Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 You know what? What do you what like? So when you say that, because there's um you're saying specifically religious tolerance, which obviously would would reference what you're saying with like having Islam and and Muslims come in and be like, "Hey, you guys can help dictate the laws and everything like that." What else do you think falls in this category? Because I mean, there's a lot of things now that you could I mean, could you throw uh not that it's the hot button topic, but you know, hot button uh podcast, but like could you throw gay marriage in there and some of the LGBTQ and all that other stuff in there? I think I think those are I think those are all like really interesting conversations, you know. I think um I think something like abortion, right, is a principle issue, right? Right. Um because of the way the Bible interprets life. Um I think it's a principle issue though also in society because again uh the western world we live in was built on Judeo-Christian principles and right um it's just really hard. I mean, I just talk about abortion for a second. It's really hard, no matter how you slice it, to say that abortion isn't murder, right?

2:01 You know, I mean, it's it's a really it's a real it requires so much um such a lack of logic that I can't Yeah. I you know, you you you're justifying you're just finding a way to justify it. Well, 100%. Right. There there's no one's ever said, "Hey, what do you have?" And you're like, "Oh, we'll see. Maybe a human." It's like, "No, you're going to have a boy or a girl." everyone. You know what I mean? Like I I'm with you, man. It's like you know exactly what it is. Yeah. And that's not even and and I and I'm like intentionally not going, "Oh, here's all the stuff the Bible says." Because that's just fundamental base morality that I think God places with within each one of us of we know what murder is, right? So, yeah, those are principles, right? I think the idea, you know, what's really um what it I had a conversation with a guy recently about this because this person, he's a mutual friend of ours and he's not married. He's he's been with this lady for over a decade and he's he's been in Mighty Men. He's been in the worlds that we're in, but he's not married. And so I asked him the question, I'm like, "Well, why aren't you married?" Well, there's a complicated situation, okay, in that his he has a son with this lady and her uh he her son their son has cystic fibrosis, right? And just one of the with just one of their son's medications cost $250,000 a year.

3:25 Wow. Right. That's crazy. Yeah. And they had they had their son before they um before they were Christians, before you know they're not married. So they had their son when she was a single mom. So she's on Medicare, right? Where the government helps pay for all this medic. That's just one of the medications that he takes. It's not even all of them. All the therapy and all that stuff for cystic fibrosis. So he hasn't gotten married to her because of the financial weight that that would bring in their life if they were married in the quote unquote eyes of the government. Right. Yeah. So then my conversation with him was like, "Man, you know, biblically the biblical covenant of marriage predates governments acknowledging that marriage was a economic uh Yeah. advantage, right? Yeah. And he's like, "No way." He goes, "Are you serious? Like this is are you for real?"

4:19 I'm like, "100%." Like you can you can get married in a biblical sense without signing a civil document that you file with like a country, right? So the reason why I say is because I think there's a distinction in what a government recognizes and what God recognizes, you know, man, that's so interesting. I've never thought about that. Yeah, because I I'm reading through the Bible again this year and I love it, man. I feel like every time I go through it's just there's just like new revelation every time. It's amazing. And this was one of my revelations that fits in here that is not deep, but like back in the day it was like, "Yep, we uh had sex. We're married now." Like that was that was like the big sign got married. Well, in the Old Testament, it was like in in uh there's going to be circumcision that takes place and that's proof of the covenant here, right? Yeah. But but like it wasn't like like I've thought about this. How did Jacob marry the wrong chick? You know what I mean? Like like how does that even happen? I know I know they didn't have like street lamps and stuff like that, but like surely like in because in my mind cuz think about this. If you had a ceremony, you're not going to say I do in the dark. So, and the only way he found out was the next day he woke up and oh, that that's not Rachel, right?

5:31 Uh, so the the only way that that could be possible is if it was like they did this whole party and then off and then he just kind of went off in the dark and couldn't see who was coming in and you know, there you go. As they say in England, Bob's your uncle. And but you know what I mean? So, but like it it paints the picture that it wasn't like in my mind when you read in the in the Bible like, oh, this he took her as a wife. I kind of naturally put my 21st century mind of like, oh yeah, they had a ceremony. No. It was way different and I never actually thought about that. Now, we're not giving license. I I don't know that we would want to give license your own marriage. Well, in that story, right, the Bible mentions that it was dark. It was actually at night when uh Laban brought Leah to Jacob, right? And so, so the wedding ceremon like they had the ceremony earlier in the day where they said, "I do." That was what made exactly it was the actual the wedding ceremony in the Old Testament was a completely completely different thing than what we've created in in 2026.

6:28 For sure, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I was going to go down a whole tangent about weddings, but I'm not going the wedding talk about the wedding. Weddings are wild now compared to when I got married. Like back me I was talking to someone I was talking to someone the other day. Me and Courtney's whole wedding cost $5,000. Everything. Food. Praise the Lord. food venue. You You got people in their 20s that make, you know, don't don't make that much money paying $30,000 for a wedding. It's out of control. It's crazy. Yeah. Anyways, shout out to the wedding planners. You guys know get paid. Um so so let me So let me ask you all this, man. Like or did you have another Do you want to finish your thought? No, I was going to say, you know, there's a like and I'll say that again. There's a difference between what God recognizes and what the government recognizes. Yeah. And you know, and I don't I don't want to give people unnecessary credit, but I always try my best to give credit. Like the first time I thought about that was um when Obama was running for president the first time.

7:22 Oh, yeah. Because one of the things he said he said early on in his campaign that he wouldn't he wouldn't legalize gay marriage. And then he said he wouldn't he wouldn't like advocate for the legalization of gay marriage. And then the sec and then he said later in the campaign that he would advocate for some kind of civil union for gay people to to get economic benefits from America, but the idea of of gay marriage is more of a biblical thing and the Bible doesn't recognize that. Like I remember I remember seeing Obama have a conversation like that, right? So um so then it was like that and I was in my 20s whenever that happened and um it's like oh okay there's a there's the kind of marriage that God recognizes and the kind of marriage that the state recognizes and I think that we are you know I believe we're a nation and we're we're a society that's governed by a Christian ethic. Um but also um what the government allows and what God allows are two different things.

8:29 And so what people but what people really want this is like the interesting thing to me. What people are really looking for like this is this is a theory. So people that are like very um pro-LGBT or you know it's it's funny that we keep not just on the podcast but in society we keep we we h we don't keep talking about this on the podcast but in society we keep talking about gay marriage like it already passed right they haven't repealed it they haven't but we keep talking about it because you know what you know what I think the real thing is like people in themselves this is a theory okay okay people in themselves that are living a an an alternative lifestyle, right? Number one, we call it an alternative lifestyle cuz we know there's like a mainstream, right? So, people that are living that lifestyle internally, right, inside of themselves, they uh know that they're violating something deeply spiritual within them, right? So then they require external validation from everybody in order to validate who they think that they are that they really at the core of who they are know they're not.

9:43 Right? Like if I'm secure in if I'm clear on my identity, it doesn't matter what society does or doesn't recognize about that. Right. Right. If I if I have intrinsic an intrinsic understanding of my own personal value and my own personal sense of worth, I don't need the government or any external system to recognize that. Right. So yeah, and and you see that even in the history of Christianity where uh the first the first basically 300 years after Jesus died, Christianity was illegal, right, throughout the Roman Empire and people were still Christians. It wasn't and and and there wasn't an ability to go advocate for the government for the legalization of Christianity. It was like, well, you know what? This is the road that we're going down. This is the path that we're on, and this is what we're going to do. And so, I always find it fascinating, and this is I'm just trying to explain this theory. I always find it fascinating that people that are in these camps, they want so much external validation.

10:45 Um, and they need so much external validation because they're not even looking for the validation of the government, right? They're looking for the validation. They're ultimately to me they're looking for God's validation and God just doesn't validate that. So that that is interesting though because I think people do that for a lot of stuff. I I think just in general people are not we don't I think identity is like a glass ceiling that people bump into some people I think a lot of people for their entire lives and they never realize it. And that that is like the hallmark is the exter the need for external validation. And that's so many people, man. Like, you know, we we can't sit here and be like, "Well, not us." Like, it it's, you know, I've been there heavily. I've I've had to really work very intentionally uh to to understand what a God identity looks like. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I had to learn as a communicator, man, as a speaker on the on platforms. Um especially when you're speaking like a message or delivering something out of the Bible. Um I used to every time I got off stage, I used to be so insecure and I would look at people around me and I would be like, "Was that okay?" like did I do a good job?

11:48 Yeah. Right. And uh one day I got I read a book by R.T. Kendall . I think it was Holy Fire and he talked about how when you are doing that you don't you don't care whether or not God's pleased with you. You care whether or not people are pleased with you. Mhm. And you know even in my own journey like I had to let that go and go you know what it it doesn't matter. It matters how I come across. I'm not saying I'm going to come across however I want to right. But I can't judge my success as a communicator even based on how a crowd responds. No, for sure. Right. I have to This is an offering. This is a part of my worship to God, right? And it's a part of me being who I am and being who God's created me to be. And it'll resonate with some people and it won't resonate with other people. But that took a long time to get to that point because you so you so want other people to go, "Oh, yeah, that was good."

12:41 And then that makes you go, "Oh, no, it was good." Yeah. I think the need for validation though is also partially a god-given thing because we're meant to be in families. I think the difference is that you're supposed to like get that validation from learning from your family, from your parents, right? That they would speak into you and uh and and like build that part of you. And like you had a dad who from a young age gave you a nickname and told you who you were and what was special about you. And that's that's so rare. Like I mean I've copied that from your dad. I do that for my kids. I tell people all the time they should do that for their kids. Yeah. Because it's like and that eventually, like I heard Dennis Waitley say one time that nothing's more important than than how you see yourself, right? Yeah. And that's exactly right. That those voices eventually determine what you say about yourself, right? So people that are in that world, they they so need the external validation of everything, right? It's really not enough. Like it's not enough that gay marriage is legalized. It's like now everywhere, you know, and that could happen, man. I mean, that that could happen in in the country that we live that now every if you do a marriage ceremony, you have to do weddings for gay people. Like you can't just do weddings for for heterosexual people. That could happen where there's like a government um edict or whatever initiative. It's hate it's hate crime if you say no type thing.

14:07 Yeah. Yeah. And um and we we've seen different cases and stuff play out play out like that. Um but I think seeing the difference like in the gay marriage debate, it's seeing the difference between what the government decides to do and what we as believers decide to do, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, let me let me ask you that, man, because I feel like this is where we've been headed kind of um I don't know whether it was intentionally, but like so you said something about how the Christianity is a is a is a or I'll say a religion of of tolerance is what you say is that you know we're called as Christians to be tolerant. So when you have fundamental principle differences and we've discussed some you know this has kind of turned into how to deal with you know hot button issues. Yeah because I I I've one of the things that I've um always had a problem with is I don't like no one likes to be railed against like oh those Christians man they are all racists and they're all hypocrites. Like if someone said that and you're a Christian you'd be like no I'm not right and you wouldn't like to be labeled. But then on the flip side, we'll have outrage stuff shown to Christians where it's like they'll put up some picture of like uh you know, you're liberal at a protest with like blue hair and a sign that says like you know, whatever something offensive and that's supposed to represent all of like the the liberal side of of the aisle or like all of the LGBTQ community. And I'm like that's absolutely not true. I have people who I've who I've known since they were in diapers that I love dearly that are part of that community and and I kind so like I I'm interested to hear your take because it's like I think we we can't ever lack love and I I think that there's there's you you walk a principled line but but in love and that can look different. What I'm not saying is that you're a doormat, but I'm also not saying that you're going around like beating your your club of judgment uh or like, you know, keeping your AR ready because you just can't any excuse to shoot somebody.

15:53 You're waiting on it. And I'm I'm being very facetious there. But, you know, sometimes I feel like you get uh you know, you get these people who are like, man, I hope we do I hope it does come to that. And it's like, no, you don't. Like, you have no idea. You don't you don't actually want that. Yeah. You know, any anybody that's been to battle, it's like, you know, I heard this great quote. It's like a a true soldier, a true warrior prays for peace but prepares for war. And that's exactly right, man. So, I'm curious, how do you like, you know, I know you're working this out. How do you walk that line of like, I have deep conviction. We are differenced on principle, but yet I can have tolerance. Like, how what does that look like? I mean, I we we talked about that. We talked about the loving your neighbor thing, I think, you know, a few episodes ago. Um, I think I think love is just a really challenging thing. Like the Bible, you know, the Bible says, this is like my thought. I The Bible says that Jesus came in grace and truth, right?

16:47 So, um there's a grace element to how we should approach life and there's a truth element to how we should approach should approach life, right? Um it's by grace. The Bible tells us it's by grace that we're saved, but the truth sets us free. So people, so it's the, you know, it's the goodness of God that leads people to repentance, right? And and and one of the differences, one of the core differences between Christianity and Islam is Islam doesn't doesn't try to convert anybody. They don't evangelize, right? They they they they will they will kind of do things that are evangelistic, but their their focus is not on reaching people and converting them to Muslims. their their focus is getting rid of all the people that are non-believers, right? All the all the apostates. That like that's the goal, right? For us, we can't allow that to transform our approach.

17:41 Our approach is everybody should be saved. Like our approach is that God has given a God has given people a spirit that's within him that's a unique deposit of his glory. Everybody who's on this planet, everybody who will ever be on this planet is created in the image of God. And it's God's I love what Billy Graham says, and I've said this probably a couple times in the podcast, but it's God's job to judge people. It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict them, and it's my job to love them. Right. Yeah. And there are times in society where we have to make judgments. I'm not saying we should never judge, you know, like if someone commits a murder, we have to take them to court and we have to judge them as w with as much justice as we can possibly apply, right? But love is the balance between grace and truth, right? So love is finding this middle ground where you know because like now there there's so much and you know I've been invited in a lot of these rooms personally and I don't go because I just don't agree with it. So, there's this idea that we should just we should just we should just be people of truth and we should just speak the truth and it doesn't matter how anybody feels and everyone's going to be mad at us and the liberals are going to be upset and all the Muslims are going to hate us, right?

19:00 You know, we're just standing for truth and that's com and it's so much of that conversation I'm not saying all of it but so much of that conversation is like completely graceless, right? So, it's it's a it's really like, you know, all of us know people, and I've been I've been this guy. I think you would say, you've probably been this guy, too. That's like, "Hey, man. I'm just telling you the truth. I'm just being real with you." But really, what I'm doing is I'm just being unfiltered and I don't feel like caring about your feelings today. Yeah. I would love to say I've never done that, but I have. Yeah. I've done that a million times in my life where it's like, you know what would you know what's easier for me? What's easier for me is if I just tell you the truth right now because I don't want to deal with your feelings and I don't really care how you feel because it's just the truth and I'm just being I'm just keeping it a 100. I'm just being real and um keep it 100. Look at you, man. You're so straight.

19:51 Keeping it a buck, man. And and that doesn't really I mean there's certain people that that helps, but what I've seen in my own life is the people that that helps are the people that are close to me that know I care about them, right? Like the people that I'm real with and that I'm truthful with and that I'm just straight up with that don't know me, they feel criticized and judged and they don't want to listen to anything that I have to say, right? when I come at them that way. And if the outcome if the outcome that we're supposed to attain is that all all people should be saved, that everyone should have an experience like everyone should have the ability to experience God's grace, his goodness, and his love and his mercy. Well, that's expressed through us, right? And we're the ones we're the ones that are that are the the the goodness of God that gets expressed. I mean that's Jesus saying that you're the light of the world. You're a city on the hill. You're the salt of the earth. Let people see your good deeds so they glorify your father in heaven.

20:53 Yeah. So in the midst of true ideological conflicts related to principles like what's truth and what's a lie? How do we the the the second question is so the first question is what's what's truth and what's a lie? The second question is how do we navigate lies with truth in a graceful way? And that's and that's what love is. So that's a great point. So, how do you and like I think in the I think in the world of Islam like the the or the the person who we know who's doing this the best is Char Khan. You know, I think Sh's doing such an amazing he's a former Muslim. A lot of you probably know who he is, but you can follow him on Instagram. He's kind of a friend of ours. And um the way that he is seeking to uh not not convert Muslims, but the way that he's really seeking to love Muslims because he's a former Muslim. his family's still and um the way that he's seeking to love Muslims is I think striking a great balance and um and it's figuring out you know to me how to do that because if you if you only get grace right then you're never free. So grace saves you, but it doesn't set you free.

22:03 Right. Right. So if you only get grace, then you're never then you're never free. But if you only get truth, then you're never saved, you know? So So if the truth sets you free and grace saves you, you need both of those things in order to really experience the life that God has for you. So, if I really care, you know, if I care about the world that I live in, if I care about society, I'm going to find a way to to strike a balance between grace and truth and love people that are in the world or around me um in that way. So it's drawing clear lines uh of and it's knowing your I I think for all of us right it's knowing our principles clear enough to where we have to draw a line in the sand and if we know our principles clear enough we'll be able to tell the distinction between preferences and we'll be able to navigate preferences in like a really graceful way but I think like what if you know I always think about this like what if in in a uh in a world like the Islamic world, revival just broke out and God started doing amazing things. And there's there's a million stories already of of you know Islams being is Muslims being converted, having experiences with Jesus, having experiences with the Holy Spirit and we're supposed to partner with that, right? Like we're supposed to be in in partnership with God in that. And God loves uh God loves a Muslim as much as he loves you and me. I mean, that's that's the cha that's the challenging thing, man. I mean, God loves Hitler as much as he loves a Jew who died in the Holocaust.

23:42 Yeah. And that's a hard one for people to wrestle with. Yeah. I mean, that's that's the reality of the the great depth of God's love for us. And so, it's not that I And so, what people do, right, is they lean too far into grace and they just give themselves over to darkness, so to speak. Like, they give themselves over ideologically and they turn Christianity into another religion. Right. Right? So they go, "Oh, Christianity is just a religion. Islam's a religion. This is a religion. That's a religion." They turn it into another belief system. And no one's really willing to die for a belief. Right. Right. But the the way of the kingdom, Jesus never referred to his, you know, I guess Muhammad didn't refer to Islam as a religion either, but Jesus referred to his way of living as a kingdom. Yeah. And kingdom is about conviction. And kingdom is like I'm willing to I'm willing to make my stand right here, you know, even if it cost me even if it cost me everything to do this. And all of us have different worlds that we live in and different kind of aspects to those worlds.

24:47 But um you know I think I was reading this book. It's um it's uh it's like there's this guy there's this early church father his name's Hippolytus and uh he wrote I've been reading all these books recently about uh the way the early church was like structured and how the early church functioned. Interesting. And um we should talk about that, man. I'd like to hear that. Yeah. And he wrote he wrote a he wrote a book on here's how to do everything in the church. And this is like what these guys heard from the original apostles, right? Wow. So what's interesting in studying even the way the church the way the church operates is that Jesus so the Old Testament is filled with laws and is very specific. Like if you read Leviticus it's like there's a rule for everything man. You know I I just read Leviticus. You're Yeah, me too. So there's a rule for everything. And then you get to the New Testament and Jesus is like, "Oh, there's just one there's one rule that covers all the rules." And it's this very philosophical rule, the great commandment, right? Even when Jesus was asked really specific questions, he would answer them philosophically, right?

26:01 And he never got into like here's exactly what to do or here's exactly how to do this. And Jesus was always concerned with um not not just like your heart. Jesus was always concerned with um the right belief, the right approach, the right set of convictions because because I think there's this un there's this unique thing that God does whether it's like running the church. So the church is a God idea that he then gave it to humans to try to figure out how to run um or or building a family or existing in society. You have to go, okay, I'm going to allow myself to be led by my convictions, right? And you just got to have the right convictions, though, and figure out in each unique situation and in each unique relationship how to balance grace and truth, you know, like how do like it's a huge question. I don't have an answer, right?

26:56 It's a huge question in a society like America, which is dealing with kind of this unprecedented rise of all the things that we're navigating. Um, how do we walk in grace and truth related to that? Yeah, I mean that's like Well, I think I think Yeah, you you said something interesting ear earlier. Um, and by the way, I looked it up while we were talking on ChatGPT. Apparently, in in Islam, they do have it's called dawah. It's the act of inviting others to accept and understand Islam. So, I I guess they do have more of evangelizing. Um, I don't know enough to know whether it's like deeply practiced now or anything, but like there is parts in uh in the Quran which do say uh that you're supposed to invite others to Islam with wisdom and good instruction. So, I guess they do do some of that. I just don't know enough about it and we're not here to be we're not here to say we're I'm not a Islam scholar. We're not Yeah, exactly. I just wanted to say that because just to kind of so that we're we're making sure we're as best as possible representing things.

27:51 But you, but going back to what you said earlier that that I think really shows us the way that this happens. Um, it's so like once again, praise God for reading through the Bible, man. It's so interesting whenever like a thought that's been blown me away, man. 2700 years into human history is when God gives his personal name to to humanity for the first time. Like, let me introduce myself. Wait, what? Yeah, he's Elohim before that. That's that's a wild thought just in and of itself. Then you you have Moses who's like, "Show me your glory." And what does God respond? He says, "Okay, go to this cliff in the rock tomorrow and I'll show you all my goodness." So, you said we're supposed to bring God glory. And what is it? It's like glory is not like smiting the the you know the sinners. His glory was this that he comes and declares his name. What's the first thing he says? He passes before Exodus 34:6 and he says, "The Lord, the Lord." The first thing he uses to describe himself, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving, wickedness, rebellion, and sin. He's so elaborate in talking about how merciful, how slow to anger he is, how like faithful and gracious and loving is. That's what that's his goodness. And then, but he's also just. Yet, he does not lead the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents, their third and fourth generation. And I just think that's incredible that when you say, "Show me your glory." He says, "Okay, I'll make my goodness pass before you." So, it's like, how do we show the goodness of God to people that we walk with every single day that we disagree with ideologically?

29:20 Because personally, um I' I haven't seen someone ranted and raved into uh true life change. No, I've not seen it. I'm not saying it's never happened, but I I've never seen I've never seen someone walk away. That's why I don't like debates. Right? Like I've never seen someone walk away from a debate and go, "Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm going to go to the other side now." Right. You know, it's like no, people just get further entrenched. They fight each other and they attack each other and then they just get further entrenched in the positions they already had. Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. But I just But I think that that's like you talk about walking grace and truth, man. Like how much how are we being merciful? How are we showing loving kindness and faithfulness to people? How are we showing goodness and at the same time not being pushovers because like we're like to reveal the goodness of God in what we do which means we have to know him and then we have to walk it out and exemplify it in the earth and that is a high calling. But like I've been I've been so convinced of this man lately and just really you talk about convicted. I just see the thread in the Bible that like the whole of our history the only purpose in all the earth is that God would have a people in the earth from from start to finish he's always been working on that. And he's been working on it in a way that like is so revealing of him. Like I said, 2,700 years to reveal his personal name. But he says you'll be a treasured possession. Fast forward to the New Testament. He says, "You're a royal priesthood, a chosen people. Once you were not a people, now you are the people of God." It's this whole thread of God saying, "Hey, I'm going to introduce myself to humanity."

30:44 And that goes from like, "I'm with this guy. I'm with this guy. Okay, now I'm actually going to have a people in the earth who are going to do it for me." And but the thread is still there of of like the whole of history is just God relating to man. Yeah. And like we fit into that. And I think when you realize that, it puts your whole life in such a different perspective of how you do everything. You know, the purpose for your job. Um, you know, so many people want to know what their purpose is. And really, there's only the purpose, which is that God would be known among the earth. How you do that is going to be in so many different ways. You can be an athlete, you can be a scholar, you can be a writer, you can be, you know, a trash man, you can be a janitor. And I people be like, "Oh, whatever." I really mean that. Yeah. Because because it's like, what does God's goodness look like, man? He's detailed. He cares. He's he, you know, he he loves people. He's very precise. Look, look at creation like that, you know, and it says the like I think it's so interesting whenever they um once again, I'm gonna stop because I could just I feel like I'm just I don't want to rant, but like this has just been such a revelation to me. After the spies go in to to spy out the land, they come back and give a bad report. Like, and then they go up and they try and fight anyways and they lose. Like Moses goes back to God and God and he and like he's like, "I'm just going to destroy them." God's like, "I'm going to destroy them. I'll start over with you." God tries to do that like multiple times, which is just a wild thought. And every time Moses stands in the gap.

32:00 And so Moses appeals to God on behalf of what I just read in Exodus 34:6. He says, "Hey, you're the one that's slow to anger. You're the one that's compassionate and gracious." And God says, "Okay, according to to your word, I'll pardon them." And then he says, he says, "But I am the Lord and my glory will be known throughout the whole earth." It's such an odd time to say that because it's like, wait, we were talking about these guys who messed up. Why would you put this in here? Because it's the same thread, man. it it's the same thread that these people were falling short on and so they had to take a lap until they died so that their the the next people could go in because it was all part of the same story. And to me, I just I think that's so encouraging when we look at how do we deal with people because it's like when you realize you're just demonstrating God's goodness to this person, man, I I just feel like that is an elevated thought process. Like you will approach a situation from a completely different point of view. Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's I love what Garrett says, you know, that God's sovereign, but we're responsible.

32:55 Yeah. Um, you know, and I think on a level we're responsible for the whole thing, you know, like we're responsible for kind of like the state of the earth and polit the political structures and all these ideological conflicts, but the way we win that the way we win that war, so to speak, is by how we live every day. Yeah. You know, the problem to me, if you go, well, what's the, you know, where where's all this coming from in our in our country, it's people that don't personally have a deep enough understanding of principles and so they just tolerate things that shouldn't be tolerated by principled people. Like, there's a difference between being a nice person and being a kind person. I'm not ever advocating not being unkind, but being nice doesn't work. Like there there's some you can't be nice to someone who just like murdered a family member, you know? You can't be nice you can't you can't be nice to things that are legitimately evil.

33:54 Like like things like Islam that are legitimately oppressive to people and uh the the the expression, you know, it's one thing to have a belief system. It's another thing to express that belief system in how you live and the expression of Islam in the world is evil and oppressive. It just it just is. Right. And so when you look at the fruit of something, you can't be nice about that. Like I'm not I'm not I'm not saying I'm not saying let's go be unkind and let's just go to war with every Muslim that we see. We've got to be we've got to be straight and honest about what's evil. You know, call evil evil in society. But then at the same time the balance of that is how well I live out my own personal preferences. I mean my own personal principles you know how how much how seriously do I take these things because the thing is you know here's the unfortunate truth and I think it's a fortunate truth and an unfortunate truth depending on um depending on where we fall okay is that reproducing ourselves is inevitable.

35:07 But I I agree with that. But you're not going to reproduce what you believe. You're going to reproduce how you live. Yep. And the problem that we have, you know, like this podcast is not a podcast that's being sent out to the world for just the general for uh just like let's just talk about the state of things and let's talk at a macro level. Like I I I always want to focus on I want to talk about big ideas. I want to have big conversations, but I want to focus on the micro level. And the micro level is is my life. It's your life. It's the life of the person that's listening to this. So the question ultimately in in in all of our lives is how not what we not what do we believe, but how well do we live out what we believe? Because if you look at what's happening in culture, what does happen in culture that's negative all throughout history, it's usually because people just haven't haven't turned their beliefs uh they haven't turned the principles that they claim to believe into a way of living.

36:11 And so we've reproduced um in America, we've reproduced a lot of weakness and a lot and a lack of belief in truth and a lack of uh you know, standing for that because we don't really believe it and we haven't really believed it, you know, and the fix. So the question people ask is right like how do you fix this? Well, how do you fix this? The way you fix this, you know, to me is you get really focused on uh understanding what's a principle and what's a preference in your own life and you take seriously what the principles are that you live by and you actually and you actually live by them. But the second thing is, which is kind of what we're talking about in this in this next part, is um you don't expect people to live by your principles, you know, and you you approach people that don't share your principles in as loving of a way as possible while at the same time not sacrificing those principles because that's what God that's what God does with us. I mean, that's that's what you're talking about.

37:15 That's what God does with us is he's like, "Hey, I'm loving. I'm compassionate." And that's how he introduces himself. But then he's like, "Also, I'm still God. Like I'm not your buddy, right? We're not just here like hanging out. Like I'm a sovereign God and there's an expectation that I have for you and I love you and I want great things for you, but that's up to your decisions. You know, I'm not going to change based on what you think that you need, but I'm going to always love you." Yeah. Yeah. You know, going back to what you said about reproducing, man, I have this great saying that my pastors from when I was a kid said that I've always repeated, and it's you can teach what you know, but you'll produce what you are. Yeah. 100%. And that is 100% accurate for reproduction. Like you said, like we're reproducing ourselves naturally. Yeah. It's just sometimes we don't always like what comes out. And uh that's Well, and if we don't like the soc I mean, we don't like the society that we're living in, right? I mean, and and well, how do we how do we fix that? like we fix ourselves and and let God be sovereign over everything else. But like how seriously I think the lesson to take for me personally from the previous generation is take this stuff seriously man. Like if you claim to believe this stuff, if you claim to be serious about being a person of principle, if uh if you claim to want to live a great life, go live a great life.

38:36 And if you live a great life, you'll be a contributor to building a great world. The pro the problem that we have is a lot of people believe that and they want that but they don't want to you know they don't want to pay the price for it. So then there's no conviction and so everything's a belief and it's like oh well I just believe differently than this person. And it's like well not really like we have a vastly different set of convictions and if and I believe uh you know I believe so strongly in my convictions and my principles that I live by that if you come to a place I I'll try my best to be graceful to you but if you come to a place where we can't share convictions we're going to find ourselves on opposite ends of a battle here you know and and I don't mean like a battle in terms of let's go to like physical war I mean a battle in terms of massive spiritual ual and ideological conflict where we can't agree on this stuff because I'm so serious about how I'm living and I'm so serious about how I've decided to be that I'm not going to allow um your convictions to make me compromise.

39:45 Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com. Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.