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We’re back with the second part of our discussion about deconstruction. We have even more topics to discuss as to the reason for abandoning the faith after trauma or abuse. This episode seeks to encourage you and be thought provoking at the same time. Join us for an important conversation.
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Transript: Deconstruction Part Two
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful podcast, brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer, songwriter, speaker, and domestic violence advocate, Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. [00:00:26] Now, here is Diana. [00:00:33] [00:00:33] Diana: Welcome back folks to the Wounds of the Faithful podcast, we are continuing our study on deconstruction. Now, I’m not going to review any of it because It’s a lot. It was a lot to go [00:01:00] through. I am going to just jump in to where we left off. Basically, deconstruction is when you’ve gone through trauma or abuse and you decide that you do not want to go to church anymore. [00:01:20] Diana: You don’t want to pray anymore. You don’t want to read your Bible anymore. You don’t want to be around Christians. You don’t want anything to do with God or religion. And so we’ve been talking about that. I need you to listen to the first episode to continue on with this one, because you’ll miss out on a lot of important things that we’ve talked about. [00:01:46] Diana: And we’re going to talk about some more stuff today. So I’m not going to get into any housekeeping for today. We’re just going to jump right into our podcast. [00:02:00] Deconstruction. And then next week we’re going to do reconstruction. How to build back up your faith after how to examine what you believe to reconstruct your faith and your belief system, probably a more healthy belief system than where you came from. So let’s get on with the show. Let’s jump in to our topic today. [00:02:34] Diana: Where were we on my list? Okay, [00:02:37] Diana: so I was listening to Wayne Stiles podcast this previous week. He’s been going through Leviticus, which if you haven’t heard that series, he does an excellent job about explaining Leviticus, which is a very challenging book. [00:02:54] Diana: They get to Leviticus and they give up, or they just, [00:03:00] their eyes just glaze over. Anyway, he was talking about people who abandon their faith because Christianity claims that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Oh, you should be, inclusive of all the other religions. [00:03:23] Diana: Don’t all these paths go to heaven? It depends on your definition of heaven. We already talked about hell, so let’s talk about heaven. What is your definition of heaven? If your definition of heaven is that it’s a place [00:03:41] Diana: it’s a country club up in the sky, that’s gonna affect your perspective. [00:03:51] Diana: If heaven is A place without suffering. Okay, you’re getting closer.[00:04:00] [00:04:00] Diana: If heaven is, the little angels with the harps and, St. Peter with the gates, and your dog and your cat’s there, and all your friends are there. [00:04:16] Diana: I don’t know if my dogs and cats are going to be there. I hope so. Is your idea of heaven Being with Jesus? Being with God? Yeah, that’s more like it. [00:04:34] Diana: Heaven is being in the presence of God and those that are redeemed of the Lord So it’s more like church. Except church without sin being in the presence of God. It’s also about worship. We are going to worship [00:05:00] before the throne [00:05:01] Diana: forever. And this is controversial thing to say, but if you look at Jesus, and you look at the other gods, they don’t have the same attributes, they don’t have the same characteristics. They don’t have salvation by grace. You have to do all these tasks to get to heaven, their version of heaven. You study religion, I have studied many religions as a requirement when I was in school because I would knock on people’s doors and I would talk to them about Jesus. And I had a coworker who was Hindu, and we’d talk about Christianity, and she said, Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus, but I also have all these other gods up here. [00:05:55] Diana: The Hindus, they have a cabinet of [00:06:00] little statues of their gods. At least she did anyway. And she was more than happy to add Jesus to her collection of other gods. No, you need to put away those other gods and worship Jesus alone. She wasn’t willing to do that. And we’ve, we had a relationship, so there were no hard feelings. [00:06:29] Diana: We were having a conversation and sharing and talking. She has to make her own choice. But [00:06:41] Diana: as far as I’m not gonna believe in Christianity because it’s not inclusive. [00:06:47] Diana: We have a conscience. That’s put into our souls. [00:06:54] Diana: We do know right and wrong, and we know that there [00:07:00] is a God. Every culture on this planet has some idea of a deity or a life after this one. There isn’t one culture that doesn’t have this. And you’ll say to me what about the heathen in Africa, or what about someone that’s never heard of Jesus? I really like what Wayne Stiles said about this very thing. [00:07:31] Diana: We have heathen here in the United States. We don’t have to go to Africa or the Amazon. We have people all over the world that that are heathen that don’t believe in the name of Jesus. Or they don’t have access to a church, or they’ve never heard the name Jesus. [00:07:57] Diana: So [00:07:59] Diana: God [00:08:00] holds us responsible for the knowledge that we do know. God gives us certain revelation, and we accept it. Then God gives us more. And you hear different people’s salvation stories, or when they came to know the Lord Jesus, oh, their stories are different. Different methods of coming to Christ, which is fascinating and beautiful, but you also hear of stories that they were given an opportunity and they rejected it. [00:08:39] Diana: We send missionaries all over the world now. We have the technology to fly anywhere in the world. We have radios, we have the internet. [00:08:50] Diana: You may have heard of Elizabeth Elliot and Jim Elliot, who went to the Akka Indians in, I believe it was Ecuador unchurched. [00:09:00] They’ve never seen a church. They never heard the name of Jesus until they came there. [00:09:05] Diana: And I won’t go through their whole story, but even when Jim was martyred, And others, his his other missionary friends were also murdered by the Indians. Their wives came back. Their wives came back to continue their husband’s work. And there is a Christian presence there in that community. I was a missionary for 13 years and people used to tell me that all the time. [00:09:41] Diana: This people group has never heard of Jesus. How about you going and telling that people group about Jesus? Oh, it’s too hard. It’s, the whole list of excuses. Why isn’t your neighbor a Christian? Have you gone over there to talk to them? Develop a [00:10:00] relationship with your neighbor? [00:10:01] Diana: And, God gives us the command to tell others about Jesus. And the reason why somebody hasn’t heard about Jesus is maybe because we haven’t told them. But back to being responsible. It says in scripture that God puts into each of us conscience. God puts into each of us Knowledge that this world is created by God. [00:10:32] Diana: It didn’t just happen Automatically, there is a creator. That is also in Every people group on this planet. The religions have a deity, a creator. [00:10:48] Diana: Now, I don’t know God’s methods or his ways, but I have heard stories of [00:10:55] Diana: people that have believed in the revelation that God [00:11:00] has given to them. And God sends more. They’ll send a missionary. They’ll send a radio. [00:11:08] Diana: They’ll send books. God will send something to give them more information. God knows our hearts. God knows their hearts. You’re responsible for accepting the information, the revelation that God gives you right now. If you’re rejecting it, is God gonna give you more? He doesn’t have to. You reject him, he may not send anymore. [00:11:40] Diana: I accepted Christ pretty much the first time that I’ve heard the gospel, the true gospel. I had a lot of questions, and I demanded answers for them, but I accepted it, because God reached out to me. I’m [00:12:00] grateful. [00:12:00] Diana: But we worry about the heathen in Africa when [00:12:05] Diana: we have people in our own communities that we haven’t reached. Are we responsible for their decisions? No, but, hey, you got an event at your church? Invite them over. Have a coffee with them. Have some dessert with them. Invite them over for dinner. You don’t have to beat them over the head with the Bible. [00:12:27] Diana: It’s just… Hey, is there anything I can do to pray for you? Anything you need prayer about? Can I bring you some meals? Can I babysit your kids? Can I help fix your bicycle? Find something to develop a relationship with somebody. My neighbor down the street, she’s not a believer. [00:12:53] Diana: Here in my community where we’ve got LDS wards a ward [00:13:00] every, probably every mile around us. So she has been inundated with being proselytized and she doesn’t like it. I’m not going to beat her over the head with Bible verses because I don’t want her to be turned off and us to lose our relationship, but I kind of do, a little bit of breadcrumbs. [00:13:27] Diana: Thanks. We talk about some of the topics in the world and what do you think of that? [00:13:34] Diana: And I’m praying that there will be an opportunity that I’ll be able to give her a gospel presentation and that she would accept it. But right now, [00:13:51] Diana: I’m a friend to her. I’m a neighbor. And she is a good friend. Anyway, I’m [00:14:00] getting off kilter. But… Is Jesus the only way? [00:14:05] Diana: I believe that Jesus is the only way. I don’t believe that Christianity as a religious system is the way. The church isn’t the way, it’s Jesus as a person, [00:14:21] Diana: as God. That’s who I believe is the way. And I believe he is the way because of his attributes that he has demonstrated. Love and acceptance and sacrificial love dying for us on the cross, rising from the dead. There isn’t any God out there that rose from the dead. [00:14:49] Diana: All the religions, Buddha and all the leaders of all these religions, you can research, [00:15:00] they don’t rise from the dead. They haven’t. Jesus is the only one that’s risen from the dead. [00:15:06] Diana: And it comes down to you praying, asking God to show himself to you, the real God to show himself to you. He will if you ask him. He will if you’re looking for it Sometimes there’s all these signs around and we’re not paying attention or not looking. Oh God is trying to reach us and tell us something. [00:15:35] Diana: The reason why I’m a Christian and not a LDS or Mormon is because I don’t believe in the God that they Follow. And you say but they’re the same God No, you do a bit of research You will see that the God that the Mormons worship is not the [00:16:00] same God as Orthodox Christianity. Now, I’m not going to get into all that. [00:16:06] Diana: You can do your own research. Same with Jehovah Witness. Are there cults out there? Are there religions? They’re all works based. [00:16:20] Diana: And what are we gonna do with our sin? [00:16:24] Diana: Sin separates us from God. That is a fundamental truth there. God is holy. That means he can’t have sin in his presence. And I’m getting into the doctrinal weeds again, but Jesus is the only one that is offered to take your place. [00:16:52] Diana: You can be in these other religions and you can try your hardest to follow the [00:17:00] rules. But, you’re never going to attain what some of the religions call as enlightenment or nirvana or becoming gods. That is a Mormon belief that you become a god and you populate your own planet. Do I believe in religious freedom? Yes, I do. Jesus did not force himself on anybody. Am I going to share the gospel, the truth as I see? Yes, I’m going to share the gospel when I get the opportunity. Am I going to do it in kindness? [00:17:41] Diana: Yes. Am I going to push it on somebody? No, I’m not going to push my beliefs on somebody. Because God has to show you the way. God has to reach out to you and show you the truth. Some people aren’t ready. [00:18:00] Just like when we’re abuse survivors and we’re hesitant on leaving our abuser. We can’t see another life out there. [00:18:13] Diana: You can’t see past the life that we’re entrenched in. There’s no way out. When you get out of that, you realize, boy, my friends have been trying to tell me to get out of that relationship for how long and my family’s been telling me and I wasn’t listening. It’s because you weren’t ready. And there are people in this world that we’re going to share Jesus with and they’re not ready. [00:18:44] Diana: But, again, you make a relationship with them, [00:18:47] Diana: show them that you care about them as a person, you’re not just, they’re not just a convert, you’re not just trying to get a convert. When I was in New Jersey [00:19:00] planting a church we were knocking on doors, I was part of this soul winning club, and the soul winning club was called the Phoster club. [00:19:13] Diana: And it basically, the women would teach each other how to go knock on doors and tell others about Jesus. [00:19:21] Diana: And we would memorize what we would say when we’d knock on the door. Looking back, I remember a lot of things about that program that It was about getting that convert because we’d have a little spiel to memorize to get ourselves into the door and to get them to say the prayer. [00:19:48] Diana: And looking back, it was like, No one cared if they weren’t sincere about praying a prayer.[00:20:00] [00:20:00] Diana: They just wanted to , to be able to go back to the church and say I led somebody else to Jesus today. Would that person come to church? No. Would that person ever get baptized? No. We would go back and try and, what we call, disciple them. And they wouldn’t answer the door. You know why? [00:20:23] Diana: Because we were going in there, we were probably forcing the gospel on them, not giving them a choice, and they would just, say they were a believer, or say the prayer, just so they could get us to leave. That has happened. Yes, I led, quote unquote, led 50 people to the Lord in one year. [00:20:47] Diana: That was a lot for me. But none of them came back to church, none of them got baptized, which baptizing doesn’t save anybody. Baptism is a show [00:21:00] to the rest of the world that what had happened on the inside, that you believe in Jesus for salvation. So they never came to church to get baptized. [00:21:13] Diana: Because you never saw them again. Were those people really saved? I don’t know. Only God knows their hearts. [00:21:22] Diana: But I’m a lot more wiser now when I try and talk to people. Give them choices. Back off when there’s resistance. It’s not my job to save people. It’s God’s job. [00:21:39] Diana: You have to decide what you believe. And if you’re smart you’re able to tell somebody why you believe the way that you do, able to back it up. I believe that Jesus is the way because he has [00:22:00] demonstrated that to me through experience throughout my life with other people. I believe in my heart that he is the son of God. [00:22:14] Diana: You may disagree with me, and that is your right to, but I tell people, especially when we’re talking about heaven and the idea that everybody should get to go to heaven. That is true if you think it’s a country club. Yeah, everybody should, after they die, go to heaven, the country club. That’s where everybody goes. [00:22:44] Diana: If you believe Christian version of heaven, which is, heaven is the, being in the presence of Jesus, being in the presence of God and everything that is holy. Why would you [00:23:00] want to go to heaven if you don’t believe in Jesus, if you don’t believe in the Christian God, if you don’t like going to church, if you don’t like being around Christians? [00:23:13] Diana: Why would you want to go to heaven? Because that’s what it is. Heaven is not a country club, it is being in the presence of God. If you are not a believer, you would go to the heaven that your particular religion describes. You would not go to Christianity’s heaven. [00:23:41] Diana: I hope that makes sense for you when I say that. I, I got people that don’t want anything to do with me because I’m a Christian. They don’t want anything to do with church. But they want to go to heaven. Or they say, I’m a good person. I’m going to go to heaven.[00:24:00] God said that nobody is a hundred percent good. And that’s what the requirement is to go to heaven without Jesus, is you are a hundred percent good. [00:24:13] Diana: You are a hundred percent obeying all of the commandments of God. Which we already stated, it is impossible to keep all of the commandments, all of the laws. That’s why we need Jesus. [00:24:31] Diana: So being a good person isn’t good enough. We, even if we’re 95% good, we still have that 5% sin that we have to deal with. Every single one of us. [00:24:47] Diana: So at least be honest if [00:24:51] Diana: you’re stating I don’t want anything to do with church or Christians or God on this planet in this life, [00:25:00] but I want to go to heaven when I die. It doesn’t make logical sense. [00:25:06] Diana: And we already talked about hell. If you don’t accept Jesus, then you are separated from God. [00:25:16] Diana: If you don’t believe in any of Christianity’s beliefs, then you can’t expect to go to the Christian’s heaven. So probably beat that to death, but, I felt that it was important. Let me see if there’s anything on my list that I had forgotten. [00:25:43] Diana: Let’s talk about the treatment of women. [00:25:47] Diana: I’m not going to be a Christian anymore. I’m going to leave the church and have nothing to do with God because… The church and the Bible[00:26:00] condone poor treatment of women. [00:26:03] Diana: The church treats women terribly. And that is very true about the church. The churches that I’ve been a part of definitely treat women as a lesser part of creation. And that’s wrong, because if we look at Jesus life, He was very good to women. What did I tell you? To read your Bible, read the Gospels. Pay attention to how He interacts with women. [00:26:42] Diana: He cares for women. He loves them. He gives them things to do. They evangelize for Him. I’m not going to get into the whole doctrine of, [00:27:00] all the doctrines that are connected with this, but yeah, there’s definitely churches that women have no rights. I came from one of those denominations. Women are only good for birthing babies and meeting the sexual needs of their husband. [00:27:22] Diana: That is their existence. And while I certainly believe in marriage, I’m married myself, and I believe in children, if you want those, if you want to raise children, that is a holy thing, marriage and children. But treating a woman like a slave with no options or no choices, not treated as an equal in the marriage is wrong. [00:27:54] Diana: There’s a lot of scriptures that, if you’re not looking [00:28:00] at the context of the community where it takes place, then you’ll get the wrong interpretation, like the one about modesty, [00:28:17] Diana: that the women need to be modest. If you look in the context of that, who is that passage speaking to? It was speaking to the Gentiles. These were not Jews. These were rich. Wealthy women, and they would have these elaborate robes and elaborate hairstyles because see, everybody wore the same thing. [00:28:41] Diana: They wore the robes in biblical times. They didn’t really variate that much, but the women, they would have these elaborate hairstyles and jewelry and stuff . And they needed the servants [00:29:00] to do their hair. It was a show of wealth that you had All this money and you could afford these beautiful clothes And you could afford to have a servant do your hair And you could afford these jewels. [00:29:17] Diana: It was a showing off of wealth it had nothing to do with how much skin was shown or wearing pants or wearing shorts, it was Everybody wore pretty much the same type of outfit With a few variations, but [00:29:34] Diana: I don’t want to go off in the weeds here but the best thing to look for in the Bible is to look at Jesus and how he treated women and Whether you believe that a woman can be a pastor or not, the jury’s still out on that as far as my research. But I do believe that women should be an [00:30:00] equal partner in the marriage. [00:30:02] Diana: They should have leadership positions They can be evangelists. They can have leadership. Positions over men. We already did the study on Debra, please go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t. Debra and Jael. Women have been given spiritual tasks to do, over men even. And so I’ve never heard a sermon on Debra [00:30:41] Diana: in the churches that I was a part of. Never heard it in bible studies, nothing. But there are many women in the bible that, that prophesied and [00:30:55] Diana: evangelized and all [00:31:00] sorts of wonderful things. And there are some churches out there that treat women as equals and they understand That women have a ministry, God gives them a ministry to do. Our church that I go to, it’s wonderful, it’s very empowering, for women. We have our head pastor, Kyle, he’s been on this show twice. [00:31:30] Diana: We haven’t talked about women’s issues, but our church is really good because we have women in leadership, in prominent leadership positions. We have Becky, who’s in charge of our children’s ministry, we have a woman in charge of our teens. We have a woman in charge of our music ministry. Yeah, we have a couple of women in charge of our our women’s [00:32:00] ministries. And they they do a fantastic job. Now, they’re under the pastoral authority of Kyle. He is the head pastor. They have a plurality of leadership. And many churches have that set up where you have a plurality of leadership. [00:32:19] Diana: So everyone submits to one another. Nobody is isolated by themselves. Nobody has all the power. Everybody can use their gifts that God’s given them to serve in the church without [00:32:34] Diana: you know somebody being offended or Things to go wrong. It’s we are a team. We all have our gifts to use in the church. And There are churches out there so don’t leave your faith because of being a part of a church that treats women like garbage and [00:33:00] Like second class citizens with no say in their lives at all. [00:33:07] Diana: There’s a lot more I can say on that on submission of women and stuff. I had a really hard time with submission in my marriage because, like, I was abused. And if you were abused in your marriage, it’s really hard to understand submission in marriage. And going into the weeds here, we have what’s called egalitarian marriages and we have complementarian. [00:33:37] Diana: You might hear that a lot. Egalitarian is that you’re both equals in the marriage and You both make the decisions together. That is the kind of marriage that I have with Brian. I don’t tell him what to do and he definitely doesn’t tell me what to do. We care and we [00:34:00] love each other. We respect one another. [00:34:03] Diana: And that’s a healthy marriage. Leadership is not telling people what to do. It’s inspiring people to do their greatest, their best, using their gifts. A leader is a servant. If you’re a head of a household, you are a servant. So if you believe in complementarianism, which is [00:34:31] Diana: the husband is the head of the home and the wife submits to the husband and the children submit to the husband and the husband submits to God. [00:34:42] Diana: I believe that to a certain extent, but a woman has A direct line to God. She does not have to go through her husband. She is a believer. She has [00:35:00] access to God directly. I want to make sure that you know that. Cause I hear that a lot. It is on Twitter. And it’s disgusting. [00:35:10] Diana: A woman can find the will of God and for her own life by seeking God directly. I don’t have a problem with complementarianism as long as the husband is serving his family and not telling them what to do. I have no problem with complementarianism if the wife is included in all of the decisions. I don’t have trouble with complementarianism if it is a loving and respectful environment. [00:35:47] Diana: I’m not fighting that at all. Most marriages are very toxic with the husband being authoritative and making decisions. [00:35:57] Diana: That affect the [00:36:00] family without getting together with the family and talking about it. That’s wrong. Your children, what you do to affect your children’s lives, like moving to another state. [00:36:13] Diana: I know a pastor that I served under, this was years ago used to, at the drop of a hat, he would pack up his stuff and he would say, God’s calling me to such and such a place. And the wife had no say in it. The children had no say in it whatsoever. And they would pack up their stuff and they would go to this other place that supposedly God told him to go to. [00:36:42] Diana: And this would happen many times or the husband would go and buy a car and he didn’t ask his wife what kind of car would you like? What color do you prefer or do you want heated seats or whatever? He would just go out and buy a car and [00:37:00] bring it home and, oh. [00:37:01] Diana: I bought a car with our money, dear. [00:37:06] Diana: And my ex husband did the same thing to me, although it was not a luxurious car. It was a clunker. [00:37:13] Diana: It was a clunker. You couldn’t lock the car from the inside. And it’s one of those with the seatbelt that goes across, almost choking you, hanging you. And there was like wires in the back of the car. Of the seat. And my ex called me up and said, Oh, I’m gonna buy this car. [00:37:39] Diana: It’s a good deal. It’s only 500 bucks. Or, I forget how much it was. And it looks like it drives really good. And I said, I don’t like a stick shift. He said I’m gonna buy it anyway. Because it’s a good car. It’s a good deal. And he brought it home, even though I told him I didn’t want to drive it.[00:38:00] [00:38:00] Diana: Meanwhile, he bought a brand new car, and that’s what he got to drive, was the Passat. [00:38:09] Diana: fortunately, the car blew up, engine blew up or something, and maybe that was God rescuing me from this terrible car that it was miserable to drive. And I said I’m going to drive the new car to work and that was it. Anyway, probably talked too much about that, but [00:38:35] Diana: what else is on this list? I’m going to touch very quickly because I don’t want to go too far on this. Let’s see, genocide. A lot of people use genocide in the Bible as, Reasons for not believing in God anymore or not wanting to follow him anymore. And we have gone through some of those studies here [00:39:00] on the podcast. [00:39:01] Diana: Some of which I have explained some of them as best as I could. Genocide, a lot of it was war. War is horrible. We have wars now. Every society on our planet has had war. And you want to avoid, or if at all possible, because… Horrible things happen. Sometimes you have to go to war to fight for your freedoms. So the United States of course, independence from Great Britain at the time. [00:39:41] Diana: Many people died. Many horrible things were done in the name of war and trying to separate from a country we no longer wanted to be ruled over. The Bible the biggest thing that God didn’t tolerate was idolatry. [00:40:00] The, [00:40:01] Diana: Canaanites, those were the people that lived in the land where Israel was supposed to go. They inherited the land. God gave them, and there were people in that land. Now, these people did not want to live with the Israelites. [00:40:23] Diana: They did not want to live with the Israelites in peace. They had their own gods and their religious practices were evil, sacrificing their children to the god Moloch. We’ve talked about this before. They would [00:40:42] Diana: Build altars to all of these gods and there were other practices that they had that I won’t get into because I’ve gone through those in other podcasts, but one of them was cult [00:41:00] prostitution was a big deal. You were a temple prostitute in the pagan temples fertility rites before the false gods. So God doesn’t tolerate idolatry. He didn’t tolerate Israel wanting to intermarry with these folks because they would adopt these customs of the surrounding nations. [00:41:32] Diana: And so God would tell the Israelites to drive these people out of Canaan, out of the land of Israel. And sometimes they wouldn’t drive them out, they would make them slaves, or they would do things like I feel sorry for them, so we’ll let them stay, we’ll just let a few of them stay, and[00:42:00] what happens is they wind up intermarrying with the other cultures, they would adopt these pagan practices, and they would not worship the one true God. [00:42:15] Diana: And it’s one sin that God doesn’t tolerate. And he has a right to, as a creator, he has the right to expect his creation to worship him, and only him. And a lot of times they would go to war with the neighboring nations, guy would tell them to drive them out, sometimes they were successful, but a lot of blood is shed on both sides. And you would probably say, genocide is wrong. I believe that’s wrong, the Israelites did not obey [00:43:00] God, did not remove the people from the area, but instead intermarried. Why would God tell his people to drive out these other nations? I hope you guys know your history, we went to war with Germany. World War II, actually, with the Nazis, the Axis powers. [00:43:33] Diana: Italy, and Germany, and Japan, who were our enemies, and if you know anything about history, [00:43:44] Diana: The Nazis exterminated many people. [00:43:49] Diana: The Jews homosexuals and gypsies, And handicapped or disabled people, didn’t deserve to live. [00:44:00] And they would either put them in concentration camps where they would work until they died or [00:44:07] Diana: concentration camps used gassing and they were put into ovens. [00:44:18] Diana: They nearly exterminated a whole race of people. [00:44:25] Diana: And, Mussolini was evil, Hitler was evil. So if they would’ve occupied the United States, [00:44:35] Diana: We weren’t at war with the people themselves, the Germans, the Japanese, or the Italians. We were at war with The evil system, but if they would have occupied the United States, like they occupied the other countries, we wouldn’t tolerate that. Would we would not want the Nazis to come in and infiltrate our society where[00:45:00] they would start executing people. [00:45:04] Diana: We would drive them out. We’d drive them out just like the other countries had to do. They had to drive out. The, I guess the [00:45:15] Diana: story about the Nazis, one of my favorite movies is Enemy at the Gates and it shows the Russian side of the war. Believe it or not, Russia was our ally in World War II. But Stalin would make their women and young children even fight. [00:45:40] Diana: Yeah, it shows the horrible things that you have to do when you’re at war, but they had to, [00:45:48] Diana: they had to fight and get rid of the Nazis. So it’s kind of a similar thing with, [00:45:59] Diana: [00:46:00] with Israel, that they had to drive out and had to fight the inhabitants in the land because They were evil, their leaders were evil. Were there people of foreign nations that converted to believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Yes, there were. Of course, we already talked about Rahab, and most scholars believe that she converted to be a believer. [00:46:35] Diana: If you remember Ruth in Boaz, Ruth was a Moabite. She was not an Israelite. She, if you look into the history of the Moabites. They were not believers in the one true God. And when her husband died, and her sister in law’s husband died, they were going back with their mother in [00:47:00] law, who also lost her husband, and they were coming back to Bethlehem to see if they could. [00:47:10] Diana: Find a new home, so they don’t starve to death. So they moved to Bethlehem, and Ruth is the one that became a believer, and she is in the lineage of Jesus and so is Rahab. She’s in the lineage of Jesus as well. So you can’t say that God’s against all of the people that are in other nations, so you God isn’t against other nations, but God wants them to believe in him as creator God. Genocide is not a good thing. There’s plenty of genocide going on right now in [00:48:00] our world. There’s plenty of genocide in our history. Some horrible things that human beings have done to one another. That is not a reason to stop believing in God. There’s not a reason to abandon your faith, because this world is, because of the fall of creation and sin in the world, that’s what comes with it. [00:48:26] Diana: Even my ancestors, the Cherokee, have been almost exterminated, by the colonists. [00:48:34] Diana: But one last thing that I will probably say is. Against nationalism. We have a lot of nationalism going on in Christian circles. [00:48:48] Diana: Not going to get political here, but the idea that the United States is a continuation of [00:49:00] Israel and we have to force everybody to be Christians. And that the United States is the only country that God is blessing. [00:49:12] Diana: There’s a lot of arrogance going on that, [00:49:16] Diana: hey, God bless the United States, and this is a Christian nation, and we’re supposed to force everybody to believe. I think Jesus changed all that, that we’re supposed to evangelize the Gentiles. Jesus reached the Israelites, his own people, in the beginning, when he came to this earth. The Jews had first go. They got first right of receiving that salvation. Because they were descendants of Abraham. But when the Jewish people rejected [00:50:00] salvation in Jesus, They did not believe he was the Messiah, then Jesus opened it up for the Gentiles. [00:50:08] Diana: Hey, if you’re not going to accept, I’m going to open up the salvation to the opportunities to the Gentiles also. And that’s what would happen. Many Gentiles believed as you can see in the gospels in the Pauline epistles. I am a Gentile. My husband’s a Gentile, so I’m very grateful that I did not have to be a Jew to be saved. [00:50:39] Diana: But [00:50:40] Diana: anyway, nationalism. But, God told us to evangelize the whole world. And whoever believes in him shall be saved. And whatever country [00:50:55] Diana: seeks his face is blessed. There are [00:51:00] Christians in other countries that you will meet that will blow you away. And those that are listening that are from other countries that are not in the United States, you’re probably laughing. It’s like, yeah. Yeah we’re the real deal. We’re Christians. We love Jesus. [00:51:17] Diana: We’re not in the United States and God’s blessing us. And it’s arrogant to think that the United States is Israel. We’re… The United States is not Israel, and we don’t have the promises of Israel. The commands that were given to Israel are not for the United States. And fun fact here, the United States is not mentioned in biblical end time prophecy. [00:51:48] Diana: And there were people that distort those views. They distort Bible verses to make it say that the United States is,[00:52:00] in the end times and they’re going to be the one on top. Nope. The Middle East is where it’s going to be. Middle East it’s where it’s at. But we should not be arrogant in thinking that other countries the Christians there are not going to be blessed too. [00:52:20] Diana: Cause that’s the going scenario. If you listen to YouTube or Twitter. [00:52:30] Diana: I am definitely patriotic. I’m proud of my country. This is where I was born. But other people that want to be part of our country that are seeking to be successful and to raise their families in peace and. Originally we came here for religious freedom. [00:52:54] Diana: And our founding fathers based [00:53:00] our constitution on religious freedom. So it’s really wrong to say the only religious freedom we can have is Christianity. Although I believe Christianity to be true, we each have conscience before God to make our own choice. God doesn’t force himself on us. Jesus didn’t force himself on people to believe. And so you can’t yell at the ones that are here that want to have religious freedom. I don’t know if you’re here causing trouble or being a criminal or blowing stuff up or… [00:53:45] Diana: Doing terrible things. Yeah, I don’t think you should be a part of this country. You coming here to raise your family, [00:53:55] Diana: be part of our society. Yeah, you’re [00:54:00] welcome. I’m a very proud of being an American, but I have to curb that. When I’m around other people and especially when I go traveling to other countries, we’ve done some traveling, not a whole lot, but I have to be careful in comparing everything to the United States because other countries have their wonderful things about their culture. [00:54:29] Diana: Although those things may be different than ours, we need to respect those. Although I’m very proud of my country and glad to be an American, I know it’s not a perfect country and there’s a lot that we need to answer for and be accountable for and apologize for and things we need to stop. [00:54:52] Diana: But I know people that they’re, talking about Trump and there’s this fight between [00:55:00] Trump and the Biden crowd or the Republicans against the Democrats and, just stop. Both parties are terrible. Both parties are sinful. Both parties have their their flaws, their sins, and both parties have evil people in their midst. [00:55:24] Diana: I’m not going to get too much into that because I don’t do pol I don’t do politics on this show. I don’t let my guests do politics on this show, but [00:55:38] Diana: we should not abandon our faith or refuse to have anything to do with one another on whatever side we’re on because of certain beliefs. Try and be understanding on the other person’s viewpoint. For [00:56:00] example, the abortion issue is huge right now, and I consider myself pro life. Recently I have been looking at the other side, not that I wouldn’t be pro life, but I recognize that there are people that have no choices, [00:56:24] Diana: especially in the abuse advocacy that I’m in. And I see the stories. I see the realities that these women that have gone through such atrocities and they had very few resources or options and they chose to get an abortion. Some people choose to get an abortion because they don’t have any support. [00:56:53] Diana: I believe that we as believers should support those that get [00:57:00] pregnant out of wedlock. Unplanned pregnancies, or rape, or incest, they should be supported. That is a huge problem, and I acknowledge that. So I feel that both sides have much to learn about one another. Should we be using abortion as birth control? [00:57:24] Diana: No, but there are certain situations that there, there’s some really terrible choices. There’s some situations and some of my guests, you have heard there were no choices. And you know what, God forgives those that have to make those terrible choices. They don’t want to do this. They’re not trying to be rebellious against God, but they don’t see any other way. [00:58:00] There has to be grace for that, and sometimes the Christian severe right winged group does not acknowledge that. [00:58:11] Diana: Life is not neat and tidy and cut and dry. It’s very messy and horrible sometimes. That’s all I’m going to say about politics, is be kind and nice to one another. The [00:58:31] Diana: whatever’s going on in this world our job as Christians is to love one another, love our enemies, love our families, serve the Lord, serve one another. That is always God’s will for us, regardless of what’s happening around us, regardless Of what’s going on in our life. I hope you remember that. I [00:58:58] Diana: am going to [00:59:00] close here soon. I did want to say that, Yes, we mentioned the church sucks. I don’t want to go back to church. I acknowledge reading the New Testament that the modern day church looks nothing like the church in the Bible. Study that for yourself. What did the church look like? [00:59:26] Diana: But there, again, there are churches out there that are wonderful, who will accept you as you are, who will help you heal from this trauma that you’ve gone through. Are they perfect? No, my church is not perfect. We’re, again, dealing with, we are all sinners, we’re all human beings. We can choose to love one another or we can choose not to. Hopefully You will be brave and get out [01:00:00] there and look for a church that, it might take some time but get out there and look for a church that is is accepting I think the only other thing on my list here was [01:00:16] Diana: Evolution versus creationism, I’m just going to say very briefly. I was raised Catholic and we were taught creationism going to Catholic school. Then I went to public school and I was taught evolution from the fourth grade until I graduated high school. And then when I went to Bible college. All they taught was creationism. [01:00:49] Diana: And there was a time when I would have defended creationism to the death. [01:00:56] Diana: Again, by getting out of my bubble [01:01:00] and realizing that acknowledging that there are sometimes variation within belief systems, evolution is a belief system. Creationism is a belief system. You know why? Because none of us were there. We just take the evidence that’s given to us and we create a belief system out of that. [01:01:27] Diana: Sometimes evolutionism and creationism are mixed together. And so when I was going through high school, I definitely, believed in evolution, the big bang and the Darwinism and Lucy, the missing link and the australopithecines Afrinus [01:02:00] africanus. Yes, I’m very well versed in that. I had anthropology and, [01:02:09] Diana: Science. We had science classes. Looking back, I understand now that there were Christians that believed in a mix of the two. I had a science teacher in high school and she was a Christian. She was in charge of our Christian after school group. Yes Back in those days, you could have Christian afterschool groups by doing that now. [01:02:39] Diana: And I asked her because she said that she believes in evolution, but she’s also a Christian. So she opened up the scriptures. And of course she goes through the beginning verses of Genesis and she said, I believe that God started all of this,[01:03:00] [01:03:00] Diana: that he made the changes along the way. And I know that’s very simplified, but. We’re learning more about science, and I don’t want to discredit science and real science, not the belief system of evolution, but actual science. Oh, but there are some legitimate things about creationism that I hold to. I do believe in a young Earth. [01:03:30] Diana: I do believe that God created this Earth. I do believe in six day literal creation. I have for a long time. Do I argue with people on that? No. Because other Christians have been able to defend their position with scripture for evolution. [01:04:00] I’m not gonna die on that hill and you shouldn’t either. [01:04:03] Diana: You should not let creationism and evolutionism the theories stop you from believing in a God. [01:04:14] Diana: What I have pretty much told people that ask me, I don’t have a problem with you believing in evolution, but as long as you believe that God started the Big Bang, or God is the one that did the natural selection and there’s a lot of holes in that argument, I know that. But I’m not gonna argue with people about it because no one is going to go to hell or be separated from the Lord because they didn’t believe in creationism. [01:04:50] Diana: That’s, there’s a lot we don’t know about this world and we’re probably going to find out a lot more later. [01:05:00] But I tell folks, the important part is that you believe that God is involved in this process. Yes, we’re in a fallen world and maybe that’s part of it too. This world is groaning and… Travailing in the curse of sin in this world. [01:05:21] Diana: Is sin a part of that? Is the is God a part of this? But I definitely believe that we there are different kinds of evolution, but macro evolution is that we came from, nothing. I don’t believe we came from nothing. God created us. [01:05:48] Diana: I believe there was a flood, because every culture in this world has a story of the flood. [01:05:57] Diana: We’re not gonna get into the weeds on that, [01:06:00] I am looking at other scientific things. But, all in all, it’s, God is in this process. God has control over what happens to this world. He has a plan and purpose for the people of this world, for you and me. [01:06:18] Diana: But anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about that is in your deconstruction. Don’t throw God out. The next episode, we’re going to .Talk about reconstruction as a more in detail I already defined it. We’re going to talk about that next time. [01:06:39] Diana: So this episode has been helpful to you, please. Share it with [01:06:45] Diana: somebody that you care about, somebody that needs to hear this information, that needs this encouragement, that God still loves them and cares for them regardless, and has a plan for their life, [01:07:00] and all hope is not lost. There is… Hope in the real Jesus the real God. [01:07:08] Diana: And so I’m going to end today And we will see you next week. [01:07:15] Diana: God bless you. Thanks for listening. Bye for now [01:07:20] Diana: Thank you for listening to the Wounds of the Faithful podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. You can connect with us at DSW Ministries. org where you’ll find our blog along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week! [01:07:48]