Are Aliens Actually Demons!? (Shocking Evidence) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Summary

Podcast Summary: Are Aliens Actually Demons!? (Shocking Evidence)

Podcast: Live Free with Josh Howerton
Host: Lakepointe Church
Episode Date: November 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into some of Christianity’s biggest supernatural questions: What are angels and demons really? How should Christians think about UFOs and aliens—could they actually be demonic? Pastor Josh Howerton, Carlos Arazo, and Paul Cunningham mix biblical teaching, personal stories, and engaging commentary to provide a clear, scripturally grounded perspective on spiritual realities, their practical implications, and popular cultural myths. The episode also touches on topics including spiritual warfare, prayer for families, handling sensitive advice in ministry, and recent social media debates.

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Table of Contents

1. Key Themes and Opening Banter
2. Angels, Demons, and the Supernatural: Bible Foundations
3. Biblical Angelology: What Are Angels?
4. Demons: Origin, Nature, and Influence
5. Theology and Culture: Aliens, UFOs, and Spiritual War
6. Practical Application: Living with Spiritual Awareness
7. On Social Roles and Criticism: Recent X (Twitter) Controversy
8. Notable Quotes and Timestamps

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1. Key Themes and Opening Banter

• The episode opens with energetic, light-hearted banter (01:04), setting a relaxed, engaging tone.
• Previewed topics:
  • Angels and demons in the Bible
  • UFOs, aliens, and how these might relate to demonic activity
  • Beth Moore, Thanksgiving myths, and recent social media controversy
• “We’re gonna talk angels, demons. What should Christians think about aliens and UFOs?" — Pastor Josh Howerton (02:57)
• Emphasizes the church’s approach using pop culture references to teach biblical truths (05:09).

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2. Angels, Demons, and the Supernatural: Bible Foundations

• Main Passage: 2 Kings 6—Elisha, the prophet, and Israel's battle against the Assyrian empire (09:21).
• Key insight: “God fights your battles. If God is for us, who can be against us? Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world... God plus one is a super majority.” (11:30)
• Spiritual vision: The unseen spiritual realm (angelic armies) is active, and believers need supernatural vision to see it (12:49).
• Visual parallel: Story of Dothan—site of both betrayal and supernatural deliverance.
• Biblical motif: God repeats significant events in significant locations to drive home his message (13:11).
• Angels are terrifyingly powerful, not harmless “naked babies on clouds” (16:10).

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3. Biblical Angelology: What Are Angels?

• Angels are directly involved in spiritual battles and are often described with awe-inspiring imagery.
• Cherubim (cherubs) described in Revelation 4: “they were covered with eyes in front and in back... each of the four living creatures has six wings and was covered with eyes all around...” (17:15)
• “There is a reason that some of the toughest dudes in the Bible, when they see an angel, they fall on the ground as if they’re dead.” — Josh (16:16)
• Theoretical discussion: Some theologians speculate that stars and angels are associated (“stars are angels” or “governed by angels”) based on scriptural language (34:07, 35:03).
• Christians might have guardian angels; believers are sometimes served or protected by angels, possibly unawares (38:39 “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing, some have entertained angels unawares” – Hebrews 13).

Notable Stories

• Josh’s mother’s encounter with a bright, angelic presence leading to healing and peace (39:10).
• Josh’s childhood story: a mysterious “physician” who saved him from choking—then vanished (41:17).
• These stories illustrate the possibility of “Hebrews 13:2” moments in modern life.

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4. Demons: Origin, Nature, and Influence

• Demons are fallen angels; spiritual beings under Satan’s authority (28:10).
• Passages: Ezekiel 28 (fall of Satan/Lucifer), Revelation 12 (a third of angels fall with Satan), Job 38 (link between stars and angels).
• “Whatever God creates, Satan counterfeits.” (44:57)
• Demons work through counterfeit religions (including Mormonism, Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism), “other gospels,” and spiritual deception (48:36).
• Satan is often described as “masquerading as an angel of light” (48:52).
• Demons can be the source of strongholds in people’s lives, such as persistent sinful patterns or addictions (53:17).
• There is biblical basis (Daniel, Deuteronomy 32) for the concept of “territorial spirits”—demons assigned to regions, cities, or people groups (55:00).

Spiritual Warfare and Strongholds

• Sometimes issues like addictions or severe night terrors respond to prayer and spiritual authority when physical solutions fail (59:16).

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5. Theology and Culture: Aliens, UFOs, and Spiritual War

• Growing interest: “Are aliens actually demons?”—Josh contends that much modern alien/UFO phenomenon may be demonic in nature.
  • J.D. Vance quote: “If another person sees an alien, maybe I see an angel or a demon... there are spiritual forces working on the physical world.” (66:38, 67:05)
• Statistical perspective: UFOs/alien sightings are most common in regions least likely to believe in demons (65:18).
• Biblically, Christians have always been skeptical of life elsewhere, citing Genesis 1’s uniqueness of mankind.
• Phenomena reported in alien encounters (e.g., abduction stories) often have overtly anti-Christian, anti-Jesus messages (69:25).
• Some testimonies report that invoking the name of Jesus ends alien encounters, paralleling accounts of deliverance from demons (68:39).

Warnings about Obsession

• It’s easy to veer into obsession with the supernatural—Christians are warned to be aware but not fixated (72:56).

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6. Practical Application: Living with Spiritual Awareness

• Key applications:

  • Recognize your problems may have spiritual dimensions—pray over your family, home, and life (73:02)
  • “If it’s a spiritual problem, a physical solution is not going to do anything.” (74:17)
  • Seek a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit for daily life (74:19)
  • Don’t be “ignorant, in denial, or obsessed”—spiritual truths require mature, balanced engagement (72:56).

• How to explain belief in the supernatural to skeptics:

  • Many non-believers (including atheists) believe in invisible forces they can’t quantify (e.g., gravity, energy), yet reject the possibility of spiritual realities (75:26).
  • Christians shouldn’t be embarrassed by belief in angels or demons; these have significant explanatory power for reality, human experience, and cultural history.

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7. On Social Roles and Criticism: Recent X (Twitter) Controversy

• Recap of Josh’s controversial post: Advised young men to seek Christ, get married young, have kids, and build something with their lives (80:05).
• Criticism received: “You’re saying singles or infertile people can’t have fulfilled lives” (80:01)
• Response:
  • Biblical default is marriage and fruitfulness, but singlehood (as with Paul or Jesus) is also honored.
  • Addressing “emotional hostage-taking”: “We not be people who so subvert logic to emotion…” (80:16)
  • Encourages listeners not to weaponize their own wounds to manipulate the message for others.
  • “We shouldn’t be doing that. If we let ourselves go down that route, it demonically discipled us into self absorption” (88:10).
• Cultural context: The prevailing narrative is “don’t get married, don’t have kids.” The church needs to preach biblical counter-culture (92:41).

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8. Notable Quotes and Timestamps

• “God fights your battles. God plus one is a super majority.” — Josh (11:30)
• “Humans have an amphibious nature—able to relate to both spiritual and physical realms” (22:03)
• “There is a reason that some of the toughest dudes in the Bible, when they see an angel, they fall on the ground as if they’re dead.” — Josh (16:16)
• “Whatever God creates, Satan counterfeits.” — Josh (44:57)
• “If you are walking into every conversation asking, ‘How does this make me feel?’… you are trying to create a world that entirely revolves around you and your emotions.” — Josh (90:41)
• “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers… spiritual forces of evil…” — Carlos, quoting Ephesians (60:28)
• “There are things out there we can’t explain… maybe I see an angel or a demon.” — J.D. Vance (66:38)
• “Seek a fresh, unique filling with the Holy Spirit. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.” — Josh (74:18)
• “If you’re not sure if it’s mental health or demon oppression, pray both. God can sort it out.” — Paul (74:23)

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:57] — Episode outline: angels, demons, aliens, and more
• [09:21] — 2 Kings 6 teaching on Elisha, spiritual vision
• [16:10] — “Biblically accurate” angels—terrifying, not cartoonish
• [28:10] — The fall of Satan/demon origin (Ezekiel 28, Revelation 12)
• [38:39] — Hebrews 13:2 and stories of angelic encounters
• [53:17] — Demons, strongholds, and spiritual warfare
• [55:00-58:36] — Territorial demons and biblical basis
• [65:18] — Heat map of UFO sightings; cultural beliefs and spiritual blindness
• [66:38] — J.D. Vance on aliens possibly being angels/demons
• [72:56] — Dangers of obsession with the supernatural
• [80:05] — Social media controversy over “get married young” advice
• [90:41] — Emotional reasoning and Christian maturity
• [92:41] — Countercultural biblical advice on marriage and family

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Conclusion

Live Free with Josh Howerton dives deep into what the Bible really says about the supernatural and how it intersects with our day-to-day lives, modern culture, and even pop phenomena like aliens. The hosts challenge listeners to spiritual awareness, maturity, and action—prayer, spiritual warfare, community, and cultural courage—rooted in scriptural clarity, not fear or superstition. The episode lands with encouragement: In Christ, believers have power over the forces of darkness, hope for the present, and solid ground for all of life’s mysteries.

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For show notes, further study, and to join community groups, visit the Lakepointe Church website or text “notes” to 20411.

Transcript

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Pointe Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the word of God, tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now let's dive into today's episode.

[Carlos Arazo]

Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast, coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. My name is Carlos Arazo, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Paul Cunningham.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Hey, Carlos. Hey, Carlos. Vamos Adarle. Kanya is de serdo. What did I just say? What did I just say?

[Paul Cunningham]

I hope it was correct.

[Carlos Arazo]

All I want to know is who.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Taught you this rock says, what did I just say? Let me say it one more time.

[Carlos Arazo]

Say it one more time.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Vamos Adarle. Kanya es deserto.

[Carlos Arazo]

I don't.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I'm not sure we are going to.

[Carlos Arazo]

I'm confused. Kanya. I don't know what Kanya is this.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I just asked Grock to tell me how to say, let's kick this pig.

[Carlos Arazo]

You were 75% right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Hey, this GRO.

[Carlos Arazo]

It's GR. It makes mist. It's not Chad GPT or chat GPC. So it's pretty close, though.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right.

[Carlos Arazo]

Vamosa gol esto.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, that's what I was supposed to say.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's what you were.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's it, man.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey, I want to. I want to clarify. First of all, bro, great job last episode, man, all by ourselves. I will say this. Somebody told me that Jana did a great job.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

She did a.

[Carlos Arazo]

And I just want to clarify, for the record, I have not resigned.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Very important. That's me. What we're going to talk about.

[Carlos Arazo]

Amen. Wait, hold on. Before. I just want to show you what I was doing while you guys were recording. All right, Trinity, there's a photo here I just want to show you. I'm kind of proud of this photo. Actually. That's what I was doing when I was recording that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That goes hard. That picture goes hard. That's a man who watched the movie Tombstone. Yes.

[Carlos Arazo]

Well, not really, but I will you not. I have not yet. I got it on my little.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We hit this on the podcast, like.

[Paul Cunningham]

Two or Three months ago.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, I know.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

In July.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey, guys, I got a Braveheart, though. I got. I got that one.

[Paul Cunningham]

We'll get there.

[Carlos Arazo]

But see, I'm working on. I'm not getting ready for it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's. That's hard.

[Paul Cunningham]

So when we say I'm your huckleberry, that just flies over your head? You have no idea.

[Carlos Arazo]

100%. But I will figure out. But, hey, Pastor Josh, what are we going to be addressing?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right, this is going to be a very interesting episode.

[Carlos Arazo]

But before you do, can I set you up with something? So to add a little drama, please? Trinity, can you play that soundtrack?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

No way.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's for Josh.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Carlos, we're gonna talk angels, demons. What should Christians think about aliens and UFOs? Pastor Josh Having a brief disagreement and then makeup with Beth Moorer on X this week, and then maybe Thanksgiving myths. It's gonna be fun, bro.

[Paul Cunningham]

Wear our tinfoil hats that we used to have, bro.

[Carlos Arazo]

That just took it to the next level. Come on.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I mean, dude, that was like. You can turn that off there. That was like the show when I was in midd.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's a vibe.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Fox Mulder.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah. Scully and.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Scully and Mulder. Yeah.

[Paul Cunningham]

Scully and Motor.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah. I just know the soundtrack is classic, but, hey, you're right. So aliens, demons, potentially Thanksgiving, Beth Moore and X.

[Paul Cunningham]

What a combination.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Wait, wait, let me try one more thing before we're gonna start talking about the Bible. Carlos, what does this say? La.

[Carlos Arazo]

This is gonna be a thing every episode.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

La frase iconica.

[Carlos Arazo]

Oh, what is it? The iconic phrase.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's what it say.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wait, what are you talking about?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

What did I say? What did I say? La frase iconica.

[Carlos Arazo]

The iconic phrase. Wait, that's what.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's what that means. Oh, dang it. That's what that means.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's what that means.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It means the iconic phrase. Crap. I said Grok. Tell me how to say the iconic phrase. I'm your huckleberry. And instead he told me how to say the iconic phrase.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's right. That's right. Hey, that's good pronunciation, though.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I did my best, bro.

[Carlos Arazo]

It's getting better.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

This is why. For we're going to start talking about the Bible. This is why whenever people. Whenever people from South America apologize to me for their English, I'm like, please stop. I'm so embarrassed. Your English is way better than my Spanish. Please stop apologizing.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's pretty good. That's one.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I did my best.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey, but this weekend, by the way, we have something really special as it's.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

A big deal, dude. This. This weekend, Christmas at the Movies. Kicking off this coming weekend at all Lake Point campuses in Dallas, Dallas, Texas, our Christmas series, we're starting with one week, Christmas at the Movies. For all of the reformed Twitter Internet haters. I will just clarify that we are not preaching movies. We're using movies to illustrate biblical truths. Because similarly to Jesus who took popular stories in his day. And then parable is a compound Greek word. Para means alongside. Ballet means to throw. He would throw a spiritual truth alongside of a great story to teach people spirit's truths. We're doing the same thing. It's going to be awesome. I would not be surprised if there are. I don't know, I bet we have 28 or 30,000 people there. It is heads up for anybody listening. It's only in person. So what I would say is we have like thousands of people who are like online only, podcast, extended family. This is your week. Come hang out. We specifically designed this heads up because so many people have lost family members who come in for Thanksgiving. So we do this this week and I reverse engineer the entire message from helping somebody's lost family member come to know Jesus with a clear invitation to bend their knee to King Jesus. Going to be awesome.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's great, man. And speaking of Christmas, we have a hat giveaway as well. Every live free merch, which by the way, store coming soon. Online store.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Boom.

[Carlos Arazo]

Last week's winner is Becky Boo 1988 shout out. So, Becky, congrats. You are the official winner. And so for you to participate on this week's giveaway, comment below. We were talking about this before. If you are a person that believes you should set up your Christmas tree before or after Thanksgiving. So just comment below before or after? Before or after. And we'll get you. We'll pick a winner for the next giveaway next week.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's gonna be awesome, man.

[Carlos Arazo]

One more time.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So, hey, we need lots of comments on YouTube before or after. And then, yeah, we'll aggregate the results and we'll just decide, see what wins.

[Carlos Arazo]

Amen. I'm excited to dive in. Talk about demons and angels as well. I was going to say something else.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But I pull it back.

[Carlos Arazo]

And UFOs.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And UFOs.

[Carlos Arazo]

We also, before we dive in, we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Professor Josh, did you know that it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Has been my entire life experience, disciples are forged, not found.

[Carlos Arazo]

That means that your next step after listening to this podcast is for you to join a community if you have not yet done so. So we have compiled all Key takeaways Additional content and discussion questions coming from this episode so you can use it as a tool to take it to your life group. So to get the show notes AKA the disciples right, go to Lakepoint Church shownotes or text the word notes to 20411. All right, man, we got least Strobel in the house this weekend.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, least Strobel. First of all, that's a man running a darn good race, guys in his 70s. He's happy, his family loves him, he loves Jesus, and he's selling 10 million books. I mean, not, not struggling.

[Paul Cunningham]

He's busy.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

He's busy. When I was in high school, the first thing that when I first started asking questions about my faith, I was a junior in high school and there was a guy at my church that led a disciple group through Case for Christ. It was a brand new book back then. Totally changed my life. Honestly, the reason that I think so much about like Christ and culture stuff, a lot of it goes back to like that was like a big part of my, my faith growing up there.

[Paul Cunningham]

I love about Lee and then others like him and definitely Lee, because he's been such a forerunner in the faith and defender of the faith of the last few decades, is that we're all called to have faith, but we're not called to make blind, dumb leaps of faith. That our faith is actually something that is credible and it's not something that's just a shot in the dark. And that's what I love about Lee is we still takes faith, still takes belief, but it's a credible faith and a credible belief.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The case for Christ is still if somebody like, if I've got a one more that doesn't know Christ and they start asking like logical questions, that's that is still my go to 20 years later. That's still my go to book to give them.

[Paul Cunningham]

Same here. And then what I'll do, I'll sometimes read that with them and read it with them. I'll just say, hey, at the end of the day we both are going to have to have faith. And we've talked about this before, we don't have to go off in a little side trail here. But it's like, hey, it takes faith to believe that everything came from nothing randomly. Like it takes faith and it takes faith. Believe, by the way, that everything came from someone intentionally. But once you lay out the evidence, actually you meaning the person that I may be reading with, have the bigger leap of faith to take than me. And so it requires faith and blessing. Again, this just repeating myself at this point, but that's why I do love. And we're all indebted to least trouble.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So let me talk about. Let's get into the word and talk about this because essentially, and this is why we're going to talk a lot about angels and demons. I'm going to go ahead and tease it and how that category, biblical category, intersects with the conversation about UFOs and aliens, in my opinion. And we'll kind of go there and I'll see what you guys think. So here's the passage he was preaching. It's one of the most important passages in the Old Testament, in my opinion. In second Kings 6, what you got is you got Israel versus, like, what was the great superpower of their day? The Assyrian Empire, the Second Kings six. This was his, like, leaping off passage. Then you have with the armies of Israel, the mo. It is undisputed, by the way, the most supernaturally empowered prophet, actually the most supernaturally empowered person in the Bible that's not Jesus is Elisha. Yeah, more miracles. He raises, if I remember right. Does he. Does he raise more than one person from the dead? He does. The. The kid that he stretches out his body. I can't remember. But I mean, resurrections, all the things.

[Carlos Arazo]

Never died.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Physically never died. Never died. Elijah. Elijah never died. Now, I'm gonna get to that in a second, right? I'm gonna get to that in a second. So anyway, you got Elijah, and he's with the armies of Israel. I'm gonna read the passage here in a second. He essentially tells the armies of Israel, hey, God's telling us to go to Samaria. And all the generals and the military tacticians are like, you crazy? If we go to Samaria, we are exposed. We're going to have no geographic defenses. They're going to kill us. So. But they do it. So then they go to sleep, they wake up the next day, and the Assyrian army has completely surrounded them. So all the generals are like, you stinking idiot. This is exactly what we said was going to happen. This is like, you go get. You just got us all killed. And if you read the passage, it's like, it's kind of awesome. Like, Elijah essentially wakes up and kind of the vibe is he's like, puts his bathrobe on, turns on his little Nespresso coffee, like, you know, essentially kind of this vibe of like, I need less of you. Like, everybody chill. And. And so he does his thing. And the generals are like, Elijah, like, Elisha, we're Surrounded. And he's just like, hey man, the Lord's got this. And then I love it so much, dude. In this passage he just walks up to the edge of like a cliff, looks out at the Assyrian armies and then he just prays, Lord, let him see. And in that moment the Bible says that the scales fell off these generals eyes and they see that the army of Assyria surrounds them. But encamped all around the Assyrian army are the angel armies of God and chariots of fire. And bro, so here bro, here's the thing man, is we're going to talk more about fear in the next pod. But the big thing that a Christian walks away from that is God fights your battles. If God before us, who can be against us, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. And it's kind of this thing for the rest of the Bible where people are like, man, you know, it's just a little old me, what am I going to do? God plus one is a super majority.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And so he, you know, he kind of gets that deal here. And so that's what happens. Now there's a few little interesting nuggets, but that's the vibe of the passage.

[Carlos Arazo]

Good, I love that because in some ways that's a reflection of the Christian life. Like this is who, this is how a Christian sees life.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yes.

[Carlos Arazo]

Like you know, if you do not know Christ, all you see is the natural. But if you are a believer, you see the supernatural and you know, like what you said, if Christ is for you, if God is for you, who can be against you?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

I love it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah. Now there are a couple interesting nuggets about this passage. Let me do this real quick.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So it's like if you Bible nerd out under this passage there are a few things that are interesting. Number one, if you read it happens in Dothan, it's really interesting. If you remember Bible scholarship noted, it's almost like there's a motif of deliverance. You'll notice this throughout the Bible. God will do the same thing in the same place over and over. And it's almost like he's trying to hammer something down into the soul. Dothan is the, it's only mentioned, I think this may be the only other time it's the same spot where Joseph is betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery. And it was the exact, think about this, the parallels, the exact place where he thought was going to be his defeat and death. God redeems for deliverance and the exact same thing happens to the entire nation of Israel here in second Kings six. That's interesting. Wow. I know.

[Paul Cunningham]

And then with that he seems like he was alone and that there were more people against him. It was all of his brothers against him. And then he was in prison and it was everybody, everything. And yet at the end of the day, kept saying throughout that story in Genesis, but God was with him. But God was with him. And so no matter how many times it seemed like Joseph alone, it would then reaffirm. But God was with him. And it was actually God was using his circumstances to elevate him. Just where God wanted. Totally. Totally.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You've also got here, you know the. The language the passage uses is Chariots of Fire. Side note, that's where we obviously get the movie title. Eric Liddell. Have you seen it yet? You have seen it.

[Paul Cunningham]

I have a feeling of.

[Carlos Arazo]

His feeling was because I read a book about him. That's why. But I loved it. I loved it.

[Paul Cunningham]

Oh, I thought you. I thought he was going to think it was boring. Okay. Sorry.

[Carlos Arazo]

But this is the. I. I run. God made me fast. This is a quote. Yeah.

[Paul Cunningham]

I feel God's pleasure.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, I love it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, It's a great book.

[Carlos Arazo]

Got to watch too.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Great movie.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey, you know what? Before the end of the year, I'm going to watch him too.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Thank you, Carlos.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hold me accountable.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Thanksgiving. Okay, you got the Chariots Fire referen. That is the only other time Chariots of Fire only appears one other time in the Bible. It's the moment when Elijah is taken up into heaven. So it's very interesting, by the way.

[Carlos Arazo]

This is why it threw me off. Elijah and Elisha is very different than in Spanish.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And so what is in Spanish? I'm curious.

[Carlos Arazo]

In Spanish is. So my son's name is Elias. That's in Spanish for Elijah. And then in.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I had no idea.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah. So it's Hebrew Elias. Yeah. Or Elias. And then in Spanish, Elisha is Eliseo. So you know. Yeah. So to clarify, you're right. The one who never died was Elijah. That's right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah. You're good. You've also got here. Dude, I'll just point it out. We're going to talk about angel and demons here in a second. But for them to say that there was a host of angels, we're going click on this here and say angels are a big deal in the Bible. The most common phrase the angels say in the Bible are fear not and get up. And a lot of times I'm just going to point this out, Trinity, actually, I want to show that. That pic here in a. You know, a lot of times people, they hear angel and they think, like, naked baby on a cloud with harp. There is a reason that some of the toughest dudes in the Bible, when they see an angel, they fall on the ground as if they're dead. They actually, in the book of Revelation, John begins to worship the angel. And I mean, John's a good dude. Like John, Jesus best friend. And he starts. He's so overwhelmed with the magnificence of this creature, he starts worshiping it. And the angels, like, get up. Don't you dare. You know, so. So you know when you, like, if you're trying to picture these Bible stories and you're like, picturing like, okay, bro, there's like thousands of angels surrounding this thing. Obviously, we're not thinking naked babies on clouds doing harps. So this picture we're getting ready to show, if you're on YouTube, especially, you'll see online these things where people be like, biblically accur angel and heads up. Some of those are completely not true. I don't know. I don't know what somebody did. This one is what I'm getting ready to show is a biblically accurate depiction of the cherubs that are mentioned in Revelation, chapter four. So let me read it, and I'm going to throw this up here. So when Revelation mentions angels, it says in the center around the throne were four living creatures, angels. And they were covered with eyes in front and in back. Each of the four living creatures has six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings day and night. They never stopped saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. All right, so. So, bro, like, whatever you got in your head, like this right here, that is a revelation for cherub. So I just want you to imagine. Now, we don't know how these angels manifested visibly, but we do know every time somebody sees an angel in the Bible, it is terrifying.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And I'm just saying, like, if I woke up and that was in my bedroom, I would fall down on the ground and I'd be afraid.

[Carlos Arazo]

And it will tell you, do not fear.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And it would say, do you not.

[Carlos Arazo]

Get up as it moves in front of you?

[Paul Cunningham]

Like, when the Scriptures talks about how God is the Lord of hosts, that's of armies. And so even when it says of hosts, like, it's basically God is not one to be trifled with. In the same way, the cherub is not a cute little. You Know, cuddly, baby. It's like, man, an angel is a fierce thing. And even, like in Isaiah, I think it's just a few angels that are singing. It says it shakes, like, the.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The foundations of the threshold causing an earthquake.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's right. Just with a few angels singing. So, yeah, God's not wanting to be trifled with.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Dude, you got. I'll go another lady deeper on this. In second kings 19, one, literally, it says, one angel, one angel kills 185,000 Assyrian warriors.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So, like, whatever you got in your head when it comes to angels, like, you don't got the right thing in your head. So when he. All of a sudden, it makes sense. Why is it that when he looks out and he sees all these angels, and everybody's like, bro, we good. Now you know? Now you know? And then. Honestly, I think the most important thing in the passage is the New Testament actually picks up on the theme of 2 Kings 6. This is really interesting. A lot of people miss this. In Ephesians 1:18, Paul is praying for the disciples at Ephesus, and he prays. He says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know. If I remember right, so that you may know what is the breadth and height and width and depth of the. Is that it? No, that's. You may be strengthened with power in.

[Paul Cunningham]

Your power that is within you.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yes.

[Paul Cunningham]

That is what is the inheritance of the saints. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But what he prays is pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. When he does that, he's hearkening back to this passage in 2 Kings 6, because that's what God does, is he gives their hearts the ability to see into the spiritual, which is why Lee's message was called seeing the supernatural. Now, last thing I'll say here, and then let's start riffing on theology of angels, theology of demons, and how does it actually matter for our lives? Is this really cuts to the heart of the Bible's description of reality. So what you got here is the Bible says that God has created one reality, but two in two realms. There's a physical realm, obviously, that we can see, touch, taste, feel, and then there's a spiritual realm that we can't always see. Physical realm we can always see. Spiritual realm we cannot always see. And honestly, what makes humans different than animals is humans are. Are you a bipartite or a tripartite guy? Bipartite. All right. I typically. I just clean for me to go tripartite. So what Paul and I are doing right here is this little theology nerd thing that really does not matter that much. But it's a. There's a debate among theologians. Is the nature of man bipartite, 2 parts or tripartite, 3 parts? Bipartite tend. We didn't plan to talk about this. Bipartite theologians tend to go, hey, we are. What do they do? Do they do body and spirit? Basically, it's like they condense soul and spirit into one.

[Paul Cunningham]

Spirit are interchangeable. I wasn't going to actually use this exact language, but I was actually potentially, once we got into distinguish between angels and even humans, I had this ready because I'll give you a really fancy phrase, even more than bipartisan tripartite, that humans are a psychosomatic unit.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Oh, there you go.

[Paul Cunningham]

Psycho. Psycho meaning.

[Carlos Arazo]

So we're gonna have to start charging for these podcasts on this.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Just kidding.

[Paul Cunningham]

Somatic meaning body. So the idea, but that's the difference is whereas a bipartite would say, hey, soul and spirit are interchangeably in scripture, tri part would say, no, like we have body. And then soul and spirit are related, but still kind of distinguishable.

[Carlos Arazo]

What's the most popular view?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's. Dude, it's really split.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, it is.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But when you guys like what I. What I typically do is body, soul, spirit. So your body is the part of you that you can touch. Obviously your soul is the mind, will and emotions. And then your spirit is the part of you that relates to God. And so the difference between what theologians typically said is the difference between humans and animals is that reality, God's created reality, one reality, two realms. But animals can only relate to one realm, the physical realm. The difference between us is I heard this phrase recently from a theologian. I was like, that's really helpful is that humans have what's called, they call it an amphibious nature that we actually just like amphibians. It's either land or water what humans are. God's created us with a spirit, the ability to relate to the spiritual realm. We are amphibious in nature. We can relate to the physical realm and to the spiritual realm. And this is actually one of the great misconceptions about the book of Revelation, by the way. What a lot of people do is they think all of revelation is revelation by the future. And it's honestly not. This gets into the whole preterism and partial preterism conversation. But honestly, most, I think I will say this, a lot of the book of Revelation is not revelation about what's going to happen in the future. A lot of Revelation is revelation about what's been going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm throughout human history. Can I.

[Paul Cunningham]

Can I say a thing?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Go for it.

[Paul Cunningham]

I mean, God always has such amazing time. I taught on Revelation this morning.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Really?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, with our residents.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's awesome.

[Paul Cunningham]

And. But one of the things I tied to him is one of the reasons that it is so hard for people to understand Revelation. I'm going somewhere there's. Give me just about 30 seconds to build up to it is because most people don't understand the Old Testament or know the Old Testament really well. And some. Much of Revelation has allusions to the Old Testament, has more Old Testament illusions than any other New Testament book.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It basically every verse you read is a. Is like a callback.

[Paul Cunningham]

It's crazy. So follow me for a second. This is a cool little tidbit. And again, it goes into what you've just said perfectly, is that in the Old Testament, you had the tabernacle. So tabernacles, when the people of God were traveling around. Tabernacle was God's presence dwelled there amongst the people. The tabernacle would be put in the. The middle of the people. And in the tabernacle is the holy of holies, the ark, which is the idea of that was the throne of God. So throne in the middle of the camp. And then the people were told to set up in a specific way. Oh, if I knew we were going here, I would have put the picture on the screen for people. It was arranged in a certain way, and people had to arrange their. The people in a certain way. So, yeah, different tribes, different spots. Well, if you go into rabbinic literature, they each had a different banner. And there were four banners at four specific spots of the camp. One with the head, the man, one with an ox, one with a lion, and one with an eagle. You then go to Revelation 4 and what is it? It's the throne room scene where the throne is in the middle of the people of God and their four living creatures. Well, how are they described? Oh, like an ox, like an eagle, like a man, like a lion, the four same thing. So to your point, it's not that this is saying, oh, Revelation 4 is made up. It's like no saying, hey, the things that took place on Earth, even in the Old Testament were almost like shadows or mirrors pointing to what has been happening in the heavenly realms forever.

[Carlos Arazo]

Ever, bro.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right. We didn't plan to talk about this Trinity. I just sent you this thing. Someday we need to do A whole plot on this temple imagery. So, bro, have you ever seen a visible. A visible representation of how the tribes were ordered to arrange themselves around the tabernacle? So, bro, don't throw it up yet. All right, so this is. Bro, this is amazing. So you can go ahead and toss it up. So there's very specific instructions about which tribe goes where, northwest, east, south around the tabernacle. And then we also get head counts. This tribe had this many people. So you can deduce, well, how many people would have been on each side. This is a realistic representation of how the tribes would have been arranged. They're stinking arranged in a cross.

[Carlos Arazo]

I've never seen this before.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

They're stinking arranged in a cross around the tabernacle for thousands of years. Thousands of years before the cross. They're walking around arranged as a cross in the wilderness.

[Paul Cunningham]

Okay, we have. We gotta.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We didn't plan on.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wait, wait, hold on.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Well, I gotta.

[Carlos Arazo]

Because what verse does it say that?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's.

[Carlos Arazo]

This is how they were positioned.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's in numbers.

[Paul Cunningham]

Or is it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, hang on, Rocket. What were you gonna say?

[Paul Cunningham]

Okay, see, we gotta be. We gotta be careful here. Although you're back with this, and we're already going off the rails, though, I think. Yeah, I'm just messing with you, Carlos.

[Carlos Arazo]

We got too many for me to move on.

[Paul Cunningham]

So if you go. Go and look up the throne, read some Revelation 4. But then right after that, it talks about that initial vision, and it's talking about how then all those same people. Or it says, worshiping the lamb who was slain.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Where?

[Paul Cunningham]

On a cross.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And guess. And guess where they slayed lambs in. In the Old Testament. Right there in the middle. Right there in the middle, bro.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah. All right, so here it is. This. It is Numbers, chapter two. Two. So on the E. So I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. But I'm looking at it right here. It's numbers two. And it talks about, okay, all the tribes, and then it tells the total number of people in each camp. So it. You get it. You get a little representation there.

[Paul Cunningham]

But to your point, occasionally, whether it's in Revelation or here. I know it's hard to just, like, even that connection. I don't know that when you put that up, that I connected that before to that, to that same scene. But that occasion, whether it's in the book of Revelation or in Kings, basically, it's almost like the idea of. Imagine like a curtain, a thin curtain or veil that is pulled back between the physical and the spiritual. It's thin. And then we are allowed visions of not what is imaginary, but what is invisible.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Paul Cunningham]

So angels and demons, these are not imaginary. These are not fake. It's just invisible. And we're allowed to occasionally peer into it and see it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right, let's briefly talk angels, and let's briefly talk demons, and then we can get into. Because that ties into a lot of interesting things. Real quick here. Okay, how do we want to start this?

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, bro. So, you know, obviously, so we're talking about angels, so somebody might be asking. Okay, so angels are a thing. So our demons a thing, too. Let me just start.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So let's. Let me just give a quick theology. Let me. Let me do a quick overview and of a theology. It's this. Theologians call this angel. They typically call it angelology and demonology. And then sometimes they'll do it. There's Greek words. I can't remember. What's the Greek word? It's. Yeah. All right, so here's where it all starts. The passage that a lot of Christians don't know. This, the passage that describes what almost everyone agrees is the fall of Satan in heaven pre genesis is Ezekiel 28. I'm going to read it, and here's. And I'm going to point out why everybody thinks this is describing the fall of Satan. This is, by the way, an example. We talk about this a lot on the podcast. This is an example of a prophecy that has an immediate, immediate fulfillment and then an eternal fulfillment as well. What I'm getting ready to read is from Ezekiel 28, a lot of people think that it's referencing the King of Tyre, T Y E R. And that would be an immediate fulfillment. But there's no way it can just be that. I'm gonna point out why. So this is Ezekiel 28. It says you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Now, now, let me stop there. Everybody's like, hey, dude, you know, skeptics are like, it's talking about the King of Tyre. Well, guess who was not in Eden, the Garden of God. The King of Tyre was not in Eden, the garden of God. Also, the King of Tyre was not the seal of perfection. Also, the King of Tyre was a wicked and foolish man. He was not full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. This has to be talking about somebody else. Okay, so then it goes on. Every precious stone adorned you. You were anointed as a guardian, cherub if you are unfamiliar with the Bible, there are typically two species, probably two species of angels. There may be more. Probably two species of angels that are referenced, cherubim and seraphim. Now you get into the passages, talk about the watchers. You get, bro, you deep dive this stuff. And there's some like, you can get trippy, but there's passages talking about the watchers and all this. But there's at least two cherubim and seraphim. The cherubim seem to be higher, the higher ranking angels. So it says about this, whoever this is talking about, you were anointed as a guardian cherub for so I ordained you, for you were on the holy mount of God. Again, that's not where the King of Tyre was. You walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Then your heart became proud on account of your beauty and you corrupted your wisdom. And you, because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth and I made a spectacle of you before kings. Now what nearly every theologian says is that prophecy is reaching back to pre Genesis and it's describing the fall of Satan. All right, now let's go a layer deeper. There are only three angels that are mentioned by name in the Bible. Only three. They got. You got Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer. So those are the only three. So this is a little speculation, but it's educated speculation. So you only have three angels. Now you go a layer deeper, you get Revelation. Revelation 12 seems to be the exact example of what we were talking about earlier, where Revelation is showing what's going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm. And it says. And I'm going to read it. Okay. Revelation 12 seems to be describing what happened when Satan originally fell. And it says this. Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. That is very clearly seems to be Lucifer, Satan, the devil and the dragon. And his angels fought back, but he was not strong enough. That's a great verse, but he was not strong enough. Come on, somebody.

[Paul Cunningham]

Wow.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Greater is he that is in you. And they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth. And watch. This is really important. And his angels with him. So what it seems like you have is interesting. You've only got three angels mentioned. Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Revelation 12. 3 and 4 says this. Its tail, talking about the dragon, swept a third of the stars. I'm gonna ask you about this here in a second.

[Paul Cunningham]

I'm ready.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

This is. Bro, this is trippy right here. A third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to earth. And then it talks about his angels following. So what it seems like you got is the three chief leader, angels of heaven, Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer. Lucifer becomes proud. He doesn't want to worship God. He wants to be worshiped as God. He doesn't want to take orders, he wants to give orders. And he rebels. God casts him out of heaven. And think about that. There's three angels that are named and a third that's really important. A third of the angels fall with him. This answers two questions. What are angels? Angels are servants of God, spiritual servants of God in his kingdom. And what are demons? They're fallen angels. They used to be angels. They were cast out of heaven because they decided to follow Lucifer. And now they're on Earth doing his bidding to steal, kill and destroy. Now put your tinfoil hat on. There are a significant number. I don't know if you know this, Carlos. There are a significant number. It's not. Not. It's not this fringe theory. There are a significant number of theologians in church history who have said that what stars are. C.S. lewis, by the way, is one of these people. What stars are, is. Stars are angels.

[Paul Cunningham]

Or at least they're governed by angels.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Or are governed by angels. Yeah, it's this.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Now what C.S. lewis says, is it in the Great Divorce or what's it in.

[Paul Cunningham]

He's got it in a few things. His space trilogy. Yeah, Paralyndra.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Basically, C.S. lewis thing was like, he was, you know, this is a CS Lewis, like, post modern scientific enlightenment. Like, he's not an idiot. He knew that science was going, hey, dude, there are flaming balls of gas. And his thing was. I think it's in Perelandra. He said, no, no, that's what they're made of. He said, spiritually, what they are, is. He's got. I think they're actually celestial beings. Now, now, we can't spend too much time on this. That's why I got you. We can't spend too much time on this. Paul, will you talk about the theme in church history of theologians surmising that stars either are angels or are governed by them?

[Paul Cunningham]

I would love to. And I think. Can I, like lay like 20 seconds, that's your foundation down.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Please do.

[Paul Cunningham]

It's like, you gotta. Wow. So God is an uncreated spiritual being, but he can manifest himself physically. Think burning bush, cloud of Fire, pillar of fire and cloud. In the Old Testament, before God created the physical realm, he created a spiritual realm with spiritual beings. Those spiritual beings can also manifest themselves physically. Now, they're not bound by physical like and think because it seems like they can appear, disappear kind of a thing, but they can manifest themselves physically. This is important, I think, even set up potentially for. In terms of. Wait a second, if it. Could it be a star thing like that? But this is not just some fanciful, made up thing that, oh, it's kind of cool if there are stars. What Lewis. And then he's really pulling, especially from medieval theologians are really. They're pulling from Scripture, though he's not simply pulling from them, they're pulling from Scripture because just listen to these passages. Job 38, 7, at creation, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of gods shouted for joy. So in Hebrew, that's called parallelism. So it is equating stars with the sons of God, which is a title for angels. In Judges 5:20, it talks about how the stars were fighting from heaven in this battle. Daniel 8:10, the host of heaven and stars are equated with heavenly beings. Revelation 120, Jesus interprets the seven stars as angels of the seven churches. So you see this motif in Scripture that often stars are associated with angels. Now, somewhat pushback, and I think there's some credence to this, that each of the things I just mentioned were either poetry, a song, like, for example, from Judges, or apocalyptic literature. So it might be symbolic, but at the same time, I think it at least has a little bit of credence to say that the angels are by God. It's almost like delegation. Although still God is also in control. The angels order and rule the cosmos, or at least have some of delegated authority to do it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So basically in the same. Now, by the way, just for clarity, we're not saying this is a certainty for us.

[Paul Cunningham]

No, no.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But what I am saying is that it's interesting. I think it's worthy of consideration. And in the same way that when Moses was on the mountain and he looked at the burning bush, if you were to ask him, what is that? And if you had said, you know, that's a bush with a lot of heat, the correct answer would have been, well, no, that's what it's made of. But what is that? That's the presence of God, some theologians throughout church history have said, hey, what is that? That's a flaming ball of gas. No, no, that's what it's made out of. Yeah. What that might be. Is it actual celestial being?

[Carlos Arazo]

That's fascinating.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

No, no, it is interesting.

[Carlos Arazo]

Never heard of this before.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, let me run through this real quick. Let me do demonology really quick. Yeah, okay. And then. Dang. Ah, man. There's a couple things I want to say about angels. Let me just say one thing here, one interesting thing about angels. Then we'll talk demons real quick, because here's why this matters. If you're a Christian listening to this and you're like, ah, this is a little speculative tinfoil Hattie. This actually, like, really matters for your spiritual life and the health of your family and how you view the world. But I do just want to say this. On angels, there's some interesting. First of all, they're obviously servants of God. God. There are reasons. Don't have time to go into it. There are reasons from the Bible that it seems like we actually might have Guardian Angels. Revelation 2 and 3 seem to talk about angels assigned to specific churches. And there's other passages that seem to, you know, kind of allude to, maybe even to people. I will say, dude, this is so. Hebrews 13 says this, do not forget to show hospitality to strangers. For by so doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

[Paul Cunningham]

It.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

What I've learned over the years as a pastor is way more people than you think have had encounters with something that may have been an actual angel than you are aware of. And people don't, like, talk about it. I'm going to give a couple examples. My mom and I asked her permission. If anybody knows my mom. You can say a lot of things about my mom. There's one thing you can't say, you cannot say. She's dishonest. My mom, potentially to a fault, does not have the ability to not say what she believes is true. She can't do it. I'm gonna pull this up real quick. My mom, when she was younger, my mom's father. There it is. My mom's father died of cancer when she was 7. And then my mom's mom, who's hugging Jesus now, had a very significant mental breakdown. And they, her and her siblings were needed. Her and her siblings ended up with other families. They were raised by their families. And that was obviously very difficult. There was for my mom. She'll describe, man, there was a season of her life where a lot of bitterness. Mom, forgive me if I'm summarizing this poorly. You know, just struggling with resentment, anger, hurt, that kind of thing. She had a night. Well, I'm just Going to read. I asked her to send me a synopsis. I'm going to read this to you. While I was treated very well in my present situation, I missed my mom and felt that she needed us. So my heart was torn. One night I went to sleep with a heavy heart, praying and asking God that the right direction for us would be made known in the courtroom. I'm summarizing. The next morning, I awoke and my bedroom was filled with what I can only describe as a brilliant light. At the foot of my bed, there was a dazzling white figure clothed in what seemed to be a flowing white robe, seated at the foot of my bed. I sat up to see the figure better, and it immediately fled through my bedroom wall. I was left with a powerful sense of peace that God had heard my prayers. And I've heard her talk about this before, that there was these wounds in her heart that were instantly healed and she never wrestled with those things ever again. And I won't summarize the rest, but I believe that was an encounter with an actual angel. I'll give another one. When I was five years old, I was at a state park and I almost choked to death on. My parents still have a little fight about this. My dad gave me a pepper government after my mom told him not to. And I choked for, from what I understand, about two minutes. And they couldn't get it out. And finally it got to the spot where they gave up. One person who was there gave up and just sat down and started praying because they thought I was going to die. At that moment, a man walked out of what was a quote unquote man walked out of what was the gift shop and asked my parents. I said to my parents, I'm a physician. Can I help your son? And they were like, well, sure. And I remember this. And he flipped me over and he whacked me real hard on the back and peppermint popped out and everybody rushed around me to take care of me as it has been described to me. They turned around to thank the man gone. There is part of me that's like, was that a Hebrews 13:2, like angels as ministering servants, servants to the people of God.

[Paul Cunningham]

That's literally what I was flipping out while you're telling that story is because angels are servants of God, but they serve us. And. And this one, sometimes in scripture, God intervenes directly and does something directly. But what you also see in scripture is he works through angels. And so you're kind of tying it back to, hey, why does this matter in Terms of the positive side is, is stories like that, when people hear that I know this be like, oh, this all sounds weird. It sounds weird to me, as I've said before does. Although if we have time, either now or later, I got something that shows that even secular people believe some weird things that they can't explain that are invisible. But maybe for. For later on. But no, anyways, where I was going was like, man, they're here to start.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Oh, that was.

[Paul Cunningham]

Sorry, I finished. I didn't finish thought. Which is. It sounds weird, but you hear enough of these stories. And what would be weird is if they were all just coincidences.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Bingo.

[Paul Cunningham]

That would be the much weirder more unlikely way more unlikely. What's. What is more reasonable, whether it's this or. I know that Lee Strobe also talked about near death experiences that each sound weird or unlikely and unreasonable. But what would be more unreasonable is that they were all just coincidence, even though they have common threads and patterns and very different people's lives. But then also, and I know you're about to get to demonology too, is what you also need to know is that often a battle that you're fighting is a supernatural battle that you're trying to fight in the physical and you're not going to win that way. And so often what is happening in the struggles of our lives is we're under demonic attack. And if you're not aware of that, you're going to try to fight a battle in the physical that cannot possibly win in the physical, that you have to fight in the spirit, spiritual.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

It's called demonology.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yes. So speaking of. So obviously we got angels. Demons are fallen angels. And there's, you know, I. We don't need to explain much more there. They, they still kill, destroy very real, very malevolent beings. Here's all say if somebody's skeptical of demons. What I would say is, I don't think you can actually understand the world as people experience it without the existence of demons. I'm. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this real fast. There are three. And then one of these gets us to UFOs and Alie. This is gonna be really fun. There are three things in particular that I'm like, you cannot understand those three things fully without believing in demons. Number one is the existence of other religions. So let me just say this. The theological theme in the Bible is that whatever I got this from this, this is old school, Mark Driscoll, is that whatever God creates Satan counterfeits. Okay, so he's. God is the God of heaven. Satan is described as the God of this world. World God is a holy spirit. Satan and demons are unholy spirits. The Holy Spirit brings conviction. The unholy spirit counterfeits with condemnation. God does revival. Satan counterfeits with riots. God does prophecy. Satan counterfeits with false prophecy. God wants us to repent of bad behavior. Satan counterfeits with tolerance of bad behavior. And then here's where I want to land is what God has done in the person of Jesus Christ is he has revealed the one true religion and way to God.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And what Satan does is he counterfeits it with thousands of other false religions that do not lead to God. They lead to hell. So actually this leads us to Trenny. You got that Ricky Gervais clip? So this is like. So here's what I'm saying for Christians, you're like, hey man, I kind of sound like an idiot if I talk about believing in demons. Actually, it has incredible explanatory power. So check, check out this. So yeah, roll this clip from. This is Ricky Gervais, who's a notable atheist. He's hilarious. Dude's actually hilarious.

[Paul Cunningham]

He actually is.

[Carlos Arazo]

He made the British version of the Office. Did you know that?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, I watched it. Yeah, this is hilarious. All right, let's see it. Atheism. So this is atheism in a nutshell. You say there's a God. I say, can you prove that? You say, no. I say, I don't believe you, then pause. So I do just want to say this, like I hate when people do that because he's pretending like there's no burden of proof on him at all to explain where the entire world came from, why the entire universe. Universe is perfectly fine tuned for the existence of human life. A million other things. So I just. It's a little sleight of hand magic trick he does. Let's keep going. So you believe in one God, I assume in three persons.

[Carlos Arazo]

I love it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, so you believe. Okay, so. But there, There are about 3,000 to choose from that have been, you know, people have been some reading. Yeah. Okay, so basically you believe in. You deny one less God than I do. You don't believe in 2,999 gods, and I don't believe in just one more. Right. That's such brain dead thinking. It's such brain dead thinking. Now let me explain why this is really brain dead thinking. Carlos, if I was in a courtroom and you were the judge and I was a murderer's defense attorney and I was like, you're Honor, there are 3,000 men in this city. We already know 2,999 of them are innocent. I'm just asking you to add one more. That's not a defense. Not going to work. That's not a defense. So again, it's this little sleight of hand. But this brings us back to demonology. So when Ricky Gervais. And it's. So what I would say to Christians is watch out and remember your whole theology when you're talking to non Christians. If a non Christian pulls this on you. And I brought. Bro, which of the thousands of gods do you believe in? My response to that, like if I'm on an airplane is to say all of them. My response is all of them. Okay, here's why. First Corinthians 10 says that when people in ancient Rome were offering sacrifices to these little pagan gods, Paul says you were sacrificing to demons. Those other pagan gods were demons. So here's what I would say is if you're asking, do you believe that the gods of the other religions are real, Absolutely I do. They're really demons. So it's the existence of demons. It actually has incredible explanatory power. Okay, thoughts here before I move on.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, I mean, so we're talking. Let me make this super practical. Islam, Mormonism.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, I've got a list.

[Paul Cunningham]

Go ahead.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I've got a list of religions. This is a whole different thing. Galatians 1:8. We talk about it before. But even if we are an angel or an angel from heaven, the Bible says Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Even if we or an angel of heaven should reveal to you, should preach to you another gospel, Let him be accursed.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Paul is predicting that in the future there will be demons, fallen angels posing as angels of light, revealing quote, unquote, other gospels, other religions. And that's what happens. So here's a list of religions whose founders describe some kind of encounter with what seems to be like a demon or an angel. Mormonism. Joseph Smith is visiting, visited by the quote, unquote angel. It was actually a demon. I think it's pronounced Moroni. That revealed the location of little golden plates, by the way, that he also said that Jesus was going to return in Independence, Missouri.

[Paul Cunningham]

Met someone the other day from there. There you go.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Are you Jesus?

[Carlos Arazo]

This is, this is Joseph Smith.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Okay.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay. So you got that. Obviously you got Islam. We've talked about that before he walks into it. Here's a little side note. I didn't hit on that podcast cast when, when Muhammad goes into the cave and, and encounters this spiritual being that says this Gabriel, he, he originally ran out to a spiritual mentor and he said he had encountered a quote unquote, Jin J I N N. That's an Arabic word for a demon. His original instinct was, I just encountered a demon and this other guy convinced him, no, no, I think it's like legit.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wow.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So you got that Buddhism. Same thing. It's sometimes described as a Buddha experiencing a great light while he was in the jungle meditating. Zoroastrianism, Seventh Day Adventism, Manicheanism, etc, these are all religions that describe some kind of encounter with a spiritual being as part of their founding. Wow.

[Paul Cunningham]

If you think that you mentioned earlier that whatever God creates, Satan counterfeits. If angels were created to serve God, demons then oppose God. If angels are supposed to give messages on behalf of God, then it would make sense that demons would then lie about God. And then finally to. What we're talking about here is that if part of the role of an angel was to worship God, then if thou wanted to oppose God, I would want to lead others to falsely worship false gods.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Amen.

[Paul Cunningham]

Instead of the one true and living God.

[Carlos Arazo]

It's interesting because we're talking about demons and I hear the word light and revelation and enlightenment and honestly, that's basically the opposite of what our culture. Culture. This how our culture describes demons. We think red, you know, like it's some sort of like super scary, like something clearly a demon.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Right.

[Carlos Arazo]

C.S. lewis wrote this book, Screw Tip Letters, where basically like, this lead demon talks to this, like, younger apprentice of a demon. And this is what he said. He says the fact that devils are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you speaking to the demon. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in the mind of your patient, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that he therefore cannot believe in you. Speaking to the demon. It is one of our greatest triumphs that we have made the existence of devils a matter of laughter.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Bro. There you go. Two other things that the existence of demons explain in people's lives to this one's brief is honestly, it explains strongholds in people's lives. I think it's first or Second Corinthians, actually, maybe Colossians. It talks about we destroy strongholds and every pretension that sets itself up against. That's Colossians sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Here's what, in my experience, when a Christian has tried and tried and tried and tried to get out of a sin pattern and they can't, it feels more powerful than them. That's when you know you're not dealing with a sin, you're dealing with a stronghold. And it can sometimes be a demonically empowered thing. So it's very interesting. Interesting in our culture a lot of times how people talk about addictions and how they experience addictions. Bro, if you stop and think it's eerily. They're describing what it would be like to encounter a demon. So they'll say things like, bro, think about this. They'll say things like, hey, dude, I got this thing inside of me that just pulls me towards stuff that steals, kills, and destroys everything in my life. And, man, it just. Man, it's this thing in me that just. It makes me want to do stuff that I don't even want to do. I just can't stop doing it. It. Hey, it's enslaving. They'll say, man, it's just. It's an enslaving thing. It's like there's a voice inside of me that pulls me to this. I'm like, well, bro, what do you call that? Like, bad judgment? You know, it's like, is that a bad debt? Like, yeah, there's something more there.

[Paul Cunningham]

What's interesting is that when I've done mission trips around the world, especially one time, went over to Dubai and was sharing the gospel with people in these labor camps at night, and there are people from all over the world, you know, in the west, here in America, it's like, all right, if we're going to share a Bible story, let's go around, you know, John 3, Nicodemus, you know, wait, that kind of stuff. Stuff which we would eventually do something like that. But actually the story we would lead off with was actually the. The demon possessed man that was kind of basically just out in the wilderness by himself. Because people from all over the world are much more open to the idea that the demonic is present and is. Is just can create strongholds in their lives. And so one of the first things that they wanted to hear was that there was someone who was stronger than that demonic stronghold in that demonic oppression. So that was actually the first story we would tell, was a story from the Book of Mark of basically where Jesus encounters the guy who's really. Stronghold of demonic oppression. And yet Jesus just has to speak a word and the man is set free.

[Carlos Arazo]

So on that note, it's interesting because I was listening to. So Sam Harris, this is like very famous atheist, and he was saying basically, hey, religion is going away because basically we know better today. And so, and then he went on to say, like, for example, we now know like, demon possession. When you see somebody that seems to be demon possessed, we now know that's called epilepsy. And in my mind, I'm thinking, like, in my mind, honestly, the first thing I thought is, bro, have you been like, outside of, you know, like the U.S. western, like, have you been in Latin America? Have you been in like, Africa? Like, because honestly, like, and I always wondered why in. It seems, generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking, it seems like in our country, demons, like, you know, we see it more. Or demonic oppression is. Seems to be expressed more through like, addictions or some sort of like, depression or again, I'm not saying, by the.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Way, I know what you mean.

[Carlos Arazo]

You know what I mean?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay, yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

But then you go to Latin America. Like, I grew up, I grew up seeing like actual man, people like, shaking on the ground and like tweaking and like people throwing up foam and like, you know, and so that's like, that's a thing. And then if you look at scripture, it's interesting because the Bible actually speaks. So demons, I'm curious to hear about to your thoughts on this. Demons, fallen angels and spiritual forces. They're. They're usually in the Bible assigned to a specific geographic region or a nation or city or territory. So Deuteronomy 32, 8, this is what it says. He fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons. Sons of God. The sons of God. There is an angelic beings. Mark 5, 10. When Jesus casts out a legion of demons, what the demon says is the Bible says he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region. That's right. So basically says, hey, don't make me leave my territory. Revelation 2, 3. Every city has a spiritual stronghold. Thyatira, the Jezebel Spirit, Pergamum, Throne of Satan. And so I think, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, I think demons operate differently based on territory. And again, this is why you see it. Enlightenment America. Where like, you, you, you need like, there's some crazy stuff. But here in our country, we just see it expressed differently.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

There is, this is another thing that like, I think we can make a biblically educated guess. There is biblical. There are biblical reasons to at least Wonder if territorial spirits or demons having a, a region are a thing. One of them is at the end of the Book of Daniel. It specifically talks about the what, what's, what's the language that uses the Prince of Persia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it' specifically in the end of the Book of Daniel. It's interesting. It's a spiritual warfare thing. God essentially reveals to Daniel, hey, you started praying. And as soon as you started praying, a battle started happening in the heavenly realm. He does the same thing that happened in 2 Kings 6. He's like, Daniel, let me show you what's been going on behind the scenes while you were praying, you started praying, battle starts happening. And is it Michael? It's Michael or Gabriel.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, it's actually one of the references I was, when I said earlier about even connecting with stars and others, it's from like Daniel 8 and Daniel 10.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

But is it Michael or Gabriel? Do you remember one, one of the angels, this I think is named specifically says like, hey, I tried to come.

[Paul Cunningham]

To you, but I was, I was fighting.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, but I was resisted by. And he talks about, I think the Prince of Persia. And he's specifically mentioning a demonic entity that it seems like was given principality in a geographic region. If you really want to look deeper into this, I, I, I'm not prepared to talk about this and I don't want to just spout ignorance, but if you go look at Genesis of a lot 11, it seems like there is some of this in Genesis 11. Deuteronomy 32, 8 and 9 says this. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the. Listen, here it is according to the number of the sons of God. So it seems like, and there's parts of the Pentateuch that when it talks about the sons of God, God, it's talking about God's divine counsel. And sometimes, if I remember this correctly, sometimes that actually is has a semantic range that includes all spiritual beings and not just angels. So it would actually include demons. The demons in one sense are quote unquote originally sons of God that fell. So that Deuteronomy 32 passage seems like it might be talking about how yebro like, like territorial or regional spirits might be a thing. Yeah.

[Paul Cunningham]

Then just to say this, and I think you've got still a third thing was that what we're not saying is that all mental health or physical malady.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

And that's where you are.

[Paul Cunningham]

And you said, but even just to be Clear, like even, like, yeah, to Sam Harris's point, sometimes, yeah, it is just epilepsy. But a couple things there. Number one still, the demonic can leverage into mental health and emotional health and other kind of health issues and leverage that. And then number two, not all, then what we think are physical issues are just physical issues. And so that's. We don't want to make it sound like all physical or mental or any kind of issues are demonic things, but some are. And the enemy can still lean into those that are quote, unquote, physical.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Dude, here's all I'd say. And I'm going to say it's like, dads especially, you know, mom's listening, whoever, but. But what I will say is the number of times I've heard. I heard one literally this. You were. You were in this meeting. I heard one literally this week. The number of times I've heard the story of some. I like this. This is a story I heard this week, man. For years, one of my sons was having night terrors and he was not okay, man. And it kept happening. And we took him to doctors and we did a sleep study and nothing happened. And then I did. There was. I didn't know where else to turn. And so, and you may laugh at this, I don't care. You can laugh at it all you want. I'm just telling you stories. It was given to me. And then a godly dad decided when his kids were out of the house, I'm going to pray over every room in this house. House. He was anointing his kids pillows with oil, praying over their rooms, asking God to take dominion, the spirit to take dominion in those places. And this guy that we know, like, this is a former law enforcement guy. This is not some crazy, insane person. This guy was like, here's all I can tell you. After that, it never happened again. And all I'll say to every mom, dad, Christian, your problems are way more spiritual than you think they are. There's sometimes where it's like this kind can only come out by prayer.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah. So, I mean, this is what we're saying. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we wrestle. And by that, I mean you and me and every single person listening to this. If you belong to Jesus, you are wrestling against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And so this is what it means, honestly, like, this is why I'm really sensitive to, like, anything that I. Any music, entertainment, anything that I'm exposed to. My family, I'm very protective of that stuff because, like, I am aware that there is a. There is a war. And if I don't have the power, the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, I am powerless against the present darkness and the spiritual forces of evil. I need a supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to be able to live the life that Jesus called me to. And you do, too. Like, this is a thing. And so it's interesting.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, well.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey, guys. One of the reasons we are intentional in creating these kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the live free podcast is we want to model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the word of God together and honestly, just grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ. For this reason. We love that you're tuning in, but honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined a group, whether that's in person or online, I want to challenge you to test drive one. To do that, just text the word group to 20411or you can also go to Lakepoint Church groups, because, listen, you're not one podcast away, one habit away, one decision away, one book away, one sermon away. You are one relationship away to experience freedom and in Christ in community. And now let's get back to the podcast.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Trying to decide if I want to talk about why some Bible scholars think that Satan influences people through music. Have you heard this before?

[Paul Cunningham]

A little bit.

[Carlos Arazo]

I have, yeah. You should. I think it's going to be good.

[Paul Cunningham]

So tempting.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Real fast. Just real fast.

[Carlos Arazo]

And by the way, you're probably not talking about AI, right? Because that's a different conversation.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So in Ezekiel 28, the fall of Satan passage, I'm going to read this, it says he was adorned with. With precious stones. And it describes creation, Satan's creation as, quote, prepared with tambourines and pipes. So some theologians interpret this as suggesting that Satan was equipped with instruments as like, part of his being. And it was symbolizing his. That, like, his role in heaven was. He was like, essentially the worship leader. And people will back it up. Where in job 38, 7, it talks about Lucifer, the morning star, and it says the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. So some people, it's very speculative. Like, man, honestly, we think that Satan was involved in the worship leadership of. Of heaven. And that now, because of that, he does try to influence people through music. Now, that can get a little kooky.

[Paul Cunningham]

But conversely, you know, when Saul, it says, was tormented by a spirit, what suit him? Music. And so even so, it's not even just the music that you don't listen to. It's also the things that you do listen to and that you do bring into your life.

[Carlos Arazo]

Well, I think in the same way, like when you listen to a song that's like, you know, worship music, and you all of a sudden you're crying. You're like, why am I crying? And it's the Holy Spirit working. I mean, there's a Holy Spirit and there are unholy spirits working and other types of music that also want to do stuff in your life.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right, the third thing that the existence of demons may explain are UFO and alien phenomenon.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wait, Trinity, can you play that again?

[Paul Cunningham]

Here we go. Tinfoil, hats on tin.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Let me say. I'm going to say it one more time.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hold on, hold on.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Here we go. The third thing.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wait, wait, you're gonna.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The existence of demons.

[Carlos Arazo]

Give a little drama to it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The third. The third thing that the existence of demons may explain are the reality of UFO and alien phenomena. My goodness.

[Carlos Arazo]

Thank you, Trinity.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

All right, so I want to say a few things on this, and then Brahma. Listen, I'm gonna show you this J.D. vance interview from, like two weeks ago. I'm just telling you, dude. So here. First of all, let me just say this. I personally am fairly skeptical of alien UFO purported sightings. And I'm gonna show you one reason why I ran across this a few years ago. Throw up that heat map, please, Trinity. What you're looking at right there is a heat map of every reported ufo sighting from 1906 to 2014.

[Paul Cunningham]

And can I kindly point out that it's mainly over America in the uk, which is where the people who say that we who believe in angels and demons are crazy live, bro.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Let that sink in so that you. He just beat. He beat me to punch. That's it. No, no, I'm glad you pointed that out. So notice the only. This is really important. The only place in the. The world where people are going, we're seeing aliens and UFOs, these lights in the sky, and we think they're probably aliens. The only place in the world people say that are the place in the world where people don't believe in demons. So let me. That's number one. But anyway, that does make me skeptical. Number two, I'll say this. Christians Are have historically been extremely skeptical of the existence of aliens because Genesis 1 seems to make it very clear that mankind is the pinnacle and center of God's creation. And it, you know, it just doesn't seem to jive. So I'll say that. But I do got a theory. All right, play that J.D. vance clip from. I think it starts at 52 seconds. So let me set this up, bro. This, this thing, like. So he's getting interviewed, and the interviewer asks him because on the campaign trail, he was like, I'm gonna get to the bottom of the UFO thing. If I become vice, I'm gonna get to the bottom of it. So the interviewer remembers this and asked him about it. This, like, two weeks ago. Watch what he says.

[J.D. Vance]

But it's going to take me a.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Little time because Tulsi Gabbard says that.

[J.D. Vance]

She believes there are aliens. Do you believe that? You know, I. I don't. It's interesting. I wouldn't say that I do or don't believe it. I mean, I'm a big believer that there are things out there that we can't explain. And so if another person sees an alien, maybe I see an angel or a demon. So I'm a big believer that there are, like, spiritual forces working on the physical world.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

A lot of.

[J.D. Vance]

Of us don't see and a lot of us don't understand and a lot of us don't appreciate. But, you know, is it aliens or is it our guardian angel or is it aliens or is it a not so guardian force that doesn't care about us or in fact, actively wishes us harm? I don't know the answer to that question. What I try to do is I try to say my prayers. I try to be as good of a person as I can be, and I try to do a good job. And hopefully that's all I need to do.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Okay. Interesting, bro. The Vice President of the United States. There's also. There's more, but that's just one of them.

[Carlos Arazo]

Interesting.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

So here's what I'll say. Dude, I do think that at least a significant number of things that people think are aliens are demons. I'm going to say that, and I believe that for a few reasons. Number one, I'll point this out. There is way more evidence for the existence of God than the existence of aliens. Way more so. For Christians, if you ever run into somebody that says they believe in aliens, but they don't believe in God, you are talking to a person that is not being intellectually honest. So I just Want to point that out. But number two, brother, it's really interesting. Ephesians 2 describes Satan, listen his language as the prince of the powers of the air. So people are like, oh man, we're seeing all this, these unexplained phenomenon in the air and da, da, da, da, da. Okay, well, the Bible says that, hey, what is Satan? He's the God of this world and he's the prince of the powers of the. There another one. It's really interesting. If you go down the rabbit hole and I do not recommend that for a reason. I'm going to say in a second.

[Carlos Arazo]

I agree with you.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I do not recommend that for a reason. I'm going to say in a second. There are a weird number of alien abduction quote unquote testimonies that they report that when they invoke the name of Jesus, us, that the encounter ceases. So it's. Bro. It's honestly like very. The other thing is really interesting if you want to go listen, there's a podcast called Haunted Cosmos that has an episode called Evangelistic Aliens where they trace. Okay, all these people who claim to have had Encounters with aliens, UFOs, what were the messages they were giving you? They're overtly religious messages that are like Antichrist, anti Christian messages.

[Carlos Arazo]

I found some of those. Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

As.

[Carlos Arazo]

I mean, it's one of them. I mean, these are like. By the way, these are like people that this is what they do for a living. Like they study UFO and all the things. And one of them, he wrote a book called Communion. Whitley Striber. And he said that the alien told him there is no one truth. Jesus was only one of many. Oh spent specifically named Jesus. Barbara Lamb, one more, is considered one of the world's leading authorities in the field of ufology and extraterrestrial contact and says that aliens claim that basically the Bible was written by primitive people who did not understand how higher beings, etc. Etc. There's. There's a whole bunch.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

There's a. That's a theme. So then you start going like, well, well, what do demons do? They are agents of lies. Intentionally, you know, commissioned to lead people away from Jesus. Well, what does it seem like? The alien quote, unquote, aliens do that. Here's the last one that I'll say, dude, is I have a. A person I love very dearly and I'm very close to. To this person. And not a. Not a weird fascination. It was just interesting. You know, it's like you're clicking through the History Channel and there's a, there's like a, there's like a special on underwater alien. And this, this was the kind of guy that was like, well, I'm interested. There's nothing wrong with being interested in that. Okay. I wonder what they're going to say, you know, and got super into it. Okay, well then this guy goes through a season of very, very severe depression. And I was very close to the, this guy. So then eventually he stumbles into a thoroughly Christian counselor. And this Christian counselor has him go through a checklist for essentially spiritual warfare. And one of the things on this guy's checklist was, it was like, hey, are you into the occult? Are you into this? Are you into that? No, no, no, no, no. And then one of the things on the checklist was, do you have a fascination? Or like, are you studying UFOs, aliens? And he was, was like, well, what's that got to do with anything? Yeah, I am. This guy explains to him that he believes there's a connection with, between these things. His Christian counselor disciples him, hey man, I want you to, I want you to fast for a season from having anything to do with that fascination or obsession. I want you to fast from it. And this guy does that, devotes himself to a season of prayer. His depression is completely released. Wow. Yeah.

[Paul Cunningham]

This makes it. And this applies, by the way, to not just demons and UFOs, but also to angels. In this whole subject is, I think there's three errors that Christians, even well meaning Christians can make and people can make is one is denial. I mean, that's, that's really not even a Christian mistake. That'd be a non Christian mistake. The other one would be ignorance and like, oh, what does this matter? Well, if it's real, it's relevant. If this is the way that God actually exerts his work in the, in the world or that it is opposing the world, we need to be aware of it. So ignorance. But then obsession is the third. The third error. And one thing I do, not only just with this category, but a lot of categories of theology and doctrine is I'm a hiker. And one of the things I've noticed is that I never see stories where it says, oh, person got lost and died and they found them on the main trail. It's always that they go off on a little side trail. They get completely off the trail, like, oh, I wonder if I can go see this cool view or go see this thing and then they get lost. But that's because they did not stay anchored to the, the Main trail. And so it's not that you can't dive into these things a little bit, but you got to be aware the same thing with hiking. The further you go off that main trail, you can get lost on it. And so, again, I'm not saying that you can't study these things at all, again, because the other error would be ignorance. But if you go into the realm of obsession, you can go to some darker, weird places.

[Carlos Arazo]

Let's make this practical. Pastor Josh. Demons are real. Angels are real. What now? What do I do now?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The two things that are the most important are, number one, understanding that my problems are more spiritual than I think they are. Like, to go back to the story I just told a second ago. Hey, ma', am, pray for your kids.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Like, pray for you. Pray. The book of Job says that he interceded daily for every one of his children. Like, you know, there are some problems that if it's a spiritual problem, a physical solution is not going to do anything. And so, man, you know, I need to pray for these things. When we have problems in our lives that, hey, man, it doesn't seem like a sin. It seems like a struggle stronghold. Hey, man, I may need a season of fasting and prayers, and I may need to get a group of people who are, to quote the old cliche term, like legitimate prayer warriors to assault heaven for freedom in my life. And, man, your problems are more spiritual than you think they are. The other thing, and this is a whole other podcast, we'll do it at some point. I very much believe in seeking a fresh, unique filling with the Holy Spirit. If this world is lorded over by a father of lies and there is the reality of unholy spirits, how much more do we need to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit?

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. That's the thing that's good.

[Paul Cunningham]

I think even maybe a couple things off, that is number one. I mean, I literally had a thing yesterday where I was praying with a husband who. Who was just had concern for their family. And I was like, hey, if you're not sure which if this is potentially emotionally a mental health issue or if this is a demon oppression issue, well, let's pray both. And so it's like, hey, God. Or if it's the demonic leaning into legitimate mental emotion, like, let's pray both. And so if you're not sure, pray both. Pray both. God can sort it out. He's a loving father who can sort out and he knows your desire is for whatever is happening, for there to be breakthrough and victory. So if you're not sure, pray both. One angle in terms of just making this practical is I just actually want to just do a brief thing of equipping, hoping people who are listening or watching of if they get asked this by an unbeliever, by a skeptic. And because that's a lot of times what happens, it's like, oh, people will mock us for these kinds of things. But I would just kindly point out to them that even those ardent atheists, including Sam Harris and others, they believe in invisible realities that they can't physically quantify. So even Rickard Gervais, who's an art and atheist, I say like, so do you believe in energy?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, that's right.

[Paul Cunningham]

Do you believe in gravity?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Paul Cunningham]

Because you can't show me any physical evidence. Well, no, but we can see its effects. Ah, so you're saying that there must be something to explain the phenomenon you're seeing. A, we would say the same thing and B, we would say like, hey, but again what you're telling me is you believe in things you can't quantify. And what's interest, they take this to really irrational frames. Can you put up that picture real quick? Trinity, I think on the, on the thing, on gravity, on gravity, there was a study that recently was done and because it's so precise and so unexplainable, there's this article that came out that said gravity may be key evidence that our universe is a simulation. Number one, just by the way, that's.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Called solipsism, isn't it? Yeah, like, I think it's solipsism, the.

[Paul Cunningham]

Humor that someone would be more inclined to believe. We believe that we live in a simulation. Yeah, that there, that was somewhere that there are these creators who create the simulation that we're living. The, the humor that they would first believe in that and that they believe in a creator. You could go that angle. But I would also actually say, hey, isn't it interesting that some of the smartest people around, some of these unseen forces that we know are true. It actually leads them to the belief that there has to be a creator behind all of this, bro.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Like, I think Sam Harris is a multiverse guy. Yeah, yeah. Like so, like, like just pause and think about this. Like Sam Harris, like, is there a God? Absolutely not. What idiot could believe that God created the world? Like, well then how do we get this universe that's fine tuned to human existing Sam. Oh, man. I think there's probably an infinite number of universes, and we just happen to be in the one that.

[Paul Cunningham]

Again, who's taking the bigger leap here? Who's taking the bigger.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, man. Hey, I want to ask you about some exposts that I saw this week. Any other final thoughts? I have a verse. Okay. So, man, here, Coloss. So somebody. If somebody's like a little shook or just a little afraid after this conversation, here's what I would say. Colossians, chapter 2, verse 15. And this is speaking about Jesus, whom you belong to. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. First John, chapter four, verse. Verse four. You are of God, and greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Jesus has authority over every power and principality, and in him we are free. And we have the power of the Holy Spirit to live a life of freedom. And so that's the great hope of the Christian.

[Paul Cunningham]

Amen.

[Carlos Arazo]

So, man, thank you for sharing that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Totally.

[Carlos Arazo]

Pastor Josh, I have a question. This week I saw. I was on X, as I usually am.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It's the most kind place on the Internet.

[Paul Cunningham]

No demons on X. Joy and levity.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

They bots on X, not demons.

[Carlos Arazo]

They're bots, man. And I saw a tweet that I want to ask you about, if that's okay with you.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Okay. So basically, you want to read it.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

You want to read the original tweet.

[Carlos Arazo]

Let's go ahead.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Actually, I'll. Yeah, and I'll. I'm going to send it to you so you can toss it up. Trinity, I just said. And I say this a lot. I like, I try to say this very frequently. If you're a young man and want your life to be consequential and fulfilled, what I said was, I'm sending it to you right now. Trinity caused a little controversy. And I want to explain this because it kind of does, like, strike at some things I said. Okay. If you're a young man, wants your life to be consequential and fulfilled. Number one, bend your knee to Jesus. Number two, go to church. Number three, read your Bible and pray every day and live out of it. Number four. And this was what triggered X, find a cute girl who loves Jesus and get married young. Number five, have at least one more kid than you think you you can afford. Number six, work hard to build something with your life instead of complaining. It is not the critic who counts. Be the man in the arena for the glory of God. Now there's a reason that has, you know, 400,000 views or whatever. So it was really number four. It was really number four. And then number five. That kind of set off a bit of a firestorm. Now, let me just say this. Beth Moore, who we've known for a long time, always had good interactions with Ms. Beth. We had a quick public disagreement, and then she was so gracious and humble, apologized the next day. Hey, misunderstood. But her disagreement a lot of people did not apologize for. And they stuck with it. They stuck with it. And here's kind of the disagreement was. Man. So if you're saying that Josh, hey, you know, you want to live a life of consequence, find a cute girl who loves Jesus, get married young. Hey, you know, what about single people? That's gonna hurt their feelings? Yeah. Number two, that was number one kind of thing, was the vibe. Hey, what about single people? That's gonna hurt their feelings?

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah. You're saying that they can't have fulfilled lives.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's what people were. That's what people were. That's what people are.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

What'd you say?

[Paul Cunningham]

What I'm saying?

[Carlos Arazo]

That's what people were saying. That you're implying that people that are not married with kids can't have fulfilled lives. But obviously that is not what you're saying.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

There's a. If you want, there's a really interesting. It's from like peak woke era where there's an interview. I mean, I can't remember who it was, but somebody was saying like just very obviously true things. And then the interviewer keeps going. So you're saying, oh, yeah, yeah. And then like blowing it massively out of. So you're saying Jordan Peterson didn't have a consequential life. Paul. Cause he was single. Paul didn't have a consequence. So you're saying Paul's life didn't matter. He was single. The other one was, hey, when single people read that, think about their feelings, says it's gonna hurt. Or you said to have one more kid. People who can't have kids, it's gonna hurt their feelings. You know, that was another one. So let me just say a few things about this now. Again, Ms. Beth awesome came back the next day, apologized. Hey, misunderstood. I shouldn't. A couple things. Number one is here's something I want to watch. Want to ask everybody to watch out for, is that we not be people who so subvert logic to emotion. That we not be people who subvert logic to emotion. Here's something that preachers and the larger the listening you have, the more you get this. And by the way, if you're a preacher and you do not become immune to this, your pulpit is already neutered. Let me just tell you like if you don't cauterize this nerve that I'm about to describe, you cannot have a good Bible teaching ministry. It's the vibe of. You can't say that because it may hurt people's feelings. You can't say that true thing because think about all these people's feelings. You can't say encourage young men to get married because think about all the single people's feelings. It would hurt. You can't encourage people to have one more kid than they think they can't afford. Think about all the people who struggle with infertility, who can't have kids and their feelings hurt. What's really happening is people are will frequently try to emotionally manipulate Bible teachers to stop saying true things that apply to most people because they hurt the feelings of this smaller group of people that are an exception or a minority. And I'll just say it like, dude, if you can't cauterize that nerve as a Bible teacher, you're done. Here's my example of this is my response to a lot of those people is number one, I did not say that you can't have a consequential life unless you get married and have kids. No, no, I said this is a way. And let me just say, I will say biblically, that is the default mode of humanity. The creation mandate from the book of Genesis is to be fruitful and multiply. That is the default mode of humanity. Even when the APostle Paul in 1 Corinthians and 7 talks about hey man, it's actually there's some really good things about being single. You can have single minded devotion to building the kingdom of God. You don't have to wor. Wor. Worry. Worry about quote unquote worldly pursuits. He even acknowledges he's like man, for most people it is better to marry than to burn with passion. And you know, I'm just saying, dude, I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a man speaking to a bunch of young men. I can tell you from very personal experience the vast majority of men need to apply the command it is better to marry than to burn with passion than they need to shoot for the singleness of Paul.

[Paul Cunningham]

And just going to that briefly on that is that it seems when we're talking with young adults or singles Ministries or something like that. It's almost to me offensive because we'll tell them like, oh, you shouldn't want to marry someone. Almost can come off like that sometimes it almost is like, oh, you should just be totally settled and happy and yes, in a sense you should be content and ready and available to be used by God in the unique season that he has you in. But God going back all the way to Genesis, pre sin in the creational order has wired us to, to find a mate and a person that we can share a covenant with as a, as a way of pointing to Christ in this earth. So anyways, like, I think what we have to understand is it has been hardwiredness along and it actually kind of like frustrates biology. Yeah. When we just sit there and tell people, I'm like, oh no, no, no, no. Like almost like, like delegitimalizing their feelings of wanting a spouse. It's like, no, that's actually a God given desire. Like any God given desire. They can elevate us to the point of idolatry. But to just say no, that might just be a God given desire that they want to move towards and that's a fine thing.

[Carlos Arazo]

Or wanting to find a wife that they're attracted to.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, that was the other big.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that you would want to see that alternative.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The other big objection. I mean, honestly, Carlos, and there's a. Was like, I got roasted. Was, was a lot of people like, essentially this is not how they said it, but they were essentially like only cute girls matter. What about the ugly ones? Are you saying that like, seriously, that was like a big part of the vibe. And dude, here's what I would say is like, you know, you know, feminism and sort of feminist instincts are very pervasive in our culture. And I will say what that a lot of times nets out to is scolding young men for virtually any drive, desire or masculine instinct think they have. That ain't good. God wired you to be attracted to people. That's like a God given wired desire. If you're a young man with that, hello, that's a good thing. It is not. It's not only is it not wrong for you to want to marry somebody that you're attracted to. The entire Bible, Song of Solomon, Proverbs, chapter five, they all describe a man being attracted to his wife. So you should want to be and stay attracted to your wife. I am not saying that there's some Vogue magazine standard of cute and Those are the only girls that matter. I'm saying, no, bro, God's wired you the way he wired you. Find somebody you think is a cute girl that loves Jesus and go get married.

[Paul Cunningham]

People have.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Go ahead.

[Carlos Arazo]

You're saying Solomon was only attracted to that woman because of her personality? Is that what.

[Paul Cunningham]

Well, no. Basically, people have different types.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah. And it's like, nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

[Paul Cunningham]

And I think one thing we. I'm still gonna call it a tweet. I don't know what to call it now. Now it's exoplus, whatever.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I don't know what it's called.

[Paul Cunningham]

It's a Twitter tweet, not a thesis. You can't say everything possible. That's one thing. We just got to be a little bit more generous and gracious when we're acting with people. Number two, my guess is probably it was mostly females who took offense to that.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

It was. Yeah, yeah.

[Paul Cunningham]

And so for. For females who maybe that was even you, I would say. Okay, so what you're telling me is, is if one day you actually were having a conversation with your future spouse and say, why do you love me? Or like, what drew you to me? If he said, well, definitely not because you're. Not because you're cute, it was for your inner beauty. How's that going to sit on you? And so I'm just like. Or actually, how is that going to sit on him or lane with him? Because my guess is you're throwing hands at that point. And so I'm just like. When we actually just sit down and tease this out, like, every female wants to know that at least the person that she is with, that he is attracted to her.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

The other thing I would say is this is an example of where you'll see the a feminist instinct double standard is if a. If a woman tweeted, hey, I'm talking to young women, you should try to find a strong, godly young man and marry him. Like, what we wouldn't say is, what about the guys who aren't strong? Are you. What about. He's like.

[Carlos Arazo]

Or young?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Like, no one would ever do that. Yeah. What about the old guy? You know, it's like, hey, man, like, I mean, you get what I'm driving at. This kind of the last thing I'd say here, and dude, I do want to disciple our people who are listening real quick is do not use wounds in your life to, in a narcissistic, self centered way, try to emotionally manipulate everyone in the world to change what they do to fit your Wound. And here's what I mean. So, like, you know how some people took. That was. So you're saying single people can't live consequential lives. What about the people who can't have kids? Josh. Well, let me just say something. Hello, that's me. Jan and I diagnosed with unexplained infertility. Five years in a marriage, 20 years in, never conceived. And let me just say something. I. I've never really. I should do this with Janet here. Jana and I figured out something about three years into that infertility thing, because if you've never done that, that's a doozy. Especially for a woman, that's a doozy. And Jana would have this moment where when her friends would come and tell her excitedly that they were expecting it. Does it stirs up this deep emotion in you. Or a pastor is talking about the blessing of children and then you're walking out of a church service with somebody just put their hand right on a wound. All right, well, here's what Jan and I had to figure out real quick. Number one, that actually, if we tried to use our wound to emotionally manipulate pastors and everyone around us, like, hey, would you please stop celebrating your conception because it really hurts. It reminds us of. Would you please stop teaching about how children are blessings? Because number one, that's selfishly trying to manipulate the whole world so that people who need that truth. Truth, need that encouragement and deserve that celebration can't have the things that they need because of me. I just want to gently say this. That is selfish and narcissistic. It is a selfish, narcissistic tendency for me and Jana to try to make everyone else reverse engineer their entire world from our emotional world. The language for that is holding people emotionally hostage. It's immature and it's selfish and it's narcissistic. So we shouldn't be doing that. The other thing that I would say to you is Jan and I figured out during that look season is if we let ourselves go down that route, it really almost like demonically discipled us into self absorption. That was very unhealthy. Like, dude, Christians are called to be people who are self controlled. We deny ourselves. We bless other people at the expense of ourselves. We are not supposed to to be people who we spend the whole. Like, you should not walk. Let me just do with. With people who are prone to letting their emotions override their logic. If you are walking into every conversation asking the question, how does this make me feel? And if this conversation does not make Me feel positive feelings, then everyone else is wrong. And if it makes me feel negative feelings, then everyone else is definitely wrong. Hey man, let me just gently say you are trying to create a world that entirely revolves around you and your emotions. And honestly, man, it's just, it's selfish and self centered and Janet and I had to repent our way out of it. And to every person that read that, I'll just gently but straightforward say this to every person who reads that tweet and they immediately go, but that hurts my feelings because I welcome to a fallen world. And other people around you need some truth and encouragement and you need to have the maturity to understand not everything revolves around you.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah. And I do think, man, honestly, one of the reasons I loved it is because like, that's literally what our culture needs to hear. Because the vast majority of voices that are extremely influential in our culture today are literally saying the opposite. They're saying, don't get married, don't have kids early, like, wait, build your own brand, whatever, try to be an influencer, become involved in politics or whatever, be successful. And then maybe if at all you have time to even come consider it, then maybe find somebody and you know, let me just give you an example. I mean, obviously we, I'm sure at some point we're going to go deeper on Nick Fuentes phenomenon, which I'm sure, I'm sure you're. You got some thoughts.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

I got, I'm getting my head around it right now.

[Carlos Arazo]

I mean, we, we're not going to show the video, but basically there was a clip where he's basically saying like, I'm not, like, you don't have to. Literally the opposite of everything you said. And then because obviously he's single, he's young, and there's a whole new generation of people that are listening to him and we're like, oh, then that must be a good idea for me not to find a wife early. And I'm just going to go invest myself in this or that and then, you know, they're going to be in their 30s or 40s or later and they are probably going to look back and you know, think about it twice.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

People are getting married. Yeah, dude, I'll just say it. Like, people are getting married. They're getting married way too late, man. Like you, you're bio. You are biologically not designed to wait until you're 40 to have kids. Like, Jan and I brought home one of our adopted children. We were 26. We brought home one, we were 36. I'm going to tell you right now, there's. There's a dang difference between those two things. You were not biologically designed to be 45 when your kid's in kindergarten.

[Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I think number one with Nick, we'll. We'll touch on that later. But anyone who's going that hard in that direction, I'm always like, they're compensating for something.

[Carlos Arazo]

What do you mean by that, Paul?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

We'll get there.

[Paul Cunningham]

We'll get there, but we're going to save it for another time. But I was actually going to go exactly where you went. Which. And even just helping especially the people of Lake Point who made maybe, like, when they catch our. Our weekend services in our series. This especially comes out of, like, anytime we do a series on relationships, on marriage, sometimes when I'm filling questions via email or meeting with people like, oh, man, like, it feels like you're really hard on that. And I always have to remind them, like, everything we're saying is the opposite of what our culture is saying. And if our culture is pulling us into one ditch, it is incumbent upon us to get them out of that ditch. So even using that analogy, like, if your car is drifting into a ditch at that point, when you swerve to the other side, it may feel or look extreme. But what we're trying to do is not even to go to the other ditch. We're trying to get on the right side of the road. And in that moment, it can feel jerky. It can feel like, whoa, that was sudden. Or that was extreme. But it was the necessary thing to keep us from going the ditch that we're about to go into. So just giving a little context for people as they're hearing that that sometimes lands badly on them. It's because our culture is saying the exact opposite. We can't let our people go into that ditch.

[Carlos Arazo]

Dude, that's really good, man. We're going to go with Thanksgiving, but I think we can save that for next.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Yeah, we'll shut her down, brother.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, man. Pastor Paul, would you pray for us?

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Come on.

[Paul Cunningham]

I'd love to. God, I want to pray for all of our single brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord, who are longing for a mate. Number one, I do pray that you'd keep always that in the right ordering. May you be their first love. But, God, I pray that you would increasingly just help godly single men and women and find each other. That, Lord, they wouldn't feel ashamed of that, that they would reject all the lies of the culture that we even just briefly touched on are telling them that, Lord, it's great to find a spouse, it's great to get married young, great to have kids, that these are blessings, that that is the good life. Lord, just correct us as a church and correct us as a culture in that God. I want to pray over what we were talking about earlier. Lord, we believe that there is a real supernatural, spiritual world. I pray for our people that are fighting battles this week, that maybe before they're fighting the physical. I pray that we would begin fighting in the spiritual and that we, we would know that you with us is greater than the world against us. So may any of our people who are living in fear right now, any of the people listening this living in fear, may you fill them with faith and courage, knowing as that passage from 2 Kings said, that there is more with us than there are with them. In your name we pray. Amen.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Amen.

[Carlos Arazo]

Amen.

[Pastor Josh Howerton]

Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, life, culture and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review and share the podcast. And don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church Online every weekend and find more resources at Lakepoint Church Live Free. We'll see you next time.