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Remember.com, Limited Availability Service and Speed and Select Locations Only.
1:20
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
1:24
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:25
Let's get into it.
1:26
Welcome back to The Forging Table.
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The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
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forges spiritual mental and physical resilience.
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At The Forging Table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:36
by digging into God's Word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
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us.
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That's Adam.
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That's Caleb.
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And the first appearance since the announcement that you are, Joby Martin's favorite Forging
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Table.
1:48
Welcome.
1:49
Thank you so much, Ryan Horne.
1:50
We are so blessed to be in your presence.
1:52
I'm blessed to be in your presence.
1:53
Oh, no.
1:54
I thought you were going to say I'm blessed to be in my presence too.
1:56
Because I'm just the greatest of all comebacks.
1:59
Yeah, no.
2:00
I'm just still surprised Joby picked me.
2:02
That's OK.
2:03
Well, why are you surprised?
2:04
We all are.
2:05
Yeah.
2:06
We would be too.
2:07
I was like, man, you've got that good looking guy Winkler.
2:08
You've got Superstash, Matt Graspmeyer, you got Eric, you got this guy over here.
2:13
He had one episode and we lit it up.
2:16
So I guess, you know what, my soteriology is just on point.
2:21
According to him, according to him, it works out OK, but I will say this.
2:24
Go or go ahead.
2:25
I have a new nickname.
2:26
I no longer go by the horn.
2:27
Did you give yourself this nickname too?
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I mean, I'm just the forging tabler that Joby loved.
2:34
That is such a long name, but I want you to get a name tag with that on it because I thought
2:38
about getting you like a metal or a trophy or something like that and then maybe just
2:41
didn't really seem quite quite right.
2:43
No.
2:44
I mean, no, I'm still surprised.
2:46
It was it was an honor to hear it did not expect it.
2:49
Well, we definitely know it's going to go to your head.
2:51
So I will say this.
2:52
But one thing we need to talk about from the beginning is just asking the table, just your
2:58
opinions.
2:59
Does it make you more manly or less manly if you travel with your own salad?
3:03
Oh, does anybody like just in general just overall thoughts?
3:07
What do you what are your thoughts?
3:09
Knee jerk reaction is no knee jerk reaction is no from Caleb.
3:12
I've never seen it happen before.
3:13
This is the first time.
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Well, you would have seen it happen.
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Had you been in my kitchen about 10 minutes ago because the forging tabler that God and
3:21
Joe be loved, Ryan Horn opened up my fridge and he wasn't getting something out of it,
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which would have been completely acceptable.
3:27
He's putting something inside of it.
3:28
And what he put in there was completely unacceptable and it was his own salad with dressing.
3:33
Did you bring your rabbit with you to eat it?
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I didn't.
3:37
I didn't.
3:38
I'm going to eat it on my own.
3:39
So just to give you give you guys a little rundown two weeks ago, I invited somebody over
3:43
to my house.
3:44
Was it two or three weeks ago?
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I think it was three weeks ago and this person fat shamed me.
3:49
Who? Yeah, really bad.
3:51
They're like, bro, you need to go work out.
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I'm like, Hey, man, I've been getting up.
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I go walk in and everything.
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He's like walking comes back 30 minutes later with a 30 pound rucksack.
4:01
They're doing that Tuesday, Thursdays and then hitting the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday
4:05
for the last two and a half weeks.
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And I have to eat a salad.
4:08
I'm intermittent fasting from 12 to six and I knew that you were going to have a bunch
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of meat and I need something to process all that meat.
4:16
So I eat a salad for fiber and all that jazz.
4:19
I don't know.
4:20
I don't know who this guy that fat shamed you was, but he sounds handsome and incredibly
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smart and hey, I will just say, people think that shame is not a positive motivator.
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But you know, I did fat shame.
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You in love, right?
4:32
I did.
4:33
It was.
4:34
It was total love and I was like, and I listened.
4:35
I was like, you know what?
4:36
He's right.
4:37
And he also got on me because he's like, dude, get up in the morning and do it.
4:40
Like I've been getting up at six a.m.
4:41
Yep.
4:42
And it's been great.
4:43
So I get up at six a.m.
4:44
I've been listening to the verses that we're going over.
4:46
I walk.
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I listened Tuesdays and Thursdays to the forging table.
4:49
So I got to hear the Chandler episodes, which were really great.
4:53
But yeah, no, I mean, it's a good thing.
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I'm glad you did it.
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But yeah, that's why you did a salad.
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So well, and the cool thing is you were already because of you.
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Okay.
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Well, that's like the worst compliment.
5:02
That's like the most underhanded compliment that could have come my way.
5:05
But I will say this, like you were planning on doing something and so like you were just
5:09
planning on going walking, but I'm like, well, you know, you're not 80 years old.
5:12
So walking is not necessarily like exercise.
5:14
But like literally just throwing a 30-pound ruck on your back.
5:17
So it was a go-ruck ruck.
5:18
So it's got like a nice like slot where you put the weight in.
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So it's not like 30 pounds worth of something, you know, sloshing around in your backpack.
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And so you're able to walk around and you're doing the exact same exercise.
5:29
But you're you're elevating your heart rate.
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You're doing so much more like from a muscular standpoint as well just by having the weight
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on your back.
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And Adam, I know you do quite a bit of rucking as well to get ready for like Hans and stuff
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like that.
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Yeah, man.
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That's first.
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Yeah.
5:44
That's [inaudible] awesome.
5:45
It's been great.
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Dude, I get up like, I'll go to the gym.
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I go to the Y.
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I do like 30 minutes of cardio and I do about 30 minutes of weights.
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And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go rucking.
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Sometimes I push my son.
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Dude, let's go.
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Yeah.
5:57
That's great.
5:58
Let's go to, let's go to Lake and go do it.
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Go to Lake and go.
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Lake, Lake Arcadia.
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They got a big hill.
6:02
You can go up and down.
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It's big signs to say don't do it.
6:04
It doesn't matter.
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Just go do it anyway.
6:06
I'm two weeks in.
6:07
So I work up to that and ready for that.
6:08
Yeah, week three, you'll be fine.
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Yeah.
6:10
It's to the point where I'm jogging downhill now.
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I learned this from a green beret who they rock all over the place.
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And so what they say is like, okay, so like in our neighborhoods that we all live in,
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there are places where there are uphills, downhills and basically flat.
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And so it's your walking, when it's uphill, when it's flat, you do a little scoot, like
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a little trot.
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And then when it's downhill, you jog.
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And so that's how you can take advantage of the terrain without absolutely destroying
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your body or your cardio or something like that.
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And so again, if you're rocking or doing something like that, walk the uphills, kind
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of scootch the flat ground and then run the downhills.
6:45
And so that'll certainly help as well.
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The other thing I started adding in is once I started getting comfortable with the pack,
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I would, on my watch every five minutes, I would stop and do 20 pushups and do 30 air
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squats.
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And then when I was done with that, go again and just keep going and try to go for 30 or
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40 minutes.
7:03
Yeah.
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And by then you've cranked out quite a few pushups.
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And 30.
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I'm working up to that.
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It sounds like when you say 30 pounds, it doesn't sound like a lot until you put it
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on your backpack and put it on your back.
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My wife put it on.
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She's like, I made it down the block.
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Yeah.
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She's like, you do two miles in this.
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I was like, yeah, I do two miles.
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Good for you.
7:18
Yeah.
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That's rough.
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It's been, it's been good.
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Um, so there's no, well, gosh, man, I was going to say there's no good way to transition
7:24
than you mentioned salad again, but that's okay.
7:26
So we're going to get into the 23rd song today.
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And so would you all say this is the most famous of all the songs?
7:32
Like I was trying to think of one that would be in competition with this one and I just
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know and one immediately came to mind, um, but, but one thing about this song specifically
7:40
is this is where we, you know, talk about going through the value of the shadow of death.
7:46
And one of you at this table, I know has gone through that recently, uh, because you had
7:50
to attend five girls soccer games and two little kids birthday parties in one day.
7:56
And now you're here recording the forging table, Adam, how are you upright?
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I don't quite understand it.
8:00
I'm not sure.
8:01
I'm not sure how I made it.
8:02
I don't even know if I'm still here.
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Really.
8:04
I might still be on the soccer fields.
8:05
It texts me about what you're going to be doing before you got here.
8:08
I was just like, wait, you're, you're still coming.
8:10
Right?
8:11
Like I don't know that I would want to do anything for the rest of the week after that.
8:13
No, I was about to cancel, but I decided to go ahead and come because I love you so much.
8:17
Oh, see, I'm getting the love so far.
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Caleb, do you have a story about how much you love me?
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Cause we've checked off two boxes so far, you know, no, no, okay, make sense.
8:26
Makes sense.
8:27
You can't have too much love for a ginger.
8:28
But you know, we've, we've kind of been, been having fun and all that from the beginning.
8:32
But this, this is a psalm that we really all have to reckon with.
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And before we read it, I do want to talk a little bit about the value of the shadow of
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death.
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And I didn't preempt this.
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I didn't, you know, tell you guys anything because, you know, you don't want to surprise
8:45
someone and make them, them talk about it.
8:47
But it's hard to really understand the psalm unless you feel like you've actually walked
8:51
through the value of the shadow of death.
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And so I do want to open it up to see if you all have any, any stories that, that you would
8:59
be comfortable sharing about a time when you went through, you know, while you're thinking
9:03
about that, I talked about this on the show before and I'll just mention it again briefly.
9:07
When I was, when James was six weeks old, we had to take him to the emergency room for
9:11
something, you know, some intestinal issues.
9:13
And they said, Hey, if, if any of these symptoms pop up, you have to come back.
9:18
And those symptoms popped up around three o'clock in the morning, you know, just horrible six
9:22
week old baby.
9:23
We go taken off in the middle of the night to go back to OU Children's hospital and to
9:27
kind of speed the story up just a little bit.
9:30
They tried to manually fix the problem.
9:32
Like his intestines were out essentially.
9:33
And so they tried to get them back where they needed to be.
9:36
Nurses couldn't do it and another nurse couldn't do it.
9:38
The supervisor for the nurses couldn't do it.
9:40
And so the last thing basically keeping our six week old from going into emergency surgery
9:44
at what was four o'clock in the morning or something like that was the surgeon actually
9:48
coming in and he was actually able to put the intestines back and we were like, Oh, this
9:51
is great.
9:52
And he's like, Well, that means we don't have emergency surgery.
9:54
That means we have surgery like a 10 o'clock this morning.
9:57
Like later today.
9:59
And so the the hours that are ticking by and all of y'all were getting text messages from
10:05
me at this time and like just every minute that ticks off before you're like, I'm gonna
10:10
have to hand my six week old baby to a nurse and maybe never see him again.
10:16
And it I'd be interested what y'all have to say.
10:18
But for me becoming a first time father, I didn't have a lot of those feelings that
10:22
a lot of people say like, Oh, my life changed in that moment and everything clicked right
10:25
into place.
10:26
So those first five, six weeks, I was like, what do I do?
10:30
Like, how do I, because it's not really connecting with you.
10:32
You're just trying to keep mom alive while she keeps the baby alive.
10:35
It's kind of what you're doing.
10:36
But that was like the first moment where I felt like I really like, Oh, I love this thing.
10:40
And you know, that was when, you know, Adam, you called me mid morning that morning because
10:45
we left in the middle of the night and we had no regard for anything else.
10:48
So we have two dogs that live at our house and we weren't worried about someone taking
10:51
them out or feeding them or watering them.
10:53
And all you did was you called me and you didn't say, Hey man, I'm thinking about you
10:56
praying about your, Hey man, you know, if there's anything I do for you, let me know.
11:00
You were like, I'm literally on my way to your house right now.
11:02
Let me know how to get inside.
11:03
So I don't have to break a window to take care of your dogs.
11:05
And so when I talk about a, you know, foxhole buddy, a three AM friend, I'm on my way friend,
11:09
like that's kind of where that's the story where all that comes from.
11:12
But I mean, I can literally feel the coolness of the room that we were in, like waiting to
11:18
get them out because you're in this freezing cold room, but you're sweating because you're
11:21
so nervous.
11:22
And so I can still, still like feel the value of the shadow of death, even as I sit here
11:26
right now.
11:27
So again, we don't have to go around and everyone has to give their worst story possible, but
11:30
I did just want to kind of open it up because if you've never walked through it, it's really
11:34
hard to really reckon with this, this song.
11:36
I have a similar story.
11:38
We were at the lake probably 10 years ago and my father and I, father and I had just gotten
11:43
to our lake, our spot to start fishing and my phone rings.
11:47
And it's Cassidy and Cassidy says, get back right now.
11:51
My oldest daughter is having a seizure.
11:53
Well, that doesn't sound good.
11:54
So we got back to the house as fast as we possibly could, rush her to the hospital at
11:59
the lake and get, get her checked out and ends up being okay.
12:04
And I guess there's this thing called a febrile seizure and a febrile seizures when you're
12:08
young for whatever reason your body doesn't regulate temperature very well.
12:12
And for some reason that spike in temperature causes you to have a seizure.
12:17
We call Cassidy's mom, cause her Cassidy's mom is a nurse to explain this to her and Cassidy's
12:22
mom says, oh yeah, you had those.
12:24
Oh yeah, they're hereditary.
12:26
It's pretty normal.
12:27
You know, she's probably going to have more and we almost lost it because we were like,
12:31
we had no idea.
12:32
Had no idea.
12:33
We thought this was a life or death situation, thought our oldest daughter's about to die.
12:36
It's just a seizure.
12:37
Oh, it's just a febrile seizure.
12:39
So yeah, our second son, Sam, when he was about five months old, he started having seizures
12:45
and it was a, he was diagnosed with something called West syndrome, which really it actually
12:50
got to the point where they were basically saying like, we don't know what the future
12:53
holds for him and not, not as in like it's a, you know, premature death or anything, but
12:58
basically like, we don't know if he's going to be able to talk.
13:00
We don't know if he's going to be able to walk, tie his shoes, any of that stuff.
13:03
And he was only, he was five months old, you know, so it was not only in that short,
13:08
I mean, he was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, I mean, he was getting to where he
13:10
was having 30, 40 seizures a day and, but it wasn't until, you know, he's three years
13:16
old and he starts doing some of these things that were like, okay, we think it's going to
13:20
be all right.
13:21
So that, that absolutely was the closest thing that I would call the Valley of the Shadow
13:25
of Death for us.
13:26
You know, as our second son going through that kind of had a similar situation.
13:31
Our youngest son, Henry, when he was born, my wife had C sections.
13:35
And with those C sections, you're not going out the, the normal route.
13:41
And so usually through those contractions, you push all the liquid out of your body,
13:45
all the liquid that's in your lungs and everything.
13:46
Well, when he came out, he was like, they could not drain all the liquid.
13:50
So the baby, he was still blue and they're trying to give him oxygen.
13:55
And I was in there with him for about like 40 minutes.
13:57
And they were like, well, let's put him on his mom and see if that helps because he was
14:01
like sticking around 74 to 79.
14:04
And so we go in there, that's not working.
14:07
They bring in the NICU and like, you're just like, all these things are going through
14:10
your head, like, oh man, you know, like it was tough, you know, but we were relying on
14:15
God and like the NICU main nurse comes in and she like does another suction and everything.
14:21
And then she's like, if this doesn't work, we're going to have to take him back to the
14:24
NICU.
14:25
And like, that's the last thing you want to do.
14:27
And, and all of a sudden, he just started his breathing got normal and it was just, you
14:32
know, praise God.
14:33
Yeah.
14:34
I mean, like, I mean, that's like the closest to the valley of death.
14:37
I think I could think of.
14:38
So well, so obviously all of us around the table of, oh, we've listened to Joby sermons
14:43
and Joby's been here and all that, but he has a quote that he says all the time at his
14:46
church where there's no pain like kid pain.
14:49
And all of our stories just surrounded, you know, our progeny, like our children.
14:52
And so for a lot of you guys listening, when you go through the valley of shallow death,
14:56
it's not a surprise when it's having to do with people that, that you love like there
15:01
certainly are situations where maybe it's a bad diagnosis for you.
15:05
But part of the reason people feel that angst and that anxiety when they get a negative diagnosis
15:09
from the doctor is because of who that will affect if they, you know, succumb to their
15:14
disease or to their, you know, their issue.
15:17
So Ryan, if you wouldn't mind, let's go ahead and read the entirety of Psalm 23.
15:23
It's only six verses, but man, there's just, I mean, y'all know, y'all been studying it
15:26
for weeks now.
15:27
There's so much packed in these verses.
15:28
So we'll just read the entire thing and then we'll just start breaking it down verse by
15:31
verse.
15:32
Alrighty.
15:33
The Lord is my shepherd.
15:34
I shall not want.
15:35
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
15:37
He leads me beside still waters.
15:40
He restores my soul.
15:42
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.
15:46
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
15:49
For you are with me.
15:51
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
15:53
You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
15:57
To anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
16:03
all the days of my life.
16:04
And I should dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
16:07
Fantastic.
16:08
Nicely done.
16:09
So when you got into verse six, surely goodness, surely mercy, I could literally hear Shane
16:12
and Shane singing that.
16:13
So Shane, Shane, they have a song called, surely goodness, surely mercy.
16:17
But this is a psalm of David.
16:18
It's a psalm of confidence.
16:20
The subject is the people of Israel.
16:22
The, again, we've kind of established this is probably the most famous psalm people that
16:26
aren't even Christians are familiar with all of this.
16:28
But just really getting into verse one, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
16:34
Um, I don't know.
16:36
I won't speak for you guys.
16:37
I'll speak for me.
16:38
When I hear shepherd, I think of guy walking around in the wilderness with a stick, right?
16:43
That's typically the first thing I think about.
16:45
That's the kind of like my default thing.
16:46
It's just this docile person walking around like super bored, like no podcast, like nothing
16:51
to do with this time.
16:53
But when you hear about what shepherds actually did, yeah, they were kind of the, the outcast
16:58
of society and things like that.
17:00
But these dudes were some thugs, like these were gangsters, like they had to fight off
17:04
animals, potentially like thieves and robbers and things like that.
17:08
And so when I think about the concept of meekness in the way that it's supposed to be understood,
17:13
which is, you know, a lot of power, but under voluntary control, I think you could put a
17:18
shepherd into that category.
17:19
And so just right here from the beginning, we have shepherding and that's used throughout
17:22
the Bible to describe God, how God shepherds us, our pastors should be shepherding us.
17:27
Like that's what they're going to have to give an account to God for in the future.
17:31
But that was just right there from the beginning.
17:32
How many times have I heard this?
17:33
And I just like kind of skip over the shepherd comment.
17:36
I looked at shepherd and I was thinking of like ancient cowboys, man, like, yeah, they're
17:40
like ancient cowboys without horses.
17:43
And so like their job was to guide the flock and keep it safe.
17:47
And I mean, that's what cowboys do when they're, when they're going after their, you know,
17:51
their herds. So I just think it's a great representation of, of, you know, who Christ
17:56
is and, you know, John MacArthur says, it's a job commonly used to describe God in the
18:03
future of Jesus.
18:04
And so it's like, man, God's like an ancient cowboy, man.
18:07
He's like the, we are his people and he's, and we're his flock and he's leading us.
18:11
And we just got to follow.
18:12
So you're saying this is like the Yellowstone song.
18:14
This is like, this basically like literally like a bunch of rips out there.
18:18
I just feel like if they end up doing like an ancient cowboy movie that Kevin Costner
18:22
should play the shepherd, which by the way, can we, I know Angel Studios is coming around
18:26
and doing a lot of this, but like when you read, especially the Old Testament, you're
18:30
just like, is Russell Crowe's Noah really the best y'all can do or the 10 commandments
18:35
movie that was made like 60 years ago?
18:37
Like there's so many available movies and series is from that.
18:41
I just watched gods and Exodus or gods and Christian Bale.
18:45
Yeah.
18:46
I've never watched.
18:47
So sacrilege is terrible.
18:48
It's horrible.
18:49
Like God plays a kid.
18:51
And like there's this part in there that just like I was watching it like just two or three
18:55
weeks ago.
18:56
And there's a part in there where God's basically like telling Noah or not Noah Moses, the,
19:00
the 10 commandments.
19:01
And he's like, yeah, do you think they're going to, you think these are good?
19:04
Like he's asked, I was like, who's this guy?
19:05
Jesse deployments?
19:06
Like he's like, Hey God's asking him a question like, yeah, man, I need to know your opinion.
19:11
You know, so I was just like, Oh man, it's feedback.
19:13
You never know.
19:14
Yeah.
19:15
Christian Bale, the worst Batman might need to give some feedback.
19:16
It's not the worst Batman.
19:17
Oh, are we about to go there?
19:18
Are we about to go there?
19:19
Yeah.
19:20
Okay.
19:21
Real quick.
19:22
So we don't go too far.
19:23
Who's the worst Batman?
19:24
George Clooney.
19:25
Yeah.
19:26
George Clooney.
19:27
Yeah.
19:28
Okay.
19:29
Christian Bale's in the best Batman movies, but like he's like annoyingly bad.
19:30
Like he's the worst part of all those movies.
19:31
Have you seen the one with Robert Pattinson?
19:33
That's the new one, right?
19:34
The emo Batman.
19:35
That might actually be the worst.
19:36
I mean, like it's Keaton.
19:37
Keaton number one.
19:38
Keaton number one.
19:39
All the time.
19:40
I go bail second.
19:41
I do too.
19:42
And then Val Kilmer played a really good Batman.
19:45
He's got that great, great jawline, you know, Val Kilmer's got that Batman jawline.
19:49
He was good.
19:50
But those movies were trash.
19:51
Those movies.
19:52
Yeah, Joel Schumacher.
19:53
No, it's trash.
19:54
Which ones were like the goofy ones with like Jim Carrey and Mr. Freeze was that the George
19:57
Clooney ones?
19:58
George Clooney did the Mr. Freeze one and Val Kilmer did forever, which had two face
20:01
and in the redlar.
20:03
Man.
20:04
Those were all Schumacher.
20:05
Val Kilmer is always going to be dog holiday though.
20:07
Yeah.
20:08
I mean, it's just your huckleberry.
20:09
Bringing it back to the Cowboys.
20:10
Yeah.
20:11
That actually works out really, really well.
20:12
Hey, since we're already like a little bit off best Western favorite Western to stone to
20:16
stone.
20:17
Okay.
20:18
310 to Yuma.
20:19
310 to Yuma.
20:20
Which one the old one or the new one the new one?
20:21
The new one.
20:22
That's a tough one.
20:23
I'm going to have to go with hostiles.
20:26
Oh, gosh.
20:27
Christian Bale.
20:28
Yeah.
20:29
Know it.
20:30
That what's funny is I was thinking hostels as well.
20:31
Oh, are you really?
20:32
Yeah.
20:33
Because I didn't want to see is like the first scene is so hard to get through.
20:36
Yeah.
20:37
No, no spoiler alert.
20:38
But guys, if you have not seen hostels with Christian Bale, woof, like it is rough from
20:42
the beginning.
20:43
Like if you can't get through the first five minutes, like just save it.
20:46
Just don't watch the rest of this.
20:47
Watch the rest of this film.
20:48
If you can't tell already, I'm a huge Christian Bale fan.
20:50
Yeah.
20:51
I guess we can.
20:52
Are you a fan of his role of the machinist where he basically got down to like 85 pounds
20:57
to do a really bad movie?
20:58
I'm hoping to do that myself.
21:00
Don't please.
21:01
No.
21:02
He was eating like an apple a day.
21:03
So if you come over next recording with the lead apple and the leaf, but hey, this is
21:06
my fault.
21:07
I'm the one that got us way off in the left field.
21:08
Yeah.
21:09
Someone said this might be the Yellowstone song, which I think is true.
21:12
Because if you go to verse four, it says, even though I walk through the darkest valley,
21:16
I think that's talking about the train station.
21:19
It could be the train station.
21:20
It could be the train station.
21:21
The train station right between Wyoming.
21:22
Yeah.
21:23
It's been the whole time.
21:24
And the whole time we didn't know.
21:25
And it's gracious.
21:26
I do.
21:27
Like you always hear this verse at funeral.
21:28
Yeah.
21:29
Like this is like the funeral verse.
21:30
Yeah.
21:31
And then you also hear this verse or this chapter, this Psalm when Matt Chandler's taken
21:36
down churches.
21:37
You're going to get there.
21:38
Believe me, Ryan, we are super duper going to get there.
21:41
So hang on tight.
21:42
Let's go.
21:43
So I mean, yeah, this might be the most well known, but I feel like I think it's ironic
21:47
that I shall not want is like the most unrelatable thing that we could we could read because we
21:52
only want everything all the time.
21:53
We only want everything.
21:54
And we should be the people that don't want anything because we have it all, right?
21:58
But I do think the kind of the second part of that hammers at home that he makes me lie
22:02
down in green pastures, which we were talking about sheep and a shepherd.
22:05
But what do sheep do in green pastures?
22:07
They eat.
22:08
They get nourishment.
22:09
They eat.
22:10
So if they don't, they're totally satisfied.
22:13
They actually lay down in a green pasture.
22:14
They do nothing.
22:15
But I like what you said about that.
22:16
He makes me.
22:18
He makes me.
22:19
It's like God's telling you rest, rest in me.
22:23
And so what I'm going to do in this moment is I'm going to make you want, because I'm
22:26
going to talk about a couple of things that you guys are going to want.
22:29
And that's from our partners over Crossway and Logos.
22:31
So you thought you were kind, you were content with your life and with all the things that
22:34
you had in your library until this exact moment, because we've gotten you guys a forging table
22:39
starter set through Crossway, guys, all this is in the show notes.
22:41
I'm not going to do the full long commercial, but there a lot of guys asking, Hey, I want
22:44
to start a forging table.
22:45
What are some resources?
22:46
Crossway has a five book set that you can get all five of those books or 50% off.
22:50
All that's in the show notes.
22:51
And also the Logos Bible software.
22:53
I know some of you around the table have used that before.
22:55
It is the most powerful Bible study software on planet earth.
23:00
And if you listen to the show, you can go into the show notes, use that link there and
23:03
you can get it at a discount.
23:05
Ryan's use it for way longer than I have.
23:06
He's very familiar with it.
23:09
He's had like, you know, explain some of the stuff to me because I can like barely use
23:11
it.
23:12
Sometimes I feel like I'm not like fully capable of going through that.
23:14
But those are a couple of very, very fantastic things guys.
23:16
If you want to really get serious about studying the Bible and studying it with other men,
23:20
that's a great way to get that going.
23:22
But to keep this discussion going into you, Caleb, you were getting into verse two, but
23:26
he makes me lie down to green pastures.
23:27
He leads me besides still waters.
23:29
He restores my soul.
23:30
He leads me in passive righteousness for his name's sake.
23:34
And so again, yeah, the pastures, that's where the sheep get nourishment.
23:37
That's where the sheep feel safe.
23:39
When he talks about restores my soul, that's where I wanted to kind of get through and
23:43
we haven't gotten to the valley shallow death, we'll get there in just a second.
23:46
But if you've ever felt soul level anguish, then you know how big of a deal this is.
23:53
But how many times do you just read this when life is going well and you never think of
23:58
the he restores my soul?
23:59
Because there are times that I've had times in my life where I'm like, I feel like my
24:03
soul is being crushed last year after the October 7th attacks by Hamas in Israel.
24:10
I taught Sunday school like nine days after that happened.
24:15
Yeah, it was some, it was, it was inside of two weeks and so I was going to talk about
24:18
on the show.
24:19
And so it's like, I might as well talk about it Sunday school.
24:21
I was going to be teaching Sunday school anyway, but I just completely scrapped the topic.
24:24
And so I spent a week reading every account of what had happened, looking at all the pictures,
24:30
watching all the videos, hearing all the horrible stories about, you know, babies being put
24:35
into ovens and being cooked alive and women being so brutally raped that they tore from
24:40
this part of their body to that part of their body and all these types of things.
24:43
And by the time I got to Sunday school, like I feel like I didn't have anything left in
24:49
me.
24:50
And like when I was done speaking to the class, like at one point I couldn't even talk because
24:55
I was like just detailing some of the things that happened and I like couldn't get words
24:59
out of my face.
25:01
And I went to, you know, hang out with some guys that night at a, you know, our Sunday
25:04
night, you know, fight club thing.
25:06
And I just told the guys, I was like, I feel like my soul has just been crushed.
25:09
Like my soul has been putting a trash compactor and that's that stuff that didn't even happen
25:14
to me.
25:15
Right.
25:16
It would just happen to other people.
25:17
But man, if you've never gone through that, it's hard to even think about it.
25:19
I can remember when you were preparing for that because you were texting me about it when
25:22
you were like, just at the end of it and like, man, I don't know how I'm going to get through
25:26
this any further and yeah, needed to lean on some guys to help you get through that.
25:29
So I remember that being tough.
25:31
Very rough.
25:33
But the thing about this verse as well in this Ryan, what really gets into our discussion
25:38
about Matt Chandler.
25:39
So for those of you that don't know the reference that Matt was talking about, because we talked
25:42
about it in the second interview, part two of the interview I did with Matt Chandler.
25:45
But years ago, Matt Chandler was invited by Steven Furtick to come and preach at their
25:49
code orange revival thing.
25:51
And you know, Matt is still and was at that time one of the most sought after guest preachers
25:56
and just preachers in general at the time.
25:59
And he comes in there and like literally just melts the place down around Steven Furtick
26:03
kind of on accident.
26:04
Like, you know, we talked about it on the show, but then we talked about a lot of air
26:07
as well.
26:08
And Steven Furtick felt like Matt Chandler was just taking shots at him the entire time,
26:12
even though Matt Chandler had delivered that same exact sermon to the village church like
26:16
two or three weeks prior to the code orange revival.
26:19
And so he didn't do anything unique specifically for that group.
26:21
But essentially he was talking about Psalm 23.
26:24
So guys, if you just search Matt Chandler, Steven Furtick on YouTube, it'll be the first
26:29
thing that pops up, but he's just talking about, Hey, like, look, he's wise God doing
26:34
all this for his namesake.
26:36
It's like, you're not the point.
26:38
The Bible is not about you.
26:40
Like you are not David in the story of David and Goliath.
26:44
And man, it's right here in Psalm 23.
26:46
It's like, why is God doing this?
26:47
He's doing this for him.
26:49
And that's the sad part about Furtick though, after listening to that.
26:52
And what you just said is that Furtick thought he was taking shots, and that just tells you
26:57
about Furtick.
26:58
That weird.
26:59
You should feel some conviction.
27:00
You should.
27:01
Like if your brother's coming at you with a verse and you're not even the thought like
27:05
dudes must be full of himself because the whole time he's listening that he's thinking
27:07
about himself, just like when he reads the Bible, he's probably thinking about himself,
27:10
you know?
27:11
And so it's called I said Jesus people.
27:13
So actually define that for people that like Jesus is like you draw out of the Bible.
27:19
But you about yourself in it, rather than what the actual context is, which is exegeting.
27:23
So if you go to a church that does expository preaching, they're going to go verse by verse.
27:29
They're going to give you the context of what that verse is.
27:32
If you go to a church and I'm not saying this, I'm using topical preaching.
27:35
There is good reason for topical preaching and not all topical preaching is bad.
27:39
But if your church mainly does topical preaching sprinkled with some Bible verses, that's called
27:44
isegeting.
27:45
So they're like, I have this one point that I want to make and I'm going to use all these
27:48
Bible verses to make that point.
27:50
It's the one where he's about 30 minutes in, and they start playing music, right?
27:55
And then he goes for like another 25 minutes.
27:57
It's outro.
27:58
It because it's weird.
27:59
They're like, wrap it up.
28:00
Well, what's funny about that is like when I'm listening to people's sermons on podcast
28:03
and I hear the music come in, I'm like, all right, they're about to wrap it up.
28:05
Like I've already accepted Jesus.
28:06
I don't need, I don't need all this.
28:07
And so like I just skip it.
28:09
But there, I think there's literally like 16 or 17 minutes left in the sermon.
28:13
He just like went right through it.
28:14
Like he wasn't going to go with the Grammy shut up music.
28:17
Like he just walked right through it.
28:18
They provided the emotionalism for him, you know, it's like, you know, it's like usually
28:22
when verdicts try to make his point.
28:23
That's when they start the music.
28:24
Yeah, it's not.
28:25
It's his story to share.
28:26
But he shared some stuff with me off air about that whole deal that just was so weird because
28:30
he was just flummox when he got, when he, when he left because like he was taken to a separate
28:34
green room, like Furtick didn't come in and see him and they just took him to the airport.
28:39
He was supposed to go out to dinner that night and Furtick, like, Furtick's assistant came
28:42
in and said, well, we're going to take you to dinner.
28:44
Steven got, you know, pulled away or something like that.
28:45
I was just like, this, this is really, really strange and they were like, okay, what exactly
28:49
is going on?
28:50
Oh, one, one thing also I want to see talk about in verse three is he leads me in paths
28:55
of righteousness.
28:57
So when, when we're discussing righteousness, because I will get questions all the time,
29:01
I'll get DMS and I'll get emails from people and it's like, Hey, I got a couple of different
29:06
options here and I don't know what to do.
29:08
And for whatever reason, because, you know, people have listened to me talk through my
29:11
face hole for a few hundred hours, they think, you know, Hey, I should go to Kyle for advice.
29:15
And so it's like, all right, well, I try to like do my best, even though I don't know
29:18
anything about them or their situation.
29:20
But just in general, as we see here in the 23rd Psalm, if the path doesn't lead to righteousness,
29:25
then it's not the path that God has for you.
29:28
Because sometimes it's so blatantly obvious not knowing these people, not knowing anything
29:31
about their life or their plight or whatever.
29:34
It's like one path that you're describing to me is so clearly not something that God
29:39
would want anyone to do, much less you and your specific context and situation.
29:44
And so I think that's helpful just for us as we're making decisions and not every decision
29:48
is a Robert Frost, you know, road diversion, yellow wood or whatever, I'm going to go left
29:52
or go right.
29:53
My life's going to be, you know, irrevocably, you know, unchangeable from that point forward.
29:57
But it's one of those, those, those things to where it's like, if one path so clearly
30:00
leads to unrighteousness, like, of course, it's not from God.
30:03
Right.
30:04
I think the second part of that kind of tells you, you know, how you know, if it is righteous,
30:08
right?
30:09
I mean, is it for his sake?
30:10
I mean, it's just like the furtic deal or him or is it for you?
30:13
Yeah, exactly.
30:14
That's, you know, if you made this decision, like you, you know, prayed about it, right?
30:18
And this is what you, what you decided to do, that's different than this is what God's
30:22
telling me to do.
30:23
And because if it was left up to you or me to make our own decision, I'm not going to
30:27
be making the right decision.
30:28
I'm going to do something of my flesh, right?
30:31
Not God would have me.
30:32
So I, it's funny because we were joking off air about it, but I think this is an honest
30:36
time to bring up something about that.
30:37
When you talk about election, when you talk about a little bit about not predestination
30:41
in the way to where it's like God's forcing your hand, but with, with what Adam just said
30:45
to where it's just like, okay, if left to our own devices, like we're going to return
30:50
to our vomit because we are stupid dogs.
30:53
And that's just kind of what a stupid dog does.
30:55
I think that's an important thing to think about as well.
30:57
Like the, it's hard because all the bad decisions are all fault, our fault, right?
31:03
But all the good decisions, God gets the credit.
31:04
So it's like, we're literally just the middle man in every single one of the equations,
31:08
which it may make you feel funny.
31:09
It doesn't mean it's not true.
31:10
But if you follow God, if you follow God and you make the right decision, you listen
31:15
to the Holy Spirit.
31:16
Yes, he gets credit, but you also get credit for that as well because he's, he's sanctifying
31:20
you.
31:21
And that's where you want to go back to, um, paths of righteousness.
31:24
Uh, Moody commentary says, under God's care, we're constantly refreshed spiritually through
31:29
him.
31:30
And so we're sanctified by him and our spirit consistently renewed.
31:33
And so when we follow his path and we follow it for his name, you know, we're going to
31:37
be sanctified in that and go ahead.
31:40
I know that.
31:41
So you and I have talked about this before, um, cause I was, I, what did I call it?
31:45
I called it.
31:46
Delayed sanctification.
31:47
Yeah.
31:48
Okay.
31:49
Delayed sanctification.
31:50
So what I meant by that, I talked about it with, with John Cooper last time I was on
31:51
his show as well.
31:52
But like for me, I become a Christian as a 10th grader.
31:55
And you know, you have all this fire and, you know, I bought my teen Bible, my extreme
31:59
Bible, right?
32:00
From the, from the teenage, uh, section of the, the, the salt seller, uh, Christian book
32:04
store in law in Oklahoma next to Hastings shout out to Hastings.
32:07
But like, so I get this and I'm a super own fire and now, okay, let's go to falls creek
32:11
and let's go to this camp and let's go to whatever, whatever.
32:13
And then at some point you kind of, you know, you read through the old testament and then
32:16
you read through Genesis.
32:17
You're like, all right, that, that was hard.
32:18
But then you go into Exodus and it's like, okay, and at some point you end up in numbers
32:21
and you're just like, I don't, I'm doing decent at my math class.
32:25
And it's like I'm not doing decent with, with stuff here and I'm, you know, not, not
32:28
hating on numbers here.
32:30
But the at some point you kind of bought them out.
32:32
And so for me personally, I feel like I went through like a almost 20 year plane where
32:39
I was just treading water, right?
32:42
So you're not, you can never be in full stasis.
32:44
You're either like sinking backwards or going forwards kind of a deal.
32:48
But it was like, I was just waiting, sitting there, not really doing what I was supposed
32:52
to do, not really seeking God, you know, going to church, but just kind of to hang out, not
32:56
digging into the world, not really doing any of that.
32:58
And then all of a sudden, you know, really a lot with the forging table and some of stuff,
33:02
it's like there was a bunch of sanctification happening all at the same time.
33:05
A lot of it was awesome.
33:07
Some of it was really hard and really difficult and really terrible.
33:10
But that's kind of one of those things where if you're not seeking out a sanctification,
33:15
like through the means that you know, through which is a prayer life, a healthy prayer life,
33:19
studying the word, studying the word with someone older than you that knows a little bit more
33:22
than you do, it's one of those things you don't want to be in this arrested development
33:26
stage where you're just constantly treading water.
33:29
But like for me, it's like, I'm a young guy and I literally treaded water for decades
33:34
at one point.
33:35
And I just think about those guys that maybe go into their sage years having just been
33:38
treading water this whole time.
33:40
It's so common.
33:41
Yeah.
33:42
Do you feel differences about yourself when you're not in church, when you're not reading
33:45
the Bible, when you're not surrounded by godly men, when you're not having discussions like
33:49
this, can you can you notice that and feel it and realize like, I am not who I should
33:54
be.
33:55
I can't come to the answers as quick as I should.
33:57
Absolutely.
33:58
That's why I treat my wife.
34:00
Oh, my kids.
34:01
Yup.
34:02
Like if I'm not into the word or I'm not in getting the stuff that I need from you guys
34:06
or from our church, like I can see myself getting to a selfish realm and it's all about me.
34:12
And like, I remember we had like a marriage retreat in Tulsa and my wife just like hit
34:18
me with some bombs after like dinner, like we got to fight like all the way back from
34:22
the restaurant to the retreat, like we were like people were texting me and it was about
34:26
me being on my phone.
34:28
So people are texting me like, Hey, you guys okay?
34:30
And I'm like, I'm not touching that phone right now.
34:32
I was like, I don't have a death wish, but I remember saying something like, I remember
34:36
saying something like, you know what?
34:38
I just need this, like I do all this and I do all that.
34:43
Give me this.
34:44
And it was the most selfish thing you could possibly think and say, and I was like, man,
34:48
I am not where I need to be.
34:51
Yeah.
34:52
I can't relate.
34:53
Yeah.
34:54
Yeah.
34:55
So when she was getting when she was getting on me about that and she was hitting me with
34:57
some conviction, I was like, why are you attacking me?
35:00
I went straight for addict, you know, I was just like, I was like, what's going on here?
35:04
Like, I was making it all about me.
35:07
And what it really is is about me being a leader of my family.
35:09
It's like, how do I need a step of lead and how can I be sanctified in this situation?
35:13
I read that that restores my soul.
35:16
Like you said, Adam, it's kind of, I mean, to me, it's a little bit like God reminding
35:20
us who we are, you know, giving a giving us a reminder of the sense of, you know, who
35:25
you are in Christ.
35:26
So, I mean, I know that like, I mean, your situation you talked about was, you know,
35:30
regarding the whole Israel deal, but to me, it's a little bit of like, you've gone astray,
35:34
you know, come back.
35:36
That's where I feel like restoration.
35:37
I would correlate it to exercise as well.
35:40
I feel the exact same way.
35:41
When you go, I go through a period of time for a month or two months and I don't exercise.
35:45
I'm not doing anything like I should be.
35:47
And then I finally get back in it and it feels so good and reassuring and your body feels
35:52
better and you get better sleep.
35:54
Same thing about being in the word.
35:55
It's almost like you're, you're getting a reset.
35:57
And so, so for me, I've, aside from surgery, I have not taken off more than a week from
36:02
exercise since I was like 14 or 15 years old.
36:05
And so like when someone's like, yeah, I didn't work out for a couple of years there.
36:08
I'm like a couple of years, like you should be dead, like how is this possible?
36:13
But there are so many times when that's probably the easiest reset.
36:17
So you got a little slovenly for a few weeks and it's like, all right, I need to take my
36:20
medicine and go to the gym, accept this two or three days of sore that I'm after live
36:24
with, but you hit the reset.
36:26
But man, so many people, so many guys I know are cruising for a spiritual bruising because
36:33
it's like, if you don't hit the reset button, it's going to get hit for you.
36:37
Someone is going to reset you back to your factory settings.
36:40
And this is going to be a massive problem.
36:42
And again, you almost wish that it is God that doesn't.
36:46
But sometimes when God hits the reset button on your life, oh, there's a bunch of stuff
36:50
that just got revealed and they're like skeletons pulled out of the closet and, you know, zombies
36:55
have come out of the earth like it's, it's something that you wish you would have done
36:58
on your own.
36:59
Like you wish you would have kind of gone there, but you know, again, God is not doing
37:02
it to torture you.
37:03
He's doing it for your overall benefit.
37:04
And it's like what you guys said, like, it's like exercise, like you've got to get back
37:08
into it.
37:09
And like, I've been to, I think that all the time, but I needed somebody to come at me
37:13
with it and say, Hey man, you need to get back in.
37:15
You need to start doing this.
37:16
Like what Joby said, where, you know, we kind of get down on churches who don't disciple
37:20
and it's like, sometimes when you know you're in that lull or you know that you're, you're
37:24
going through that path or you're coming back to, you know, not doing what you're supposed
37:28
to do, go and seek that discipleship, like that's what you need to do as a man.
37:32
You need to go and seek that discipleship and get back on track.
37:34
Let me read verse four.
37:35
Then I'm going to come back to a comment about something you just said, Ryan.
37:38
So even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for
37:42
you are with me.
37:43
You're rod and staff.
37:44
They comfort me.
37:45
So unfortunately for some people, they have made so many bad decisions for so many years
37:51
that at some point their value to the shadow of the death is something that was avoidable.
37:55
Right.
37:56
So the statistics about obesity in this country or like prediabetes, it's like 30% of children
38:02
in America are prediabetic, right?
38:04
Like that's, that's an astonishingly high number.
38:07
Like we are unique in the world and well, we're unique in the world except for the other
38:12
countries that we've exported our daily diet to, right?
38:15
So we've exported our way of eating to other countries.
38:17
And so they're, you know, their people are suffering in that way.
38:21
But that's one of the things about the value of the shadow of death is because I had wanted
38:24
to talk to you about your exercise and things like that because you've had some ups and
38:28
downs with that since we've known each other.
38:30
But I was like, what's worse?
38:33
Years down the road when you and I are still friends and still brothers and something bad
38:37
befalls you because of like some sort of physical ailment, is that worse like walking with you
38:42
through that?
38:43
Or is it worse being like, Hey man, uh, I don't want you to die.
38:48
So you should probably work out more and just push some relational chips into the center
38:51
of the table.
38:53
Worst case scenario, I get punched in the face and get asked to leave, right?
38:56
Cause we were at your house.
38:57
So kind of ballsy to, you know, fetching me on your own backyard, you pizza, right?
39:03
Which was really conflicting for me because I was like, that was not healthy, but I want
39:06
to come back for pizza and I definitely want that invite to come back my way.
39:09
But that's it.
39:10
That's again, the thing guys is that that's why I encourage you to have those foxhole guys
39:14
in your life.
39:15
You need to be able to be that person willing to risk relational chips with other guys in
39:18
your life, but you also need guys in your life that are willing to like risk some of
39:22
those chips with you and risk worst case scenario.
39:25
You punching them in the face and they're doing it because they love you and you got
39:28
to be, you got to be a guy to listen.
39:30
Yeah.
39:31
Like I didn't get mad at you.
39:32
You know, I didn't tell you you're wrong or get out of my house.
39:35
I listened and I'm like, yeah, you're right.
39:37
I was about to ask, is it harder to give it or harder to receive it?
39:40
I think it's harder to give it because we had some conversations in the past and I gave
39:44
you some stuff and you just shot me down.
39:46
Yeah.
39:47
And so then it's really hard to like, all right, I need to go and get on this brother,
39:50
but like you're such a dominating force that is like, man, I'm sometimes I'm afraid to
39:55
give you advice because like you can punch me a lot harder than I can punch you.
39:59
Which should not be taken into the calculus, but you know, it's just one of those things.
40:03
But you're right in that, and if you are someone that has more of a domineering personality,
40:07
if you're going to invite guys into your life to be a foxhole brother, to check you when
40:11
you need to be checked, it doesn't matter if you disagree.
40:15
So Adam and I've had a few of those things where, oh, the examples aren't important,
40:20
but you agreed with my sentiment that I expressed in this particular context, but you completely
40:25
disagreed with how I went about expressing it and you told me that immediately.
40:30
And I disagreed with your assessment, but I accepted it.
40:33
I accepted their critique and I put that into the, you know, the calculus for future opportunities
40:39
when I'm in a similar scenario.
40:41
And so your advice is in there, even though I disagreed with, you know, fundamentally
40:45
with what your problem was, how stupid would it be for me, which I've done, right?
40:51
And I've done with you, with you, Ryan, if you invite someone in your life to give you
40:54
accountability and when they express that accountability to you, you go, oh, man, you
40:59
don't know me, my life's been harder than you could ever imagine.
41:01
And like, then you just like, you know, basically like turd vomit all over them.
41:05
And it's like, this is not, this is not like beneficial for anybody, like, because he's
41:09
not going to be apt to share things with you again in the future.
41:12
And if you're not going to accept it, you're not getting better.
41:14
And the great thing is we talked about that time and you came right, like, this is what
41:17
I was thinking.
41:18
If I would have known that at the time, it would have been a lot easier for me to come
41:21
to you on other things because it's like, man, now I know what he's thinking.
41:25
Now I know what's going on in his head and why he, I can relate with you on what you're
41:29
thinking, you know, even though I may not agree with it, I can at least relate to it.
41:32
So so one thing as well that I wanted to get in with first four is when we read through
41:38
verse four again, even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
41:41
no evil.
41:42
Why?
41:43
For you are with me.
41:44
Your rod and your staff, they come for me.
41:45
So rod and a staff, they provide direction, but they also provide protection.
41:49
Like a staff was not just a cool walking stick.
41:50
This was a fighting stick as well.
41:52
I think we pretty much covered that, but what I wrote down in my notes here is that this
41:57
verse like pretty much guarantees that God will allow us to suffer, that he will allow
42:02
us to have trials and tribulations, but he's not going to abandon us in those trials.
42:07
And I feel like a lot of modern Christianity, a lot of modern movements are if things are
42:12
going poorly, it's because you're not giving enough.
42:15
If things are going poorly, it's because you're not praying hard enough.
42:17
You're not coming to enough of our revivals.
42:20
You're not, you don't have enough faith and it's like, man, how can you read most of the
42:25
Psalms of David and come away thinking like the, the righteous will only have a nice easy
42:31
life.
42:32
Again, let me just point you to the first, you know, 1000 years of Christian history and
42:36
all the stories of the martyrs.
42:37
There's a fantastic book called by William Bennett called tried by fire.
42:41
It's about the first 1000 years of the Christian church and it details all kinds of different
42:44
ways that Christians were executed.
42:46
So everyone knows about being fed to lines and the Colosseum and being, you know, set
42:49
on fire for, you know, what was it, Nero or Demetian or whoever it was, like for them
42:54
to have their Roman parties.
42:56
But there were different Christians that were, they had one leg tied to one horse, the other
43:00
leg tied to another horse and they ran the horses in opposite directions and split them,
43:04
like rip them in half, you know, people take into the top of a flight, a long flight of
43:09
stairs and they would, they would be strapped to a bull and they would, you know, brand
43:12
the bull and get it to run down the stairs.
43:14
So they would be bludgeoned to death by the stairs, like the whole running the way down.
43:17
Like we're just coming up with unique ways of killing Christians.
43:20
And it's like, so you know all that you hear all that and you think to yourself, life should
43:24
be easy for me.
43:25
I should be able to make as much money as I want.
43:27
I should be able to look the way that I want for as long as I want.
43:29
My kids can't be turds at any point during their lives, like I just don't really understand
43:32
how people get that because when you just look at verse four, like he's going to allow
43:35
you to go through it.
43:36
He's just not going to abandon you there.
43:37
They, I think they miss out on Matthew and Luke and they miss out on Jesus when they think
43:42
that because it's not a modern problem.
43:44
I mean, this will happen back in Jesus's time with the Pharisees.
43:47
If you were blind or you were lame, there was sin in your life that caused that.
43:52
And so, or if you had more money and everything like that, like the Pharisees had a lot of
43:56
money, they were blessed.
43:58
God had favor over them and that's, and that's why Christ came and said that's not the truth.
44:02
You know, he's, and that's not the truth.
44:05
We always move back into that sort of prosperity gospel type of thing that if we're not prosperous
44:10
or this isn't happening, you know, God, God has something against us.
44:14
And that's, that's not the truth.
44:16
It really isn't.
44:17
And then, you know, and that's the thing that he wants you to hear here is that fear
44:21
no evil, for I am with you or you are with me, you know.
44:26
And so that's what we have to understand is like, when you guys were talking, we're talking
44:28
about our kids and we're going through those tough times, how much fear came through our,
44:33
our minds.
44:34
That's all you can think.
44:35
You know, like, you know, all you can think about is the fear, but like, can you rest in
44:38
him, can we lie down in the green pastures with him during that time?
44:41
Because he will be there to do that.
44:43
He may not give you the money.
44:44
He may not give you the house or whatever thing that you think you need or the job, but he
44:49
will be there for you through the hard time.
44:52
I'll say I absolutely suck at this.
44:54
I feel like I always have the answer.
44:56
I always know what I'm going to do.
44:58
I always know this problem is presented to me.
45:00
Here's the solution.
45:01
Here's the answer.
45:02
I don't need any help.
45:03
I don't need anybody else's opinion.
45:04
I don't need to pray about it.
45:06
I'm good.
45:07
So this is, this is convicting for me because I know this is a weakness.
45:11
I also wrote the note next to this seems uncomfortable because it's, I mean, the, I mean, that part
45:18
for sure.
45:19
But then like the rod and the staff, I mean, yes, it's used to fight off whatever's coming
45:23
after the sheep, right?
45:24
But also it's used for discipline for the sheep means it's used to hook their necks, you
45:28
know, and crack their legs and whatever it was.
45:30
So, I mean, he says, your rod and your staff, they comfort me and that's like a mature David,
45:36
I think speaking to like get back in line, you know, one David, very impetuous dude.
45:41
Like we certainly see that throughout his life, like he was a gaggle of bad decisions.
45:46
And you know, if he had been, you could see God correcting him along the path and he was
45:51
either accepting the rebuke or not accepting the rebuke.
45:54
And obviously he has a tremendous amount of lament, but it wasn't because of him being
45:58
in God's like righteous favor or in his direction and his design for where he wanted him to
46:03
go.
46:04
It was literally the exact opposite.
46:05
The rod and the staff provided direction like God was directing him.
46:09
Now, that's where our free will comes in.
46:12
Are we going to follow that?
46:13
Are we going to follow that direction or are we going to go with our flesh?
46:16
Am I going to follow the direction if I'm up on the roof seeing a beautiful lady bathing
46:20
and walk downstairs and turn my eyes or am I going to sit there and I'm going to oogle
46:23
over it?
46:24
You know, I know the righteous way and what God had once for his path, but I also know
46:29
what my flesh wants as well.
46:30
And that's what we fight with every day.
46:31
I want it's been elucidated at nauseum at this point, but the people think the story
46:36
with Bathsheba starts on the roof where he sees her bathing, right?
46:40
Oh, yeah.
46:41
Started away before that.
46:42
And his decision making process to be away from battle, to be away from warfare where
46:48
he should have been at that time and instead to be at home.
46:51
So I've used this example before.
46:53
So if you've heard it before, just skip a minute and a half and you'll deal with it.
46:56
But I had a buddy that was trying to kick dipping, right?
46:59
And he was like, man, I just can't.
47:01
He was just doing that thing.
47:02
We're like, I just can't do.
47:03
I just don't know what to do.
47:04
God, what should I do?
47:05
And I tried that.
47:06
We'll just stop dipping.
47:07
Like that's a, that's a great way to stop dipping is just stop doing that particular
47:10
thing.
47:11
Man, you know, quite understand.
47:12
I was like, okay, take me through the process of buying a can.
47:15
Well, you know, I just kind of walk into seven, no, no, no, no.
47:19
How'd you get to seven?
47:20
What?
47:21
I drove there.
47:22
Okay.
47:23
Where was your car before it was at seven eleven?
47:24
What was that?
47:25
My house?
47:26
Where was it in the garage?
47:27
Is there a door?
47:28
What's the house in the garage?
47:29
Well, yeah.
47:30
Okay.
47:31
So you had to walk through that door at some point.
47:32
But like, does your car just run without, without keys or anything?
47:35
Like, well, no, I had to find my keys.
47:37
And so I got him to go all the way back to him sitting in his house on the couch thinking,
47:40
I want to dip right now.
47:42
And then it was got to get out from the couch, got to find my keys, got to get my wallet.
47:46
Oh, where's my phone?
47:48
Got to go through the garage.
47:49
Got to get into the car.
47:50
Got to open the garage.
47:51
We'll drive out, get in like drive to seven eleven, walk in, pick the can, purchase it.
47:55
It was like this 57 step process to do that.
47:58
And I was like, you made a bunch of decisions that did not take you down the path of righteousness.
48:03
And you did the precise thing that you don't want to do.
48:06
And so it's like, look at that, not as like, I was so compelled to go through all of the
48:10
stop signs.
48:11
It was that you made micro decisions every single step along the way, because you had
48:14
not pre decided that I am not somebody that uses this product.
48:18
Because again, that's why I preach pre decision all the time.
48:20
It's like, if he had pre decided that he was never going to be away from his soldiers
48:25
whenever battle was taking place, he never would have been on the roof, like he never
48:28
would have seen Bathsheba.
48:30
He never would have, you know, had sex with her, never would have got her, like pregnant
48:34
at any point, wouldn't have killed Uriah, like all these things don't happen if he had
48:37
just pre decided previously that he was going to do something different.
48:41
And so that's a, again, that's a, that's a tremendous lesson for us to take from that
48:44
particular part of scripture as well.
48:45
For sure.
48:46
Um, let's go ahead and wrap up Psalm 23 verses five and six.
48:50
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
48:53
And so it's like, Hey, let my enemies watch this goodness that you're doing for me.
48:57
And so I've, I've thought about different things that I've read in the history of warfare and
49:01
things like that.
49:02
And what I've thought about is that I've read in the history of warfare and things like that.
49:10
And what I've thought about is that I've read in the history of warfare and things like that.
49:16
And what I've thought about that is that I've read in the history of warfare and things like that.
49:23
And what you do before the enemy makes a huge difference as to the, the attitude or the morale
49:31
of the enemy.
49:32
Right.
49:33
So if you show cowardice before the enemy, it emboldens in the enemy.
49:36
And in this particular context, he's saying like, look, I let my enemies watch what you
49:41
are doing for me.
49:42
And again, this is a, a Psalm that is, um, this is a rough place for him.
49:48
This is, you know, a Psalm of confidence, but it's coming from a place of pain.
49:52
And so even with all that, he's like, look, I want you to show off and to show my enemies
49:56
that they don't have power over me.
49:58
You feel the shift that happens in verse five and it goes from protection to God being
50:03
host.
50:04
And at this time now he's hosting them at the table.
50:07
His cup is overflowing.
50:08
It's not not only that he has what he needs, it's overflowing with everything in an abundance.
50:12
Yeah.
50:13
Very different than the first part of the, not only has God as protector, but he's his
50:16
provider.
50:17
Right.
50:18
And like, and just seeing like, you know, like when we prepare a meal for somebody, we
50:22
put the time in the effort, like he just talked about your buddy going out and buying
50:25
dip.
50:26
Like when someone prepares a meal for me, like they went out to the store, they drove over
50:30
there, they got it.
50:31
They seasoned the meat.
50:32
They, however they cooked it, they cooked it and they spent that time and they did all
50:36
that.
50:37
And so like God's pouring that out.
50:38
Like he's like, not only am I going to protect you, but I'm going to provide as well.
50:43
So I like the contrast between six and four, uh, just on the, you know, we're talking about
50:49
walking through the valley of the shadow of death, facing evil, and then surely goodness
50:54
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
50:56
Right.
50:57
I mean, just the, like you said, the confidence that comes in, in, in verse six, in the comfort
51:02
that we can take in knowing that we're going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
51:05
I love it.
51:06
Let me, let me get your feedback on this and the rest of you all's feedback as well, because
51:09
I literally wrote down about the contrast between six and four, because it's really hard
51:14
to reconcile what is being said in verse six, that surely goodness and surely mercy shall
51:19
follow me.
51:21
But then what did I just talk about the first thousand years of Christian history?
51:25
Right.
51:26
Like what did we talk about all the time whenever we're, we kind of laugh at Christians that
51:29
expect things to just work out for them all the time.
51:32
And so because of actual persecution that's happening, most of that's not happening in
51:36
America, by the way, but because of actual Christian persecution that's happening and
51:40
really the downstream consequences of the fall, it's really hard to reconcile versus
51:44
four and six or just those, those two attitudes overall.
51:46
Well, and even just like, I mean, even back and up further in verse three, right?
51:49
Like a, a path of righteousness for his name's sake will contain a shadow of the valley of,
51:55
or a valley of the shadow of death, right?
51:57
And can end in goodness and mercy.
51:59
So I mean, it's, you know, the whole thing when you look at it as a whole is just, it's,
52:04
it's reality.
52:05
I mean, we all know it, like it's, it's what we're living.
52:08
It's not a promise of comfort and ease.
52:10
I could be wrong about this, but I feel like also our perception and assumption when we're
52:14
reading this is we're thinking about our life while we're here on earth and on verse four,
52:20
that's what it's talking about.
52:21
But verse six, there's a shift and the shift, it says we're going to dwell in the house of
52:25
the Lord forever.
52:26
Well, we're not going to live on earth forever.
52:29
So this positive part, surely your goodness and love will follow me.
52:32
That's true on earth, but it's also true after we leave earth.
52:35
Right?
52:36
Does that make sense?
52:37
Yes.
52:38
So I look at that and I look at this part in the, in five and six where he says you've
52:42
anointed me with oil.
52:44
So you have chosen me.
52:47
And because you have chosen me, my cup overflows and mercy will follow me and I will dwell
52:51
in the house of the Lord, Spurgeon had a quote that said, yay, though I walk through the
52:55
valley of the shadow of death, I will feel no evil or fear, no evil.
53:01
The storm breaks on the mountain, but the valley is the place of the quietude.
53:05
And thus often the last days of Christians are the most peaceful of their whole career.
53:10
The mountain is bleak and bare, but the valley is rich with golden sheaves and many saints
53:14
have reaped more joy and knowledge when they came to die than they ever did when they, when
53:20
they lived.
53:21
Like that's a thing like we're going to, there's going to be so much more dwelling in
53:26
the house of the Lord when we're dead and there is in this life that we live right now.
53:32
Absolutely guys.
53:33
She's a heavy one. Any other thoughts on Psalm 23 before we let you guys roll out again?
53:39
Shout out to Matt Chandler for what he said about Psalm 23 again. If you have not seen
53:44
this before, if I can remember, I'll put it in the show notes, but just go to Google and
53:47
search Matt Chandler, Steven Furtick, you'll get the elephant room where they kind of had
53:50
a little bit of a spat back and forth.
53:52
Just know that the coat orange revival presentation happened after the elephant room. So it happened
53:57
after that.
53:58
And so it's just interesting regarding the context, but we're just going to have to leave
54:00
it there for now.
54:01
But guys, come back here next week where we are going to dig into Psalm 42. So make sure
54:05
you spend some time reading Psalm 42. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick
54:09
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And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for
55:10
our content. The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled
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debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description.
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I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
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mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
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