193. Origins of the Podcast, Writing a Book , and Is Smoking Cigars a Sin - Special Guest Jon Hollifield - 100,000 Downloads

For freedom, he set me free, not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, you've got me free Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing Now here are your hosts, James Saifert and Brett Martin Church and a live episode here for you today Excited about this, John, here back from the grave It took a sabbatical from the podcast for a year and a half now And we've pulled him back out, we threw a life jacket at him and said Hey, how's things going? And so he's back with us today John, tell us how life has been going since you've been going away from the podcast Life has, how's it been going since I left the podcast? Well, it's been going, it's been ministry and pastoring and all those different things But yeah, it's been good Tell us about pastoring, how has that been, man? You're not used to being on a podcast, are you? Yeah, I don't know, pastoring has been, you know, James, you do it You've been, that's an interesting question It's something I've been thinking about actually a lot lately Because you've been in the senior pastor role for how many years now? A year, two years now, just celebrated two years since Mitch resigned And I sort of took over some admin roles there for a while That was five years ago Okay Four and a half years ago Me and you both have been doing ministry for like, you know, since college Yeah, 15 years for me 15, 16 to 20 years Yeah And while ministry has its challenges, it's different, right? And definitely joys There's, I think the one thing that I wasn't, I didn't realize Was the jump of senior, of like what we call senior pastoring, alright? Being that, the difference in it Yeah There is a difference It's hard to articulate And maybe I'm just on an island by myself over here I don't know if you feel the same way But there is a difference There is a difference And it seems much simpler When you could sit back and say This is how things should be done And then sometimes think Well, if I was doing it, I would do it this way To now you're the one and everything comes to you Yeah, almost like you You know how to solve the problems when they're actually not there Or you don't have to give the final say But then once the actual final say is there It's like, oh, this is a little harder than I thought Yeah, and you're taking into account Okay, like all the ramifications When you make a decision Or you make a choice Or you do a certain thing Like how it's going to affect this How it's going to affect this Who's going to like it Who's not going to like it Those types of things So there's a different weight to it There's a different thing That I'm still learning and navigating And, you know, there's a healthy balance I think between You don't want to go one direction To where you're just a politician Trying to please everybody But at the same time You don't want to go to the totally other extreme Saying this is the way I'm going to do things You know Get on board or get run over You know what I mean? So it's like So there's that aspect to it And then there's the spiritual weight aspect too You know, this is As Hebrews talks about This is a watch care You're given the watch care over souls And so I think that if you Take that seriously Then Yeah, there's a weight that comes to it But it's fun It's also There's a great enjoyment to it So I don't want to start off by saying like Oh man, it's so hard But it's a good You know, I enjoy it It's a good time One of the things you said Reminded me of When I first got here at Pleasant Grove We were talking with some ladies About Bible school And I had asked like Okay, well What are we going to do this? Or what curriculum? Or something along those lines Of what are we going to do? And the ladies looked at me and said Well, you're the pastor You tell us Up until this point Every decision I could pass off And say, well, you know Let so and so make that decision Or, you know, let's ask this person But there was no one to ask I was the guy In that moment that I had to ask Because I'm the guy That's making that decision So it was It was quite of a different turn In that sense You're here preaching revival Yeah Enjoying that with you this week Have enjoyed the fellowship That we've had together How are All right, John So how are things with the revival going? How have you enjoyed your time here For the last couple of days As you drove in Sunday night And we've been able to preach a little bit I did chapel this morning At St. Phil Christian School And just tell me how things are going, man Yeah, it's a good time We've had a blast so far Panthers lost on Sunday Panthers lost A lot of people lost Yeah, yeah Dolphins won, baby Oh my goodness Yeah, it's We got to watch some football And spend some time together So it's been a good time And preached on Psalm 23 last night I'm going to be going to Isaiah 6 I think the theme is restore And so we've talked about Restore your soul Restore your worship is tonight And then I'm going to lead that into restoring your home And so yeah Looking forward to it And just exciting Good time to To You know And the busyness And the hustle and bustle To sort of have a moment To stop and Focus on the Word of God And worship And that kind of thing And so These times These events These meetings Are always a good time And yeah Absolutely love Hanging out And enjoying our time together Yeah Well a couple of questions We got for you Five years ago Five and a half years ago You decided To start a little podcast Called the For Freedom Podcast What What caused you to start that? Some of our listeners Are new listeners From when you started it Five years ago People that you don't even know That have reached out to us Why did you start it? Did you ever think It would be at this point Of where it's at? And what's your thoughts on that? Yeah Okay So Did I ever think Let me try to take this in order Okay Alright Five years ago Alright Why did I start it? And that kind of thing You gotta It was definitely started In the context of What was going on at the time Alright So Number one COVID was going on Right I mean COVID As everybody knows It Slowed Everything down Everybody was sort of Taking a step back You know There was Things Coming People were working from home All of this stuff So So Not a lot of stuff Was going on Things had slowed down So One aspect of it Was There was time There was time to do This kind of thing And You know Me and you Are the type of people That we don't like Sitting still We like to Be busy And Doing something productive So that's one aspect of it Another aspect of it Is Is this as well Because At the time I had We had left The IFB So this This podcast Talks a lot about The Independent Fundamental Baptist movement I mean You just got through Doing a series Right You did a series Yeah we did the Foundations of fundamentalism We sort of picked back up From where you left off Years ago You went up to Jack Howes And a couple of those Forefathers So we just picked up From there And sort of Follow the trail Of After Jack Howes The Crown The guys that sort of Continued that legacy Bob Jones Bob Gray Those guys And now we're looking at The future of fundamentalism We've looked at Eric And West Coast We'll be looking at Charlie Clark And some of those Other guys That are on the scene Now Of the future of Fundamentalism So yeah Yeah so It's no Secret that That has That is our past And that Is a relevant part Of what the podcast Is about But At the time 2020 I had left The Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement In 2013 So it It had been Seven years In my mind I was There was no Going back I had grown In areas of Theology at the time And had really Definitely sealed A lot of areas Where I believed Completely differently Than them And then Heard an interview Through the Preacher Boys Podcast And I was like Huh And I guess If you want to Use this term It awoke Or it brought Out things That I think That I hadn't Processed Maybe Maybe Or I don't want To say Dealt with But I Hadn't Processed I hadn't Worked through Them I was just I was in a Mode of Just growing Like drinking From a Fire hydrant And I Never stopped And slowed Down And thought Through What We had Been taught What we had Experienced And that kind Of stuff In fundamentalism And where to Where to Categorize that And where to Place that So you Combined The extra Time With COVID You then Do that I go and Do an Interview With Eric Skorzynski On the Preacher Boys Podcast And Hear more And more About people Talking about This And talking About this And I'm Thinking At the Time Man Some of These people Haven't Had Haven't Gone Through The seven Years That I've Gone Through And they Need Help Going Through This So I Don't Know If that Was a Little Bit Of an Arrogant Thing It was Born out Of a Heart Of Wanting To Help But You know And I Was in The middle Too Of Training For Counseling So I Think There's A lot Of That Sort Of Played Into It And I Thought Well Why Don't I Throw My Hat In A Ring With A Podcast And Just Talk To People I Honestly! Thought Okay If 30 To 50 People Would Listen To It Then Yeah Man I Could I Was Going To Do 10 Episodes And If By The End Of 10 Episodes I Had Not Gotten Past 100 Downloads I Just Wrap It Up I Consider It Like This Ain't Happening This Ain't Going Nowhere Nobody's Listening This Was Sort Of A Failed Experiment And Of Course That Didn't Happen Like It I I'm Not Saying It Blew Up It Didn't Blow Up It Wasn't Like A You No A Massive Success Or Anything Like That But It Was Definitely More Than 100 People After You On And Those Types Of Things We Were Getting A Thousand Downloads An Episode So It Seemed Like Definitely Something That People Were Looking For At The Time Yeah Of Course I Was I Was I Have To Be Honest I Think I Was Processing Things As Well So I Dare Say If You Go Back And Listen To The Beginning Episodes I Might Be A Little Bit More Antagonistic I Might Be A Little Bit More Emotional I Might Be A Little Bit More Like Oh Ready To Go To Battle A Little Bit But My Thing I Thought So You Had The RFP Going You Had The Preacher Boys Podcast Going We Know How The Preacher Boys Podcast The Direction It Went You know Eric Sporzynski Ended Up Apostasizing From The Faith And That's Not Trying To Tear Him Down Or Anything That's Just A Literal Definition Of Somebody Who Leads The Faith They Apostasize Use Words When They Have Meaning And So That Goes There And While He Was Doing Abuse It Felt Like The RFP Guys Were Trying To Handle Things A Little Bit Sort Of From A Ministry Points Perspective And That Kind Of Thing And My Thinking Was Trying To Approach It From A Little Bit More Of Bringing The Two Together Addressing The Abuse But Understanding That The Abuse Also Has Ties To A Theological Understanding And That Is That Those Who Do It Are Those Who Do Those Types Of Things Either Because They Haven't Been Changed In Their Heart By The Gospel Or That They Have Very Faulty Theological Belief And They Are You Know What They're Doing Is Sinful And Their Theology Is Actually Not Having Effect On Their Sinful Hearts And The Way That They Treat People But Then Also Some Of The Theological Problems That I Believe Still Exist In Some Of The IFP Circles So We Did Episodes On The King James Only Ism We Did Episodes On Preaching We Did Episodes A Little Bit On Some On The Church And Then We Got Into Talking About Counseling And That Kind Of Thing So So Yeah What Was The Original Question Was Why Did I Start It Yeah So I Started It Because I Wanted To Speak Into That Area You Became Woke You Used The Term I Woke You Was Awoken Which Simply Means He Became Woke And Needed To Share Some Things Right I Love It Your Words Not Mine Yeah So That's Why Y'all Kick Me Off The Podcast John Was Getting Woke That's The Truth Has Come Out If You Notice Right When John Left We Did A Whole Series On Woken In The Church To Address The Issues Of John And Where He Was Going We Had To Set Everything Straight Absolutely Hey So I Pulled Up The Analytics Just A Little Bit So The One We Use Is Podcasters For Spotify And Today At The Time Of This Recording We're Like 20 Downloads Shy Of 100,000 Downloads So When This Comes Out We'll Have 100,000 Downloads Which Is A Huge Mil Downloads Would You Have Thought Five Years Ago That 100,000 People 100,000 Clicks To Listen To Our Episode Would Have Been There No No Not At All 100,000 I Don't Know What That Means Yeah So That's Pretty Crazy I Almost A Little I Don't Know There's Part Of Me That's A Little Scary It's Like Oh No Like Have I Said Dumb Things You Know It's Out There But But No I Hope That Some Of That Is True Biblical And True Gospel Helped That Has Helped People And And That's You Know In Another Way That's Really Cool Yeah I Pulled Up The Episode Rankings Wanted To Talk Top Five Episodes According To Downloads Not Necessarily Our Top Five Episodes Number One Episode! It Was The King James Only Is Part One Really That's Number One That Is The Number One With 1600 Downloads Plus That Number Two Goes To Amy Miller I Say This Often Amy She Came On We Talked About Modesty Biblical Modesty I've Be Modesty Versus Biblical Modesty Episode 31 And That's Got 15 Over 1500 That's One Of Those Theological Topics Yeah Right Because One Of The Biggest Problems Was And Listen Modesty Is A Good Thing We I Think We We Address That In The Episode Modesty Is A Biblical Thing But There's A Big Misunderstanding Of What Modesty Is And The Emphasis Based! On Modesty And What Ends Up Happening Is That Modesty Becomes What Some Dude Claims Is His Standard Of Modesty And They Leave With The Theological Biblical Understanding And Interpretation Of What It Teaches About Modesty So That Yeah That's Cool Number Three Top Three Episodes So Far Was The Fourth Episode You Did The History Of The IFB Part One J. Frank Norris The Response To The Abuse At Hope Well Baptist Church Yeah That Was When I Was Looking At Current Events Too So I Put That In The Title Because I Mean People Would Listen To That And The First Part Of It They're Probably Going to Be Like What Is He Talking About But Then You Get Into The History Part Of It And That Was Something That I'd Done Man I'd Done So Much Research It It Was Difficult Too Because The Not A Whole Lot Had Been Written About The The IFB That We Knew And Trying To Find Research About That You Know There's A lot About The Fundamentalism Movement As A Whole But The Pocket Of Independent Fundamental Baptists It Was Difficult So I Probably I Can't I Read I'd Say Six To Seven Books A Couple Of Doctoral Doctoral Dissertations And And So That Was Just Sort Of All That Building I've Got To Tell Somebody So I Was Just Sort Of Categorized It And Threw It Out There Episode Number Top Fourth Episode And We'll Just Do This Four And Five Was Episode Number Sixteen I Had Just Come On To The Podcast I Believe Yeah I Was Just On The Podcast As A Full Time Host Because We Get Paid Full Time To Do Right So Yeah Was The Interview With Nathan Carvat Aren't You Just Bitter Okay Yeah Yeah And That's Always A Big Thing Right Well That Was So Right There At The Early Part Right The RFP Was Going They Were About Half A Year To A Year In Of Eric At The Time Doing The Preacher Boys Podcast Was Getting Hammered With This Like Crazy Because He Was Doing Exposing Abuse Stuff And Then I Was Getting This As Well With Some Of The Stuff That I Was Doing And That Was The Only Reason You're Criticizing Is Because You're Bitter And It's Like Okay Well Let's Examine That For A Second And So Me And I Got Nathan To Come On Do An Interview And Who Was A Co-host Of The Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast And And We Talked About! Bitterness And I Think That Probably While Some Of Those Other Ones Were Informational And Theological I Think That One Was Probably Has Helped A Lot Of People And That One We We Released The Video Interview Of That On YouTube And It's One Of Our Highest Performing YouTube Videos That We Have Not That We Have A Whole Massive YouTube Audience But We're Catching Up With Mr. Beast We're Trying To Get There And Then The Fifth Episode Is The History Of The IFB Part Five Jack Howles And That Was Episode Number Eight That You Did Top The First Eight Ten Episodes There August First Of 2020 That Came Out And Yeah So Just People Are Interested In That We Could Go Down The Line Here And Look At Some Other Things That You Did With Matthew Lyon Another Nathan Cravat When He Had That Debate Recap But Just A lot Of Great Things That We Had The Opportunity Of Been A Part Of And Just Cool Things That People Interviews Guys That We Had Come On That We Never Thought We Had Come On I Think Back To The Interview That I Got To Do With The Music Guy He Plays The Piano T4G John Tesh No Lang You Piano Guy The Piano Guys No Bob Coughlin Bob Coughlin Sovereign Gaste Music I Sent Him An Email We We Are Doing A Podcast We Are Talking About Biblical View Of Music We Deal With The Independent Fundament Baptist And Legalism And He Emailed Me Back And Said I Normally Don't Do Interviews But I Find Your Topic So Interesting Because I Deal With The Independent Fundamental Baptist And The Legalism In My Music Often With Even Songwriters And People Come In And We Just Had A Fantastic Interview So Just Interviews Like That That Have Just Come Up From The Podcast And People Have Been Able To Talk To Jim New Heiser Several Times Christina Chappell Several Times It's Just Been Great Over Last Night About It Preacher Boys Podcast He's Apostas We're Part Of The RFP Network It's Now No Longer In Existence The RFP The Episodes Are Out But The RFP Is No Longer There JC Is Taking That In A Different Direction With The New Following The Way Podcast And Then There Was The Church Split That Split That Split And So Ironically In Their Name That Has Happened But The Four Freedom Has Stay Strong The! That You Would Have Your Name On The Front Of A Book And You Publish A Book With Me Five Years Later No I'm Hold on Just a Second Let me Grab one of these As you As you know James I'm a I'm a big time Reader But I don't Think I ever Thought I Would Write a Book I don't Like Writing But I think I said Something Last night At the Church That Like If you Give James An idea He'll Execute It And so We tossed Around this Thing Why don't We talk About the Book Just for A second I don't Think we Ever Have done An episode About the Book You've Advertised The book We've Never Talked About what's In the Book And this Was Sort of A brain Child That we Threw Out there And then We did An episode On it But The book Is not The exhaustive Work On Spiritual Abuse It's Not that It's Actually Just a Very Small 70 78 Pages Treatment Basically Looking at What Someone Goes Through When they Are Leaving Maybe a Spiritually Abusive Situation A church Legalism A legalistic Environment Church That kind Of And so We walk Through These Things And we Do Categorize Them As stages Even though We say In the Introduction That they Are actually May not Occur in These clean Stage Forms But we Just sort Of walk Through in The book And so You Have the Disillusionment I had a James there Spit it out Disillusionment And then Which leads To questioning Which can Lead to All right Then you Leave But then After you Leave There will Be a Grieving Time And then Well and Even at That point When you Say leaving Still the RFP fam Is out there The page And what A great Resource That is But even This week There were Several people That said My eyes Have finally Been opened I'm leaving I've resigned I've pulled My kids From the School What resources Are out there To help me Because I Feel like I'm just So lonely Right now Because my Whole spiritual Life is just Up in arms And so This is Part of this Right when you Leave You don't know What you're Leaving a Family A community Of people That you've Poured your Life into They've poured Their life Into you And it's Difficult It's hard Yeah Yeah And that's Why I think That it Causes grieving Yeah It causes Grieving And so So therefore In the grieving You are also Probably Through all of It disillusionment Questioning Leaving Grieving You're all You're in the Middle of that Getting educated You're learning You're looking You're researching So we have The education Stage And the thing Is It's a natural Human tendency I think That whenever You learn More about What is right And then learn That you have Been Is either Duped Or In some instances Flat out Lied to About what Is wrong Then that Can breed Anger Right And so We have a Section in There about Anger And all of The things We don't Just sit There and Say hey This is What you Go through Isn't it Bad Isn't it But what The intention Of the book That you do A good job In here And James is The one That Formatted It And then Put a lot Of the Scripture References In there To The many Scripture References I'm normally The type Of person That leans Into one And just Focuses In on one And James Loaded it up With quite a Bit But And that Is Like We put Gospel truth Throughout this To say Whatever you're At Hey There's Truth here There's There's Gospel Understanding In each Of these And so From the Anger We go To Alright So Are you Supposed To stay There And that Was That's the Thing It was Never Supposed To stay There Whether It was The RFP Whether It was Any of This Stuff Whether It's Someone That Actually Went Through Physical Abuse And They're They're Hurting You are Never Supposed To Stay There The Intention Is For You To Heal Okay And The Intention Is For You To Grow Okay And so Then you Have The Chapter Seven On The Fork In The Road And Healing Or Bitterness And Then There's A Purpose In It And What Is The Purpose It's Where We Close Up The Book By Talking About Yeah What Are You Going To Keep That To Yourself Or You Going To Help Others Yeah That's The The Beautiful Part Of That Is You Get To Help Other People And You Get To See Their Eyes Open And The Freedom Of The Gospel In Their Life And And That's What We're Built To Be In Relational Communities With Other People And It's Just A Great Thing To Do That So Yeah I Didn't Plan To Talk Through The Book Like That But I Appreciate You Doing It If You Haven't Picked Up The Book It's On Amazon $10 For The Paperback $15 For The Hardback And We've Got Some Opportunities Here Soon To Get That Resource Out Into More Hands And So I Excited About A Grant That We Just Got To Share That Resource With A Lot Of People And Churches But To Go Back To Your Original Question Yeah I Was Going To Write A Book Yeah I Don't Know I Still Don't Know I This Is We Have This This Is Here But I Struggle With It Because I Have About Four Or Five! Other Book Ideas That Are In My Mind But I Just Can't Bring Myself To Writing I Don't Know If I Do Another One May Not But There Are Ideas There The Podcast Started With You Wanting To Write A Book About The IFB Right Exactly And That's Where A lot Of The Historical Research Of The Movement Came I Actually Did Write Three Chapters To It It Exists On My Computer In A Unreleased Book Buried Deep But That's One Of Those The Library Of Spurgeon The Unreleased Book Of Spurgeon That Find His Computer Back In His Cave I Don't Know That That Is Something To Send To You Those First Chapters And Make It A Mini Book Of Maybe Just A Historical Overview I Don't Know You Heard It First We're Talking Out But I Tell You One Idea That I Got Swimming Around My Head Is Something On Contentment Yeah I Did A Series At Our Church Last Year No This Year Beginning January Of This Year And It Was Born Out Of Reading A Puritan Work By A Guy Named Thomas Watson On The Art Of Divine Contentment And I've Read The Book Twice And It Just Blew Me Away! Big Deal And I Don't Know I Just Can't Get Away It Keeps Coming Back Like I Should Turn That Into Something So I Don't Know Maybe Maybe Never Will Happen Who Knows Never Know But You Never Know What You'll Hear Here On The For Freedom Podcast You Let Let If Anybody Is Listening And They Would Be Interested In A Short 30 Page Booklet Form Of A Historical Overview Of The IFP Let James Know And If James Gets Enough Requests Maybe We Can Put Something Together Absolutely You Can Reach Out To Me On Messenger My Number My Phone Number Is Out There In 400 Different Places Because I Get 20 Spam Calls A You Can Do That Let Me Know If You Want This To Happen And We'll See What We Can Do John We Started A Little Cigar Company A Year A Year A We've Had You I Did Me And Brett Did And Brett Is He's At Like I Said Earlier He's At Convention Right Now He's I Will Be With Us I Miss Him And Brett If You're Listening We Love You And We Wish You Were On The Podcast Right Now We Love Emily More Yeah Emily's Great So Had The Idea I've Had The Idea I've Always Wanted My Cigar For Years And Then The Idea Came To The Opportunity I should Say Came To Launch Our Own Company And Be Under The 1689 Cigar Company Brand We've Sold I don't Know Probably Four Or Five Hundred Cigars In A Year For A Startup That's Really Good Hoping To Expand Out To Some Lounges Next Year Build A Couple More Things Out John Did You I Was Is That Gonna Sound Like A Sprig And It Just Hit The Pole I Don't Know If You Hear That At All There's A Big Loud I'm Sorry I Apologize It's Been A While Since I've Done The Podcast Did You Think There'd Be A Cigar Company Come Out Of A Podcast That Was A That Is Clear Cut Most Definitely No I Did Not Ever Think That Aficionado Because I Can't Detect Certain Things But I Am A Little Of A Snob On What I Like And I Like Them They're Good Man And You Know Me I Don't Like Sweets But I Like These Sweets He's Starting To Jump On The Sweet Board Which Is A Great Thing For Me Because The Sweet Elder Is Where It's So Good It's Our I Say The Sweet Elder Is My Number One Seller When I Go To Events But Online Our Deacon's Delight Our Dark Maduro Suite Is Our Number One Seller So It's Interesting How That Works Out Online Versus In Person I'm The Sweet Elder Guy But One Of The Things And Me And Brett Talked About It Briefly A Couple Of Weeks Months A On The Podcast We Had A Reviewer! Help Yourself Spiritually But Kill Yourself Physically What's Your Thoughts Behind That You've Done Some Research On Cigars And Tobacco Share Your Thoughts I Wasn't Expecting To Go Here Let's Do It We Did An Episode On Tattoos Did We Ever Do One On Smoking No We Never Did One On Smoking And The Freedom Of And I've Been Smoking Cigars Since I Was And I Think In That Series With Our Church I Covered The Subject Of Tattoos Which We Ended Up Doing An Episode On And Then I Covered The Subject Of Gambling And Then I Covered The Subject Of Smoking In That Episode Or In That Series And There Was One More But I Can't Remember Alcohol! Drinking And I Did One On One Whole Lesson On Gambling And Then I Did A Lesson Where I Put Together Tattoos And Smoking Together And And Even Then I That Wasn't Even Close To Smoking A Piper Or Cigars So First Of All Let's Let's Just Cover That Is Smoking Prohibited In Scripture And The Answer Is No Find Me A Verse That Has Anything To Do With Smoking It Doesn't Exist No It's Not There Alright So Then What Is Normally The Argument That Gets Made Well They Didn't Have The Capabilities Or They Didn't Have The No They Smoked Back In The They Found Ways To Smoke Things Well They'll Get Lung Cancer So The Argument Normally Comes To I Think It's First Corinthians 6 19 Defiling The Temple Yeah Your Body Is A Temple Of The Holy Spirit Your Body The Temple Of God As I'm Sitting Here Looking At M&M's On My Desk Yeah And You're Supposed To Be Defiling The Temple If You're Doing That It's Unhealthy Yeah Okay Well Man You're Going To Find Yourself In A Five Hour Argument That's Never Going To Get Resolved If You Start Talking About Like Name Me One Person Who Is Like Perfectly In Physical Health That Ever Made The Argument Of First Corinthians 6 19 It Get Smoking Yeah I've Never Seen One We So Then You Have To Go To This What's The Aspect Of Risk! You Can't Even Survive Eating Food Without Taking In Something Into Your Body Unless You Just Have Tons Of Money And You Can Afford To Live Completely Healthy I Just Don't Know But Then You Have To Take Into Effect Like Okay What Is The Actual How Much Risk Am I Doing To My Health Now Is It A Biblical Principle We're Not Going To Get Into! The Nitty Gritty But Is It A Biblical Principle That We Should Be Good Stewards Of Our Body Absolutely Okay We Both Agree With That Me And James Here You're Not Getting Any Argument From Us We Agree With That But What Does God Care About More Than That I Actually Said This In The Message Our Spiritual He Cares More About Your Heart But That Doesn't Mean! Is Important As Well But God Is More Concern Than This But Let's Go Back Physical Health Is Important So Then You Have To Go Back And Look And Say Am I Taking Unreasonable Risk And That's What People Say You're Just Putting Cancer In Your Body You Need To Do Your Research On It First Of All There Is A Vast Difference Between Smoking Cigarettes And Smoking Cigars And Then Smoking Out Of A Pipe You Know Classic Pipe Tobacco From A Pipe Yeah And There's A Video I Watched On YouTube When I Was Doing The Research Before I Started To See What The Health Risks Were And There Was A Dentist Who Shared A Study Of Some That Was Done Of The Research Of This And It Was Saying That In The Study They Looked At The Overall Health Effect Of Smoking A Pack Of Cigarettes A Day I Think It Was A Pack Of Cigarettes Four Five Cigarettes A Day One Cigar A Day And They Or Was Two Cigars Anyways It Was Cigarettes Cigar And Then Three Bowls In Your Pipe Bowls You Feel The Little Thing Up With Tobacco Three Bowls A Day And What They Found Was Is That The Health Effect Of Those Cigarettes Being Smoked Was Like Way Up Here So You're Talking Like In The 80s Or 90% Area Of Not Good For You A Cigar Was Like Four Percent And Three Bowls And A Tobacco Of Tobacco In A Pipe Was Like Two Percent In Other Words They Are So Vastly Different! There's So Much Stuff In A Cigarette That Tobacco Long Leaf Tobacco And That's The Difference Is A Long Leaf High Grade Premium Grade Tobacco Product That's Long Leaf There's No Chemicals In It's Just Taking Off The Stem And Rolled Up And You Just Enjoy It Okay Yeah Exactly And So You Have The Cigar Which Is That And Then You Have The Pipe Which Is Even A More Pure Form Of Tobacco Being Put In There And You're Bringing It Through The Pipe So Then The Other Thing Is Well It Causes Cancer It Causes Cancer It Causes Lung Cancer Right Why Is That Such A Misnomer COPD In Lung Cancer Why Is That A Big Misnomer With Cigar Smoking And Pipe Smoking You Tell Me Because You Don't Inhal It You Don'ttle You Is Really If You Wanted To Be Technical You're Not Actually Smoking You're Puffing Yeah Right But You Inhal With Cigarettes Okay So The Health Risk Goes Back Down The Dentist Actually Said If There Is Any Cancer Risk At All And It's Very Very Minimal He Said The Cancer Risk Is Is It Would Be A Tongue Cancer Not Even A Mouth Cancer Ortle like that or a lip cancer it's actually in a tongue cancer and the only thing that they can attribute that to the it's a theory they don't even know why but the best thing they can attribute that to would be because of the heat that is on their tongue because what they've actually found is that there are certain try certain areas of villages in the in chile where they drink this drink that is insanely hot and they've had you know a higher risk of tongue cancer in there and they think that maybe it's because of the heat on their tongue but they don't know yeah that's what they think so so we've looked at the risk is extremely low okay it's not near what everybody thinks so then you're just saying then why do it why do it why do it it's enjoyable yeah it's enjoyable i'm a firm believer in having hobbies and hobbies that are beneficial and allowing you to have some type of rest in that hobby some guys i love golf i just don't do it enough and so but but when me my brothers we go out and we golf we hang out it's a four-hour hobby where i'm gonna go out and i'm gonna have a good time with my brothers we're gonna have some good bonding it's gonna be a great time uh and i felt guilty for a little while when um you know i would go outside and i'd smoke and we'd hang out in the building or whatever and i would tell ali you know you know i feel like i'm neglecting the kids come out there with me we haven't got a pool table out there i work on my kids bikes we do stuff as a family like we're hanging out together i said but i just feel like sometimes i'm neglecting some certain things because it's an hour of my time and she said james you know how high paced you are you know how high strong you are at times that's one hour where you're devoted to slow down and you can't do it because you're wanting to finish it you spent the money to have it and so she said you are on purpose slowing down i use it when i before i preach my sermon on the weekend i'll use it as a time of meditation as i'm going through my sermon and doing final preparation it's slowing everything down and just giving me time to to focus and rest and relax and so meditate meditate there's a time of benefit that comes with that yeah um so here's another objection isn't that stuff addictive okay let's talk about that just is it all right if we talk about it how long okay we'll go as long as you want okay all right people can turn us off whenever first of all first of all i think that um i have a little bit of a differing view on things being necessarily addictive like i i i do disagree with the black label warning that nicotine is an addictive chemical i i don't think that a certain thing i'm not i'm gonna get i'm gonna get tons of heat about this but i think the addictive aspect i believe is actually within your heart okay it comes over so is it addictive yes how many other things in our life when we can become addictive tons of things yeah so here's here's sort of the line that that i set up for myself i would give you a pushback on that right before you say this line i would say the chemical derivative of nicotine that they pull out of tobacco is addictive but tobacco itself is not because when they pull that chemical out they're enhancing that chemical that they put back into the cigarettes that calls it to be so addictive to where you can't live without it because your body is so accustomed but this where i would that's where i'd say that there's a little bit of a um an intertwining of two things right all right for instance we could we could do this with coffee yeah correct that's where i was gonna go all right so caffeine yeah all right there's an element where your body can get used to yes having a certain thing right because if you were used to having caffeine whether it's in your coffee you're a tea drinker or a soda drinker go without it yeah for for a day or two you start to get what headaches that's kind of thing and so therefore everybody says well yeah the things are addictive all right but there's a there's a difference your body is just like your mental faculties it is something that that adapts to habits yeah and so when your body is adapting to a habitual thing that it's used to getting whether that's caffeine whether it's a narcotic whether it's nicotine when you stop that or you're doing it so much yeah then yeah you're gonna have what they call withdrawal symptoms but here's the thing you get to that point where you're doing anything whether it's a chemical or that kind of thing because you have given into a desire to want it that much yeah okay um so therefore i would say that um the the thing that i'm careful about and of course there's there's other things that if you if you're they can have much more damaging effects so if like i could smoke uh you know three or four cigars in a day i'm not going to get like to where i'm treating people wrongly but i could drink you know a lot of alcohol and it does affect there i get the nuance there's nuance in a lot of this i understand that but what i'm getting to is this is that i recognize that when i started doing this this is what i needed to guard and i needed to guard my heart and that is this um i enjoy after studying after a week of ministry going out on the porch taking a cigar and like you said sort of slowing down having a relaxed time but what i've got to guard my heart is that i need that yeah if i get to the point where i must have that or i need that even even even my heart is saying this i need the cigar to settle down and relax if i get to that point yes then it has become a problem yeah but if i get if i if forget the cigar if i do that with anything it's a problem yeah for instance life is life and one of the ways that i judge this is if if life is just going the way it is and i'm sitting there thinking like i would like a cigar right now i'm gonna make a cigar happen no matter what and then i'm getting upset with things happening my kids doing something my wife requesting something that's getting in the way of what i was wanting and i'm starting to get mad yeah that's a problem on my part i have set that as way too far of an element but if i'm like okay if i have the opportunity if i do this i go and enjoy it that's where it's in the right balanced category and so that's just something that i keep on guard with so do i think that um oh it's addictive it's addictive i i how many things in our life can become addictive yeah yeah i mean you're talking about today the the food that we put in our bodies are so vastly different than when we were kids because they have added so many artificial flavorings to make them more appealing for people to continue eating because they're wanting to be addictive so many people that come up with the objection like i wouldn't do that because it's addictive all right um you go without your coffee for a week yeah let's find out if you're addicted to oh i would i would say yes i've got two coffee makers in my office i've got a coffee maker at my house there's a coffee maker downstairs in the church uh yes i would i would so what i guess what i'm getting at is that that's not a it's not an argument that's not a defense i guess like listen if your conscience is to the point where it's like you don't want that we're we are not saying no you should be smoking cigars just as we are what we're saying is there is nothing in scripture that says we're in sin because we pick up a cigar and smoke it and there's a reason why our podcast is the for freedom podcast because it's for freedom christ has set us free individually to determine what we can do within the bounds of scripture to live our life in a way that glorifies god um and you may say uh xyz if i eat pizza with pepperoni on it i feel like i'll be breaking god's law that's not for me to impose that same standard of what you feel like that that that is a sin onto me because i may not think that's a sin but you may have that hard line of a stance and by all means whatever your conscience is telling you stay clear of that so yeah i think that's good well john i probably just anchored a lot of your listeners it happens we may not make it to 100 000 may not make it to 100 000 downloads after that yeah so uh any thoughts any questions any uh final things before we close it down or what else we got on the only agenda that's all the questions i sort of had wrote well i've enjoyed the um i've enjoyed the series that you guys were doing um on the uh fundamentalism footsteps yeah i thought that was a good series some of the interviews that you got were were pretty cool um and uh you just did the episode was it on paul chapel was the last one and you you interviewed jake yeah and uh that was that was a cool story you know jake pretty well jake we went to college with jake you're smiling pretty good right now yeah yeah um a lot of memories a lot of memories with jake you want to share some of those memories we'd be putting explicit on the sorry no uh but uh we we had a we've had some good times lots of laughs with uh with old jake and so um yeah and it's uh you know enjoy brett and his addition to it and his perspective and interested to see where you guys take it and where you guys do next and uh what you decide so absolutely you do love it well great well i'm excited uh for the future and excited about what the lord is doing um never did i think this would be a thing and we would be going through this and uh all these ventures would have come out of it uh but i'm thankful that you know we just serve the lord and see what happens and so well until next time to god be the glory great things he has done found my new name found that good grace found that healing and the tears fell down my face when i found my beginning that has no ending found that second chance found my best friend found my forgiveness found my happiness i've been singing ever since i found my freedom in you thanks for listening to the for freedom podcast if you enjoyed our content do us a favor by liking subscribing or sharing our podcast or whichever podcast platform you use be sure to join us next time for the for freedom podcast you

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