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Hello and welcome to Folly's End podcast, a podcast created to plant the word of God

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into your heart, giving you the tools you need to lead a life full of the abundance Jesus

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said he came to give us all. That's John 10 verse 10.

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Hi, I'm Gareth Cox. And I'm Jessie Cox. Thank you for joining us. And today we're on our

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final episode of If God is so Good, then why do you bad things happen? And we're changing the

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format up for this one. And it's an in discussion with my producer and my husband, Gareth Cox.

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Hello. Hi. So we've decided to do an in discussion podcast to really to kind of ask a few questions,

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to get to know a little bit about what the word is actually saying and what it actually means.

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And to really kind of dig into it to get the best out of it because it's pretty heavy some of this

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topic, isn't it? Yeah, who knew? So I started answering it. What I thought was a really simple

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question, you know, if God is so good, then why do bad things happen? And the last episode that we

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talked about was about why Jesus, why do we have him? And actually, I thought it was a really easy

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answer, but it turns out that it's really complicated. Well, I took the subject matter. If God is so

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good, then why do bad things happen? So if God has sent Jesus, then why do bad things still happen?

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Yeah, I love that you brought up that question because I guess where we left off from the last

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time we're saying, you know, Jesus has defeated the enemy, we now can live this abundant life in

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the fullness of what God has done. But yet, a lot of people might still be struggling with some bad

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things that do happen. And how do you battle that as a Christian? And, you know, I... Well,

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because it's really, in a sense, it's really like, you look at the theology and go, okay,

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God made the earth, Satan is bad, God is good, Jesus came, everyone's free, born again, Christians,

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we'll go to church on Sunday, isn't that great? But the reality is, is that people are going to be

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struggling with the subjects in loads of areas. And this is the question that we're asking now,

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isn't it? So if God sent Jesus, why do bad things still happen? What does that look like?

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And I think a part of our Christian life is, there's a lot of questions out there that,

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you know, and myself, including the past, that just cry out, oh, God, why? You know, why? What's

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happening? Help, you know, and lots of us can feel very lost in the middle of the storm. And,

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you know, well, if God came and fixed it all, then why have I still got a storm? And I think the

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first thing to understand is that, you know, we are still in a battle. You know, yes, God has got

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the ultimate victory, but there is still a fight and a war on. And we see that littered throughout

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the New Testament, where he talks about, you know, there is the armor of God that we're to put on,

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you know, and in 1 Peter 5, verse 8 to 9, it says, be alert, be of sober mind, your enemy,

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the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking who he may destroy. Resist him and he

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will flee from you. And, you know, you wouldn't have that, because that's after when Jesus, you know,

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came back from the dead and defeated Satan and went up to heaven. You wouldn't have that if we

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weren't in a battle. We are in a battle because the enemy does go around as a roaring lion,

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seeking who he may destroy, just because the ultimate power has been defeated. You know,

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the enemy is still a presence in this earth, and he wants to cause us trouble.

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So is that kind of, is that the only thing that's against us?

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Well, yeah, sadly, it's not the only thing. I mean, the other part of this is that we are in a

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decaying world. And I think we have to have realistic expectations of that. And when I was

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a lot younger, there was this kind of devil conscious view where everything was the enemy

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having a go at us. Your car breaks down and people are outside rebuking the enemy. But, you know,

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if you've ignored your car engine light for six months, it's just part of natural life.

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Things happen like the washing machine breaks down, and that's just normal. That's just part of life.

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So I think, you know, to answer the first kind of couple of questions, well, yeah, one is we

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have got an enemy in this world. Another one is we do live in a decaying world. And then I think

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the other answer to that is we've got choices that open the door to the enemy.

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What does that look like? Choices? What are we doing? What are my choices?

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And what am I doing wrong that the devil's knocking on my door?

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Yeah. Well, you know, Satan really is a legalist, and he's looking.

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He's not lawyer, is he? Nobody understands the law, right?

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He understands. He knows. He knows the rule book. He's read the rule book. He knows his way in.

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Like a lawyer would understand how to... Well, open your case.

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Open your case. There we go. Yeah. And, you know, we see that Satan knows part of the Bible. He even

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quoted it when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. So Satan's aware of aspects of the Bible.

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And, you know, this is what this 1 Peter 5 verses 8 to 9 says,

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be sober, be vigilant, because he goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour.

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You know, he knows what we do that gives him an opportunity to attack us. And, you know, that's

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the main reason, really, why I live as righteously as I possibly can, not because I'm not okay with

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God, because me and God are fine, but because I don't want to open the door to the enemy.

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I don't want to live a life where he has got access to me.

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So you might say that we need to read the rule book a bit more.

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I think we need to understand what it is. I mean, religion teaches us you have to behave well in

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order for God to be happy with you. You have to behave well in order for God to be at peace with

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you. And that's not the case. You know, God is already at peace with us. You know, right at the

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beginning when the angels come to tell the shepherds in the field that Jesus is born,

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they say peace on earth between God and mankind, essentially is what they say.

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And that's because through Jesus, we now have peace with God. He's not cross with us. It even

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says he's not imputing our sinsters. He's not holding our sins against us because of Jesus.

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Me and God are fine. But the way I conduct myself, my behavior, what I do opens the door to the enemy.

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And there's quite a few things that can do that. You know, hopefully most of us understand that,

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you know, sin can open the door to the enemy. For example, if you, you know, are drunk and you've had

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a lot of alcohol and then you get in the car and you drive the car, you know, it's like you're going

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to have an accident because you're behind a wheel drunk. That opens the door to the enemy.

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But there's also some other kind of more subtle things that if you're not really knowledgeable

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in the Bible, you might be doing without even knowing it. And one of the first verses in that,

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that really struck me is James 3 verse 16 to 17, which says,

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for where there is envy and strife, there is confusion and every evil work, which is huge.

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Do you want to simplify that for us? Yeah. So envy and strife, it's, they're probably phrases

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we don't say very much, but envying, you know, means to want something that somebody else has

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got and strife is just a lot of arguments. And when you get into strife, you can feel it even in

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your home, you know, when everyone's yelling and, you know, people are getting cross and upset and

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I rate. So this is, this is, envy and strife is about arguments between people. It's a confusing

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confusion of every evil work. Yeah. And you know, there's lots of things that you can do that don't

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open the door to everything the enemy's got, but, you know, strife and envy open the door to

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everything the enemy's got. And when I first discovered that verse and really started to

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allow God to talk to me about it, I realized that most of my life was conducted in strife,

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you know, even from getting in the car and being cross with somebody in the way that they're driving,

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you know, to receiving an email and being outraged by it and angry to, you know, even bickering at

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home with you and the kids, you know, that, that's something that we can do that opens

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the door to everything the enemy's got. So that verse actually goes on to say,

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but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle and easy to be

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entreated full of mercy and good fruits. You know, obviously this has given you the answer,

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isn't it? Saying the opposite of envy and strife. It's to live peaceably.

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Is, well, and to have the wisdom, wisdom of God. Yeah. And you know, now, you know, when,

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and I'm human and you live with me, so you know what I'm like. But, you know, now when I can start

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feeling, you know, the kids fighting, arguing, you know, work calling, stress arising, trying to do

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seven things at once. You know, now that's, I always take a deep breath now and go, okay, God,

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help me, give me a wisdom in how to handle this because I don't want to behave in a way that

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opens the door to the enemy by being in strife, by yelling at the kids, shouting at everybody,

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getting frustrated with, you know, the situation I'm in, because that opens the door to everything

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that the enemy's got. And that's, you know, a lot of people are praying for peace in their lives,

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but are just allowing every situation to rock their emotions and they go from naught to 100 in 30

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seconds because they're so used to living in a place of strife and stress. So I've got a question

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for you. What advice is there for avoiding these situations? So we're talking about where, you

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know, where trouble comes from, but how do we avoid these situations? What do we get? Because this is

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clearly, this is heart and head action at this point, isn't it? It's not physical, it can be

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physical, but what we're trying to do something that is from our heart and our mind to avoid these

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situations. So give us a verse maybe that might get me there. That's a great question, Gareth.

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And, you know, if you want a verse, here's where to start. So Hebrews 4 verse 12 says,

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For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,

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piercing even to the division asunder of the soul and the spirit and to the joints and marrow,

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and is a discerner of the thought and the intent of the heart. There is so much there,

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but let me try and break it up a bit. Because it sounds like you're basically saying God's given

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you a weapon. Great. Yes, he absolutely has given you a weapon. And, you know, the thing is about

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any lasting change, and this is where I have so messed up my previous thinking, you know, with

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any lasting change, what the world tells us to do is you have to look at your outward behaviour

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and adjust your outward behaviour accordingly. So if you want to lose weight, you have to just

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sort out the fact that you're stuffing your face with chocolate. If you want to be, you know,

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less shouty with the kids, here's a five-step programme on how to deal with your anger.

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But the real lasting change comes from the intent of your heart. You know, Jesus says,

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it's not what you put in the mouth that defiles a man, but it's what comes out of the mouth that

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defiles a man. And so often, you know, we focus on our outward actions as being the issue. That

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is not your issue. Your issue is it's what is on the inside of your heart is going to come out in

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your actions and is going to come out in the way that you speak. And there's no point in me giving

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you like a 10-part plan on how to deal with, you know, when the enemy comes, because you need to have

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on the inside of you, there has to be an understanding of who you are and who God has made you to be.

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And this word here, you know, in Hebrews 4 verse 12 says that we have got a weapon and it pierces

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between the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow. It's the very inner part of our bodies

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that we need this change and it's the word of God that brings that change. It's the thing that cuts

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on the inside of us that sets us free and changes who we are.

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I mean, you're basically telling me to read my Bible.

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I'm basically telling you to read your Bible. Now, there is a little Hosea passage.

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Yeah, read it.

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Shall we read it to you? Yes, please.

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Yeah.

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Hosea 4 verse 6, maybe.

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That's one.

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Yeah.

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My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

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Yeah. And that is so huge. I feel like I want to put that on like a massive thing in our house because

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so often God has given us the answer of what we need to do, but we don't get it and we don't

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understand. And I think, I don't know how it works in other churches, in other cultures,

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but certainly in England, we kind of sit around waiting for the preacher to spoon feed us and

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to give us all the answers, but we're not in our Bible regularly. So, if you're asking for my number

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one top tip to stop the enemy coming and stealing, killing and destroying in your life, my first

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answer is you have to get into the Word for yourself.

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There are quite a few ways to do that. And I mean, we're not advertising anything here, but

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there are Word of the Day type and apps on your phone and things like that, where you can actually

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just have 15 minutes every day and get into the Word. So, there is possible ways.

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So much easier now. And there are search engines as well. So, if you want to look up a topic,

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you just put into Google, scriptures on sleep, scriptures on raising kids,

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scriptures on marriage, and it just bang, it all goes there.

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So, there are relatively simple ways to get to the Word of God.

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And I tell you what someone said to me that was really freeing is that it doesn't matter how you

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do it, you just get it on the inside of you. So, we're not wanting to plug like anything specific,

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but there are audible books and you can get an audible Bible version where it's just somebody

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speaking out. And if you haven't got time to sit and read, you can just listen to it.

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I had a conversation with someone not that long ago where they said, oh, I'm reading it, but it

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just doesn't make a lot of sense. And I feel like it's kind of washing over me. And I'm not really

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getting out anything out of it. And the Lord gave me a picture at the time that she was talking about

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it of this very, very dry ground. I don't know if you've ever seen it in the desert where there's

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like cracks in the earth. And some of us are like that spiritually with the Word of God.

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And you might be feeling like it's not penetrating, it's not going anywhere,

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it's just rolling off me, but it is going somewhere and it will go in and eventually the ground will

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get soft and you will receive it. So you've got to stick with it. You can't also do it on your own.

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So there are Bible studies, tell groups, you can ask people for help if you don't understand it.

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And, you know, I think that's what is so powerful about husband and wife relationship. You know,

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if you're lucky enough to be married, you can support each other and help each other with that

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and have discussions at home about the Word. Because, I mean, you said, I said to you yesterday,

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the Bible is such a love story, you know, relationship between us and God. And you said,

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oh, it's like a thriller or an action pact. You had so much going on.

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Definitely, it's a thriller. And I would just, my advice is really for people is to get into the

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Word of God for yourself, you know, spend time reading it and ask the Holy Spirit, here's your

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helper, here's your teacher. And one of the things that I think is so important is Jesus says that

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the Holy Spirit will bring back to remembrance all the things that he said. But if you've never

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read the Bible, there's nothing to bring back to your memory. Because you don't know. You've never

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read it. It's not there. It's not there to recall in your memory, is it? Yeah. And get a version

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that you are happy with, you know, I read from the King James because it uses words that I don't

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always understand. I have to Google half of them. I love it though, because it makes it,

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it's so the Greek and the Hebrew language is so much more complex than our English.

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You know, there's, you know, five words for the word love, you know, and amazingly, you know,

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the King James says charity instead of love because it's the word agape. So I love reading

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the King James because it makes me dive into the word deeper, but there's not your thing,

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it's not your thing. Absolutely. So going back to, okay, why do bad things happen? So basically,

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I think it's one, it's the enemy that's coming to fight us. And I just don't know if we've mentioned

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this, but it says in the Bible, resist the devil and he will flee from you. You have to resist the

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devil for yourself. There is no point in praying to God, resist the devil for me, because that's

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not what he told you to do. You have to take your own authority and you have to resist the devil.

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Where's the verse for that? So it's in James four, first seven, and it says therefore,

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submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And so many times, you know,

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I have people come to me and say, can you pray that the devil will get off my back or can you pray

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that God will sort the devil out for me? But that is not what God's word says. Is it not us that has

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to do the work? It's our word, not someone else's word. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I can't

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resist the devil for you and you can't resist the devil for me. You know, we have to do it ourselves.

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And you also don't say God resists the devil. Yeah, because that's also not the word. No,

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God resists the devil for me. Hang on a minute. He's given you the authority. Yeah, you're the

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power. And I think that sometimes when you kind of hear radio silence from God, because you know,

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you're saying, oh, God resist the devil. And God's like, I told you that didn't I tell them? I'm

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sure I told them to do it themselves. And it's almost like radio silence because that's not

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the word. That's not what he's told us to do. And I think there's quite a lot of things that

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we just don't get because we don't understand the word or we haven't read it.

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There's a lot to understand, though. Yeah, Gareth, like, I think I'm going to spend the rest of my

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life in this Bible working out the ways of God because it's not like a one time thing.

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You don't just pick up a manual, read it and you're done once. That's why it's called the

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living word of God because it is living and it moves with us in our journey.

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There's the article called devotional. That's how I was going to I was trying to work out what the

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word was called. But in the Bible, for example, you do 15 minutes of Bible in the morning. Yeah,

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brings up a subject and whatever it happens to be. And the best part about it is the

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you actually you read the word and it might only be a verse therefore a sentence. But then

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you've got paragraphs and paragraphs after it actually explaining what's going on.

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And that really helps to get into it is the meaty part of the word.

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Tell you what the thing for me that really changed me on the inside was reading the Bible in one

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year. So, you know, if you there's loads of plans online, you just type in read the Bible in a year

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and it gives you a list of what days and how much to read. And that for me massively changed things

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because once I started getting into the word, you know, then I got a real hunger for it and I

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was off and I didn't need any apps. I didn't need anything because I got it for myself. But it's a

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good place to start. In my notes here, I've put read your Bible and act on those instructions.

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Yeah, I mean, there's that Bible verse that says don't just be a hero of the word but be a doer of

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the word. And you know, it's easy to hear. It's a whole nother thing to actually do it.

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And you need the Holy Spirit. And this is why I say so many times in this podcast,

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lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways, submit them to God, let Him lead you.

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It's not just, well, you can't do this through willpower. You cannot lead a supernatural life

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leaning on your natural abilities. You have to lean on God.

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I mean, I feel like this is we've wrapped it up quite nicely in a sense because, I mean,

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we've gone on a really big journey of if God is so good, then why the bad things happen. But we've

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revealed that Jesus is our Savior. He's the reason why life is pretty good. But as a consequence,

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we have to power in ourselves now to resist the devil and get close to God in the same breath.

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Well, hopefully, do that first and then resist the devil. I mean, the devil's hot on your heels,

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but with God, with the word, we'd probably be okay. But bad things do still happen,

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and that's okay. And we can pray about that. It's just part of life. I mean,

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we live in a world where Satan hates, hates, hates Christians, and he doesn't want us to

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succeed because ultimately, he probably knows that we've got the power better than sometimes we even

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know we've got the power. And James 4, verse 7, the first part of resist the devil and he will

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flee from you, the first bit is there for submit to God. And in everything that we do, we've got

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to get out of the way and submit ourselves, be a living sacrifice, give our lives over to God,

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and allow ourselves to be changed day by day through being in a relationship with him. And,

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you know, just for a final word to anybody that is going through trouble, and believe me, we've been

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through some serious trouble. You know, we face some really big giants in our lives, some really

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scary stuff. But God is faithful, and he always, always takes care of us, and he always causes

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us to triumph. And this too will pass. So, until we speak again, be kind to yourself and each other.

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You have been listening to the Folly's End podcast. If you'd like to know more information,

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get in touch by folliesentrust.co.uk. Thanks for listening. See you next time.