's some power of suggestion or whatever in it. And then, like, but, but then you're actually dabbling in spiritual matters that you shouldn't be dabbling with. That's right. You know? And so, um, so connect, connect the dots for those who are watching in terms of how the folks who have these encounters with aliens tend to also have strong connections to the occult.

Well, that appears to be the end result of their encounters with these beings. And I say beings because I don't believe at all that aliens are actual physical creatures from another galaxy. I think they're beings that have come to our dimension from another one. And I mean, if you just, you don't even need to, um, be a believer in Jesus Christ to get there in terms of an inference. I, I think the evidence is strong enough to get you there. You don't even have to believe it. But of course, as Christians, in our worldview, we have an explanation for this. You know? And that's where I said that these are demons. Mhm. But, um, if you think about demons and you think about their, uh, their goals, this is right in line with what you see when you read about classic abduction syndrome cases, where people will say, I was abducted, and they were communicated to by aliens. The stories vary, but what they'll say is, we are the ones who created life on Earth. Um, we, you know, implanted life on Earth. And now we're back to bring about some kind of utopia. We're going to solve the world's problems. Um, what's interesting is a lot of people after they have encounters, and it's always multiple encounters, it's not just one. So these people will be revisited. And over the course of their visitations with these beings, they'll become much more friendly to the occult, to pagan, occultic practice, where it's more universalist in nature. All religions lead to the same thing. But at the top are the aliens as the ones to be worshiped. Um, and then, of course, it's sort of, there's an antipathy towards Christianity. And so you'll hear sometimes in the language, like, of the aliens communicating to people, like, well, Jesus was just another alien traveler like us, which is anti-gospel. Anti-gospel. Yeah. Um, and that's ultimately what happens. And there's, like I said, the best book on that, it's all collected together, it's the book by Bates. Yeah. It's an eye-opener.

Spook. So, in, in, when you hear the guy in front of Congress say, "non-human biologics," are you saying you're calling nonsense on that? You're saying that, that they don't have, because my question is, is it possible that they're transitioning over from this other dimension into a physical dimension? Or do you think these people are just having spiritual dreams and and and interacting in a spiritual dimension? Meaning, like, is it possible for these demonic forces to have a physical presence?

Yes. Okay. So, so I mentioned, uh, I think Michael Heiser in the video that I did. And it's funny because, uh, 10 years ago, somebody said, Nate, you need to read Heiser. And I was aware of him and his development of scholarship on this area. And I said, no way, because I did not want to upend my view of the Bible. My, my sort of take on this now is, I think we have drastically reduced, as Christians, Protestant evangelicals in the 21st century, we've reduced our view of the spiritual realm. Mhm. And we are, in many ways, and I say this very lovingly, practical atheists. We act like everything is material on a day-to-day basis, and then on Sunday, we raise our hands in worship. And Heiser upends that. He turns that upside down. Um, and I, I don't know how far deep you want to go in this, but, uh, for Heiser, there is, the Bible unpacks this notion of a hierarchy of authority in the heavenly realms. God has, God is at the top. There is, there is only him and no other, you know? But underneath him were all of the created divine beings that he made. Mhm. In those, in that category of the divine beings that he created, there is a hierarchy of authority. Some are angels, some are malak, right? In Hebrew. That, and angel is a messenger. That their job is to just relay and communicate the things of God. Others were to, uh, administrate the things that God was doing here on Earth in creation. God has, God originally, in Genesis 1:3 and two, um, God created a mirror of what was going on in the heavenly realms. And so, in that sense, man is to have dominion in the same way that these, the heavenly host, the way the Bible describes them, were also to have dominion. And in that sense, they mirror, um, what's going on in heaven on Earth as the Elohim, right? Like the Elohim are different than the name, um, Yahweh. That's right. Right. And Yahweh is the Almighty God. Yahweh. But then the El, Elohim could mean, uh, these, these kind of like divine beings. Divine beings. That's right. And, you know, people, we get very uncomfortable, and I did too, you know, and I can imagine somebody listening to this now for the first time, what are you saying? Polytheism? No. Yeah. Elohim is just a word that is meant to describe non-human divine beings that God has created. Yeah. And, and according to Michael, I haven't went down, but according to Heiser, that word Elohim is also used in the Old Testament to describe demonic forces sometimes too, correct? They eventually become this opposition force against the Lord and his desires, you know? So, the big passage that everyone should probably take a look at is Psalm 82. And it says, right at the very beginning, that God, Elohim, stands in the midst of the Elohim. Mhm. And what it happened was, I'll make this very brief. At Babel, God realizes that mankind is coming together to try to elevate themselves and their abilities and and create a pathway to heaven, mhm, almost around the Lord. And so God says, no, that's not going to happen. And there's a little line right there in, uh, in that passage where it says that God scattered the nations. If you jump over to Deuteronomy 32, there is an explanation that what happened in that scattering is that God allotted the nations. There were 70 of them, and he appointed rulers over the nations. But the rulers were the sons of God, Benet Elohim, the sons of God are the, are the heavenly host. Mhm. And so, what Heiser says, and I think he's right, you know, I'm, I'm kind of slowly gravitating towards that view, is that what happened was, God took some of his heavenly hosts and made them rulers. Somewhere along the way, they rebelled against the Lord, and he decided, you know what, um, I am going to condemn you, and I'm going to, I'm going to punish you. And that's Psalm 82. Mhm. And so, to, to get to the answer to your question, mhm, these beings can be non-corporeal, non-physical, but they can also be physical. And so, I, I, I think it's all connected. Yeah. And I, and I think what's what's fascinating to me right now is how much of this is actually explained in the scripture, and we have no idea about it.

Any other passages come to mind? First Peter. Yeah. A lot. Right. So, so in, um, one of the fascinating questions that everybody wonders about is, um, who are the Nephilim, right? So, uh, that's where I was going. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was thinking about Nephilim. Yeah. Yeah. So, in the flood account, Genesis 6, God appears to be very upset about something that's going on. But if you look at verses 1-4, you realize that the sons of God, there's that phrase again, the, the B Elohim, they are, uh, taking for themselves wives, human wives, and having children. These children are called Nephilim. Nephilim are giants. And so, you see at the end there that there's a flood. That's the end result of this. God sees that everything that mankind has done is wicked. Well, it doesn't stop there. Peter and Jude look back on that event, and they explain what's actually going on. And their writing is actually influenced by First Enoch. Mhm. But what they say is, well, actually, what God did was he took the Nephilim and he condemned them to Tartarus, of the underworld, and he put them in chains. That's what Jude says. Uh, and then if you fast forward to, so I'm putting these pieces together for you. If you fast forward to the New Testament, all of a sudden, Jesus is walking around. You see unclean spirits everywhere. What are unclean spirits? Well, um, the Jewish biblical writer, and some scholars today, would say they're unclean for two reasons. Number one, they're unclean because of the mixture of human and angelic or divine, that makes them unclean because that's inappropriate. They're unclean also because they come from the dead corpses of the Nephilim that were killed in the flood, and they're coming up out of the underworld. That makes them unclean. Wow. Okay. And so then you go, why is Jesus exercising demons? And that's, why is that part of his ministry? It's because it had to be. If the kingdom of God is going to reclaim the Earth, you have to push out those who had power and dominion over the Earth. Wow. But that means that demons could influence physical people. I mean, that's what we, demon possession. Come on. It's all connected. Wow.

So these, these spirits are coming from the, the, the, the corpses of the Nephilim, right? That died during the flood. They're on Earth. Jesus is casting them out. Um, and they still have some degree of influence today in the world. And then, and then where is Satan's play in all this?

Satan's the leader of, uh, these beings. And apparently, as Revelation tells us, there will, it will all come to a head. Which I think, so we don't have a lot of pieces. Like, we have very minimal pieces. Heiser calls this in Mosaic, like, there's all these little tiles of verses that help us to understand this worldview, this spiritual realm. And we just have to figure out what that image looks like. And when it comes together. So we don't have a whole lot. But if you put all the pieces that I just gave you, and then go to Revelation, mhm, I think this is all leading towards a battle. And I think we've all known about it. It's funny because I think what most of your viewers probably suspect is actually really true. They just couldn't put words to it in a way that I think Heiser does, which I highly recommend.

Yeah. No, Heiser is brilliant on the subject. I really like, uh, I really like all of his, the Elohim stuff is really interesting. And I went down that rabbit hole pretty, pretty deep. So, so in terms of, like, how much influence do they have on Earth today? You know? And, and how, how much autonomy do the humans have over the Earth today? And, and, and, and we know that, you know, Psalm 24:1 says, "The Earth is the Lord's, everything in it, the world, all the people in it." So we know Jesus is on the throne. We know Jesus is ultimately king. Provident. Where, where do you see this stuff in the timeline of that? What I'm hearing you ask me is, where are we in the timeline of Revelation? Maybe? Yeah. Or just, or just like, Satan, the god of, of this world, right? Yet has blinded the minds of the unbelievers that they will not see the light of the gospel, right? That's right. Yet, how much do Christians play into being the solution to this here and now?

Oh, they are the solution. Mhm. This is the Great Commission. Let me back up. You got to think to yourself, like, if what is going on is true, Heiser is correct about all of it, right? Um, and again, just to be transparent with you, I'm chewing on it. I think I agree with him. But if he's correct, then what really has been going on with the nations, the Gentiles, is that they have been influenced by the heavenly host that rebelled against the Lord. Then what, what was the effect of the cross and the resurrection? But it was to delegitimize these gods, to open up the ability for the Gentile nations to now have the ability to come back to the Lord. And how do we do that? It's the gospel. Yeah. And so, yeah, are Christians integral to this role? Absolutely. Mhm. We need to go fulfill the Great Commission. And that's how we fight this battle. You know, it's funny, you think about how is this battle characterized in the Bible? There's really only a couple of places in the New Testament. And it comes back to 2 Corinthians 10:5. We, we think of Philippians, was it 6? You know, the armor of, the army of God. Philippians or Ephesians? I think that's Ephesians 6. But 2 Corinthians 10, "We are striking down arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God." Isn't that exactly what we're seeing in terms of classic abduction syndrome cases? They're filling the heads of the people that they're victimizing with false ideas. And so, and then it leads them astray from the Lord. So what do we do? We, we, we preach the gospel and we take captive every thought to obey Christ. So we're the, we're part of the solution. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And by the power of God, we have the ability to overcome. Yeah. That's good. That's good.

So where do you think we are in the context of Revelation?

My personal opinion is, um, so I'm, I'm, I'm more of a partial preterist. So, my, man. Okay, there we go. All right. Uh, and so I think we're somewhere in the middle of the Millennium period. Okay. I would agree with Michael Jones. Inspiring Philosophy. Mich Jones. There we go. That's awesome. Okay. Because, because that's where people, you know, because then you, people get really conspiratorial about this stuff. And how does it work, right? Cuz I, I would lean towards a postmillennial position on this stuff. I think Jesus is on the throne now. I think Jesus is reigning now. Amen. And I think we get to participate in that, right? In terms of being ministers of reconciliation, reconciling the world back to, back to God, because of the work of Jesus. Because I think sometimes when people hear all this, then they just kind of become hopeless and fatalistic and just go, what's the point? Let me get my hell insurance and like, wait for the Rapture. Jesus is going to come back any minute, and I'm good. I had a pastor one time, I won't say where, but he, he said, he literally said this at the pulpit, like, church, sometimes I get so excited about the Rapture that I'll jump up in the air and say, is it now, God? Like, get me out of here. And it's like, man, that is the wrong attitude. That's terrible. That's terrible. That's terrible. Cuz I think, I think there's so much work to do here and now. Amen. You know? I think there's so much work to do here and now. I always point people back to, even if the, I'm, I'm, even if we're totally wrong on preterism and and and postmillennialism and all that kind of stuff, even if that's, even if that's the case, it's totally wrong. Yeah. And we're in modern-day Babylon, and we, like, Revelation is like about to happen or happening. The, the passage I always look at is when God is dealing with the children of Israel in captivity in Babylon, which is in Jeremiah chapter 29. Everybody likes Jeremiah because it's like, "I know the plans I have for you to prosper you," right? And they ignore one of the contexts of what's happening in the book, which is they're in exile. But earlier, God says that I'm the one who sent you into exile. And while you're in Babylon, plant gardens, have kids. That's right. Right. Um, uh, make sure your kids have kids so you can have grandchildren. Yeah. Right. And seek the peace and prosperity of the land for which I called you into exile. Right. So, these folks are going through it. This is a dark time for Israel. And God's like, hey, you know, like, you need to plant gardens, build homes, have kids, and make sure your kids have kids, and plan to stay and pray for the peace and prosperity. Right. And I feel like that's a, that's a direct parallel. Like, if we are in Babylon, this modern-day Babylon, Revelation happening or it hasn't happened, and it isn't about Nero, and it isn't about, right, 70 AD and all this kind of stuff, like the application point for us is the same. Like, we are to, to be the hands and feet of Jesus right here, now, on this side of eternity. Right. And I think so many Christians, to your point about your pastor who jumped up and down excited about the Rapture, I'm like, man, that's so counterintuitive to, like, what I see the church instructed to be here now. Amen. Amen.

You think about Shalom. God is the God of Shalom. God is the source of Shalom. "You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." Right? And you think, okay, Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Christians are peacemakers. Well, the word Shalom, it's not just, it's not meant to, uh, refer to a subjective inner feeling. It's meant to, it's bigger than that. It's actually talking and referring to God putting the world back together again. And that is what we're supposed to do. Yeah. That is the work of the Great Commission. We're helping God put the world back together, one soul at a time. And that work must continue. Psalm 110, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until your enemies are a footstool for your feet.'" Mhm. So we have work to do. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Guys, we're going to go over to the Patreon exclusive section of this interview to go a little deeper on this conversation, specifically what work we have to do. What does that practically look like in the life of the believer? What can that look like in your life in light of all the darkness that's happening, in light of all the craziness that's happening, and and how wild things are getting? How does that practically look? So, hey, if you want to see the extended version of this podcast, completely unedited, consider partnering with us in our online community for as little as $5 a month. In exchange, you get access to these podcasts as we stream them live before anyone else gets to see them. You get access to the replay of our daily Afterparty streams, access to our private Discord server, access to discount codes, and so much more. So help us continue conceptualizing the gospel through media, podcasting, and YouTube, and partner with us for as little as $5 a month. Also, be sure to follow us on the Spotify podcast app, on Facebook, and on Instagram. We're constantly posting content there that I think you'll find extremely valuable. All right, I'll see you over there. Peace. We see, according to the Bible, that prayer is extremely important in terms of us being transformed from the inside out when we get aligned with God's will. I want you guys to implement these spiritual disciplines in your day-to-day life. And the only way I've been able to do this consistently is through writing down my prayers in a prayer journal. That does a few things. One, it allows me to reflect and come to God humbly and ask him to move on my behalf. And two, it allows me to document my prayers, which ultimately help me remember the very things that I was praying for and see the hand of God tangibly in my life when he answers them. So I would urge you, consider writing down your prayers. It could be in a blank notebook. It could even be on your phone. Or you could check out the one I personally designed and use for my own quiet time and spiritual discipline that I think will be a huge blessing. It's the exact structure and system that I've used for years to pray and be more consistent in my spiritual disciplines. And here's the thing, with the hope to create a prayer movement, we've made the PDF version of this prayer journal completely free. So to get the PDF of our prayer journal completely for free, go to blessgodpdf.shop now.