Walking by Faith

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Well, hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. We’re so glad that you’re with us today. And I say us because I’ve got my wife Kathy along with me. Hello again today. And just to remind you, More Faith, More Life. You want to have more faith and walk by faith because it’s going to produce more life in you. And I don’t know if you know what life is, but just more energy, Holy spirit, feeling energy, more joy.

0:00:24 – (Steve Gray): The outlook is different. And in today’s culture, Kathy, when, I don’t know, maybe it’s getting better, but it’s a pretty beaten down people. There’s a little bit of negative, a little bit of not sure what’s going to happen with the future. So pretty kind of a beaten down culture right now in America, I think. A little bit. You can feel it coming up.

0:00:50 – (Kathy Gray): Thank God.

0:00:51 – (Steve Gray): You can feel it coming up. God looks like he’s being gracious on us. But, but we want to be able to understand that whatever your circumstances, faith is an answer. You know, it’s not just a requirement to walk by faith. It’s an answer to draw life into you that other people can’t have who don’t walk by faith. Because if you don’t walk by faith, you’re probably walking by fear, anxiety, logic only.

0:01:20 – (Steve Gray): Maybe logic only or reason, or what you’ve been taught your whole life is the way to do things. So it’s interesting, when you get during holiday times or certain financial situations, people tend to go back to the way they were raised and they don’t want to. Like you’ve heard people say, you know, I don’t want to be like, I’m not ever going to be like my parents. But you get in financial crisis, you don’t think, oh, I’m going to walk by faith. Which is who? My, my pastor, my church, my Bible. So I said get, go by faith.

0:01:55 – (Steve Gray): Instead you go by fear, anxiety or whatever they did. Go get a loan.

0:02:00 – (Kathy Gray): That’s right. And just keep charging everything and then go get a loan to pay off your credit card.

0:02:06 – (Steve Gray): You had to get a loan and pay off what you borrowed.

0:02:09 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah, it’s, they’re, they’re advertising that a lot nowadays. Oh, oh, poor you. You had to spend all your, all your credit card balances during all these past couple of years and now you owe so much money on your credit card, we’re going to give you some more credit to pay off your credit card.

0:02:28 – (Steve Gray): So it’s. Yeah, the economy is not that easy right now. But, but that’s why we’re saying if you can learn to walk by faith, faith is the answer to your anxiety. It’s the answer to the troubles. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a fight of faith.

0:02:45 – (Kathy Gray): Right, Paul?

0:02:47 – (Steve Gray): What did Paul say? I fought a good fight and I finished the course. But didn’t he say the fight? There’s another scripture fighting with faith. I’m blank for a second on that one.

0:02:58 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I fought the good fight.

0:03:00 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Thank you.

0:03:01 – (Kathy Gray): The good fight. But you have to fight, you know, it’s God’s fight in you and for you. And there’s a lot of fighting going on, you know, people fighting within themselves or fighting God or whatever. But. But that’s not the right fight and that’s not a good fight.

0:03:15 – (Steve Gray): No, we need to fight to walk by faith because it’s the answer to so many problems and it will solve them long term. There may be some short term answers to life’s problems, like go get a second mortgage or something. But walk by faith. Learn the faith principles and we’ll help teach faith here so you can have more life.

0:03:40 – (Kathy Gray): Right. And those, the, the faith is in the word of God. And you know, we’ve known over the years a lot of people who, who were presumptuous and called it faith.

0:03:49 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:03:49 – (Kathy Gray): And they’d say, you know, okay, I’m going to walk by faith. And. But they don’t listen to God or the Holy Spirit and they don’t do any biblical financial principles.

0:03:59 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:03:59 – (Kathy Gray): Then they say, oh, now I got to walk by faith. After they’ve gotten. Because they didn’t walk by faith in the Bible principles, now they’re in a big trouble. And now they’re going to say, but God’s going to get me out. I believe by faith. God, you know, and so that doesn’t bring life.

0:04:17 – (Steve Gray): And the faith walk has nothing, get this, the faith walk has nothing to do with trouble. The faith walk has nothing to do with hardship. The faith walk has nothing to do with poverty or finances, anything like that. The faith walk has to do with a trust relationship. And so what happens is you’re supposed to walk by faith every day. It’s a walk through life, faith and trust and all that in the word of God.

0:04:44 – (Steve Gray): But what most people do is they don’t walk by faith every day. Then when trouble comes or a situation comes or a difficulty comes, then they try to do like zoom faith or something like, I’m going to zoom in on faith today. Don’t we have a zoom app or something where I Can zoom my faith? Cause I need zoom faith today. And then I’m going to turn zoom off and I’m going to stop zooming after I get a little bit of hope in me or a little bit of answer, and then I’m going to go back to just ordinary walk.

0:05:14 – (Steve Gray): But faith is a walk. So anyway, we’re talking about walking by faith to give you more life. And you’ve been studying some things. What’s on your mind today?

0:05:21 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah, well, I’ve been rereading your book that you wrote several months ago, If You Only Knew: A Guide for the Clueless Generation. And it’s just so invaluable to me as I read it over and over in different, you know, God turns on the Holy Spirit light in different ways. And so today I was looking at chapter four, and it’s called the cause of war. And I know you’ve discussed this before, but I’ve got some questions.

0:05:50 – (Kathy Gray): All right. That I’d love to hear from you. Why did you write this?

0:05:52 – (Steve Gray): Is that the name of the chapter? The cause of war.

0:05:54 – (Kathy Gray): The cause of War, Yeah. So very first sentence, I want you to tell me, what in the world does this mean? Because many, many people ask this. Okay, okay. If God is a good God, then why are there wars? Yeah, there you go.

0:06:13 – (Steve Gray): I’ve heard that, and probably you have to for years and years and years. And I can understand it because. Okay, first of all, let’s clear the clutter here. We have this idea that. And this will bother some people. But that’s okay. I’m here to bother you a little bit and help open up your eyes a little bit. Okay? We have this idea that God always gets his way, that God is absolutely controlling everything.

0:06:42 – (Steve Gray): Now, I get it. It’s hard because you think of a sovereign God who’s sovereign over everything, and we want to then think, well, his hand is just controlling and holding and doing. And so, well, if there’s a war, then he must have done it or he could have stopped it. Okay? Now, the reason that makes no sense is it makes no biblical sense at all. But we don’t think in terms of. Oh, that doesn’t make any sense. In the Bible, we just blindly accept God’s in charge of everything.

0:07:14 – (Steve Gray): And so since he’s in charge of everything, if there’s a war, then he’s in charge of it and he caused it, or he could have stopped it. All right? So the only way we need to do is go back to the Bible and back up and try to answer this question so we know in just go to the book of Genesis, chapter three. And 1, 2, 3. And we see that there’s Adam and Eve. Perfect, beautiful garden, everything’s great.

0:07:40 – (Steve Gray): And then Eve gets tricked. And Adam sins and death and destruction, sickness, disease and wars and murder. Wars and murder come into the world, okay, because of their sin, or his sin. Was that God’s will? Did God want them to go sin, Listen to the voice of Satan, get tricked, then get stupid. Right? And we’re going to say, well, God’s in control, so he made Adam sin, or he made Eve be stupid or whatever. Well, that makes no sense.

0:08:21 – (Steve Gray): Absolutely. God wanted to keep the garden. And he said, don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because then you will die. So that was God. Don’t, because I want to stop. I don’t want wars, I don’t want sickness, I don’t want disease, I don’t want you to die. I don’t want sin in the world. Okay, yes. So now we have all those things. But if God’s a good God, why are there wars? Because it had nothing to do with God.

0:08:51 – (Steve Gray): It had to do with Adam. And Eve, broke God’s law, brought death in. And when you bring death in and sin in, you got to bring something in to kill people. And so Cain killed Abel. Wars, kill people, other things, famine, storms, all this trouble. But in the garden, it was going to be perfect. Just follow God’s perfect plan. And the two first humans were walking in the glory of God, the presence of God.

0:09:20 – (Steve Gray): And we can speculate a little bit, but because we know that he said, be fruitful, multiply and go subdue. Go take the earth. A little bit of speculation, because we don’t know, because we never got the real end of the story. But my speculation and guess is God, God’s intention was to keep them in the glory of God, sinless and obviously couldn’t die. They were eternal. And send them out. Because obviously crud was out there. Cause Satan was out there saying stupid things like, don’t trust God. Don’t believe God’s tricking you. That’s what he was saying to Eve.

0:09:57 – (Steve Gray): So I think he was going to send him out of the garden to subdue the earth for himself. And these two were going to do it. And so don’t fall, don’t eat of that tree. Cause then you’ll bring death in. And then we’re done. We’re done. So God didn’t get his way. We go through all this, and so war, all the wars, well, murder, wars, Famine, all that stuff came in because of what a human did, not what God did. But God set that into motion in his will that if you do this, then death and wars and stuff that kill people will come in.

0:10:35 – (Steve Gray): So to stop it now, to say, okay, I’ve made it, I’m God, I’m just going to decide war is going to end and all that he would go against his own word that he said, no, death is going to come in. And so now through history, we have that. Until he sent Jesus and he just did the same thing over. He said, I’ll send my son, but I’ll send him. He’ll have. The government will be on his shoulders, as we’ve been talking about.

0:11:05 – (Steve Gray): And he will be full of the Holy Spirit, he’ll be full of the power of God, and I’ll send him out into the world. And if he does it right, then we will be able to break this cycle. And eventually, then, as the Bible says, as the conquering king Jesus takes over the world, there will be no more wars, no more famine, no more death, no more sickness, no more disease, no more crying, no more tears. That’s where we started.

0:11:36 – (Steve Gray): That’s what God wanted. That’s God’s will. So when a war breaks out, you can, well, God’s a good God. Why are there war? Because he tried to stop it in the first place. Now we have to walk by faith to get out of this mess and walk by the spirit of God to get out of this, just like Jesus did. So Jesus, then he came, did it right. It’s just we’re not used to the time period. Because a lot of people thought when he said, the kingdom of God is here, that all wars are going to cease. Cause the kingdom is here. But he said, no, no, no, no, no. It’s going to start out small and just let it grow. It’s going to grow. It’s going to grow. It’s going to grow and grow and grow till Jesus returns.

0:12:18 – (Steve Gray): And then what happens? God’s will is done. No more war, no more sickness, no more death, no more disease. So the. The reason there’s wars is because of us. And of course we can take it further. You know, they’re probably talking about a world war or something like that, but. But there’s another war going on in America. And that’s in the war. That’s a war in the hearts of the people. Because when we have still have ridiculous, heinous crimes and gangs and stealing and murder and shootings and all this strange stuff going on in our country, out of control Then we realize, well, there’s got to be something going on. Is God making all that happen?

0:13:09 – (Steve Gray): Are there people that think that God’s in control of everything, saying, well, it must be God’s will for them to just go ransack that poor man’s store and steal everything he has. Because that’s just God’s will. Because God’s in. And then I heard it last night on television. I had news on whatever at some channel, and somebody said, well, you know, everything happens for a reason.

0:13:30 – (Kathy Gray): Oh.

0:13:30 – (Steve Gray): And that is people who think that God is holding everything in control so there. Because of that, when it looks weird, strange, or it’s horrible, a hideous, horrible thing happens. Oh, well, it must have been God’s will, because God’s got a reason for this terrible thing to happen. And I have people say that. They say, well, everything happens for a reason. I say, yes, some of it is to ruin you. Some of us to kill you, to destroy you, to ruin you, to hurt you, to maim you, to spiritually diminish you.

0:14:02 – (Steve Gray): You know, everything that’s all out there. And that’s not God.

0:14:06 – (Kathy Gray): That’s not God.

0:14:06 – (Steve Gray): That’s why you have to walk by faith and get into his kingdom and get into the Jesus walk where he’s changing all that. And then he begins to promise us that the kingdom of God will come and. And the wars, the famine, death, all that’ll leave. But in the meantime, there are benefits in the kingdom of God. Now, certain things we can have now. That’s why we pray God for struggling financially. Okay, Use your faith and let’s get some prosperity. God’s a God. There’s scriptures that God will prosper you. God will give you success in everything you do if you walk by faith and follow his plan.

0:14:47 – (Steve Gray): So are we going to get rid of war and we’re going to empty the hospitals? Not till j. Jesus returns. But in the meantime, is there relief? Yes. Because your walk by faith will give you the relief.

0:14:58 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:14:59 – (Steve Gray): That you can’t get without faith. And that’s. That says, this is how I’m going to get you, my people, to survive.

0:15:06 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:15:07 – (Steve Gray): In a world that’s still got bad stuff in it. Still got bad stuff. This is how you survive. Walk by faith and you’ll get eternal life. You’ll get the Savior. You get all that and you’ll know that. That he’s coming back to establish when all that is right.

0:15:22 – (Kathy Gray): Yes. Well, can I go on to another question, another thought? So we’ve already really been talking about the root cause of war. And it’s that sinful man. I mean, God gave us a choice. He gave Adam and Eve a choice in the garden. Yeah. And you know, choose life or choose death. And so I would think wars really happen because people are choosing death and not the life. And so he’s given us, he’s given mankind free will, so he’s not going to control our will.

0:15:59 – (Kathy Gray): So would that be another cause?

0:16:02 – (Steve Gray): Yes. And also then, you know, there’s a book in the Bible called James. Some people believe that, that James is actually the brother of Jesus. We have to say. We have to say half brother because James would have been born by Joseph. Jesus was born by the Holy Spirit. Okay, but anyway, a brother that grew up with Jesus, James. Now there’s others that say, no, it was another James. Okay, but whether that.

0:16:30 – (Steve Gray): The book of James says, here’s why there’s fighting and quarrels and wars and fighting and quarrels among you. He said it’s very simple, okay? Because it’s not God, it’s us. He says it’s because people, somebody wants something that they can’t have, and so they go to war to get it or they go after it or they fight or they have a quarrel or they have an outbreak. So in other words, people want something and then they get frustrated and then they strike out, either by words or violence or attitudes or whatever.

0:17:04 – (Steve Gray): And so now it takes it right back to us again. And so the book of James, the prophet James, writer, said, there’s something inside you warring because you want something and you got to have it and you’re going to hurt people to get it or you’re going to say things you shouldn’t say or whatever to get it. So now there’s not just a war in the world that was created in the Garden of Eden, obviously, wars that, that’s what people, when people say, why are there wars? That’s what they mean. But why are there internal wars? Why is there relationship wars?

0:17:39 – (Steve Gray): Why is there marriage wars? Why is there mom and dad and kid and pastor and church or whatever all the trouble?

0:17:48 – (Kathy Gray): Why?

0:17:49 – (Steve Gray): Because there’s a war inside us. And that’s what we. And that book is trying to say.

0:17:56 – (Kathy Gray): That’s right.

0:17:57 – (Steve Gray): That there’s an answer to changing the world. And there’s an answer. If there was going to be a world war, which some people believe there’s going to be, it’s preventable because God will step in. Okay? So God’s not going to create that war, but God could step in and recreate the hearts of people to where they’re not warring with each other or warring inside. So they’re warring inside. So now I want to. Well, wait a minute.

0:18:28 – (Steve Gray): I have peace now.

0:18:30 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:18:30 – (Steve Gray): I have peace like a river, you know, there’s a river of life flowing. So you know what? I know why I keep hitting my microphone. I should know better than that. I’m a professional getting excited.

0:18:44 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:18:44 – (Steve Gray): But anyway, so. So we can. So the key here is you cannot, Kathy, silence every world war.

0:18:51 – (Kathy Gray): Right?

0:18:52 – (Steve Gray): Right. By yourself. At least by yourself now you could. We could get the spirit of God moving in this country to the point where the spirit of the Lord has changed the hearts of people.

0:19:04 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:19:05 – (Steve Gray): On the other side of the world, the spiritual influence is flowing through the world. Now all of a sudden, people are saying, well, I don’t want to hurt those people. I don’t want to take away from those people. I’m satisfied with what I have. I love God. God loves me. I love you. I’m a blessed man of God. And all of a sudden now what I’ve done is I’ve stopped world war by stopping the war right, right now, I don’t have the power to start a world war, but some people do.

0:19:34 – (Steve Gray): So if they could get the war silenced in them, the big power brokers of the world, then we could, in a way, slow down. We could get people. If they could silence this war inside their heart, right, and peace of God in their hearts, we’d solve the war in the home, in the marriage, at jobs, in churches. But people, are they going to do it or not? So that’s what James says. So now when we get back, what’s the cause of war or trouble or whatever? It goes clear back Garden of Eden, which then spread to humanity, which. Which is now. We’re causing the wars.

0:20:13 – (Kathy Gray): There you go.

0:20:13 – (Steve Gray): People cause wars.

0:20:15 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah. Well, you know, I love how you are a student of history and you’ve studied the previous revivals and moves of God, you know, for as long as they started since the day of Pentecost.

0:20:26 – (Steve Gray): Some of them, yeah.

0:20:28 – (Kathy Gray): And you talk about in this chapter about something that happened in 1857 that was evidence and proof and backing up of what God’s real purpose and his will is. And right here you said, I’m going to just read from the screen from your book. History has shown that spiritual revivals prevent disaster. God’s hand can intervene, and that will be the most vital part of our national security. Hearts being reawakened to God is what will save us.

0:21:08 – (Kathy Gray): So, I mean, we need national security. We need that awakening. And so talk a little bit about what stopped. There was a panic in history and history is being made every day right now. But history was being made back in 1857 in our nation. And what was that?

0:21:26 – (Steve Gray): It’s such a great example because it sort of reflects some of the struggles that people are going through today. They were going through in 1857. But the unique thing about it is, first of all, most people, even those listening go to church, that they really don’t know what. And I don’t blame them because it’s what we need to have happen. But we have not experienced, like sometimes in history where something like what happened in 1857 sweeps over a nation and, and the world. But let’s just talk about our nation because it really swept it that Imagine, Kathy, a mindset, a heartset, just like we said, hearts that are angry or whatever.

0:22:07 – (Steve Gray): A heart set a mindset. Trouble on every side, the economy, banks and all that are not going well. And all. And all that’s going on and this struggle and the stress of life during 1850, well, 56, 57 and going on. And all of a sudden, though, imagine a new attitude of a hunger for God starts sweeping over a nation and people start going like, I don’t know what’s happened to me. I just have. I woke up and I’m thinking about it and I’m thinking like, I’d like to know God and I’m far from God. I need to be closer to the Lord. I need to find Jesus, whatever it is.

0:22:47 – (Steve Gray): That’s what happened in 1857. Okay, so the nation’s in trouble. The train. Trains were the big mode of operation as far as transportation to the west and all that kind of stuff. People were making lots of money off of trains and the railroads and then they start going bad. And then the banks, I think it was the bank of Ohio or something like that, a big bank, it start going bad and the economy start going bad.

0:23:15 – (Steve Gray): And when that happened and the attitudes were going bad, then lifestyles were going bad and people were falling into bad habits and drunkenness and the money and just everything was going bad. And a man got an idea in New York, you know, he got invited to be a church pastor at a church and he didn’t know what to do, like, what do I do here in New York? And he says, well, he gets the idea maybe if people would start praying. So he called a prayer meeting at 12:00 noon for business people, because they all took their lunch at noon down in downtown New York.

0:23:51 – (Steve Gray): And nobody showed up, you know, and he said, we need to start praying what would happen. But as it continued on, that spiritual Holy Spirit began to sweep through New York. And men start coming and praying and praying and praying. And then guess what, though. I mean, it’s one thing to say if we turned on one of the news channels is, look, they’re praying in New York. Okay, great. But I live here in Missouri, you know.

0:24:16 – (Steve Gray): But it starts sweeping across the country, and all of a sudden, a hunger and a presence and a glory, and people start gathering for prayer, particularly businessmen all over the nation. And when they did, a spiritual revival started. And ordinary people who never. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Who never had a desire to know God, talk about God, go to church, none of that. It just hit him. Imagine that. Yes.

0:24:44 – (Steve Gray): And so when it did, they started meeting for prayer all over the country, and they started wanting to make changes, and things got better. Railroads got healed, banks got healed, you know, economy got healed. And it changed the course of our nation because that group of people who were praying came up with the idea, we need a fresh candidate for president. So they picked a guy that maybe nobody else would pick. He hadn’t been a big winner, but they picked Abraham Lincoln.

0:25:16 – (Steve Gray): And they’re going to make Abraham Lincoln a candidate for the President of the United States. And that prayer people had changed so much. They probably never would have picked him because he just didn’t fit. They needed. They needed some ruffian president or something, I don’t know, to straighten out the country, I don’t know. But they picked him and they voted for him and elected him President of the United States, which changed, of course, the course of our nation when the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, get this, though.

0:25:48 – (Steve Gray): This is a tough one, because it’s where we are today. All right? So after he gets all this prayer and revival hits and everything, and he gets elected and all that stuff, the Civil War breaks out. Well, now, technically, from my spiritual thoughts, that shouldn’t have happened. What should have happened is in 1857, revival, breakout, spiritual things begin to happen, everybody. And all of a sudden, the south and the north make amends and they figure it out, and there’s no war that could have happened.

0:26:25 – (Steve Gray): But it didn’t. They didn’t give up some of that. They still wanted something. Just the bickering and the politics and all that. And so the Holy Spirit revival, instead of keeping the war from happening, put the right people in the right place since a war was going to happen. So that we had the right president and the right to free the slaves, to change the world. Abraham Lincoln obviously changed the world. He changed our world.

0:26:55 – (Steve Gray): And. And so, in spite of the war, as bad as it was, soldiers were praying and asking for mercy and trying to get it over with. So it didn’t fit. It doesn’t fit my pattern very well, because I think that’s what I want to see. I want to see a spiritual revival sweep our nation. Like in 1857, when our economy’s not so good, when we have inflation, when some banks are closing, the interest rates are not good. It’s really tough to buy a house, you know, for those young ones or even anybody wanting to buy a house. Well, I’d like just to have it swept by a Holy Spirit revival of the spirit of God.

0:27:33 – (Steve Gray): And then these nations that are thinking about war, whether it be North Korea or China or Russia or whatever, or Iran, that. That Holy Spirit sweeping begins to sweep over the entire world, which it has in the past, Welsh revival or whatever, and all of a sudden, they don’t want to make war anymore. That inner war has settled down through the spirit of God, and it stops a war. So as I said in the book, a world war or a conflict is predictable.

0:28:07 – (Steve Gray): We can see it. It’s predictable because we can see the rising of people wanting. I want. I want to be in control. We want our economy. We don’t want the United States economy in control anymore. We want our economy to take over the world. We want to make ourselves rich. We want to have everything that America has without becoming Americans. That’s what’s happening. And so. But so it’s predictable when you see what people want. If they want something and they don’t have it, it can cause a war or a conflict. Right?

0:28:39 – (Steve Gray): All right. But the goal would be, is that, like the book says, If You Only Knew what brings peace, but it’s hidden from your eyes. So Jesus was trying to keep the Romans from destroying Jerusalem by the people repenting and knowing how to bring peace. How do you do it? Bring the spirit of God in. Bring the spirit of God like in 1857 or the Welsh Revival or any place, and change the hearts. Have my own people repent.

0:29:09 – (Steve Gray): My own people who say they love me start loving me, really loving God. If all the people who said they love God fell in love with him totally, or all the church people just went over the top of their head over heels for God, you know, Jesus, then I think a world war could be. It’s preventable, it’s predictable. But it’s preventable if we can learn what leads to peace. And they did not. And so Jerusalem gets destroyed in A.D. 70 and million people killed. It was just terrible, terrible tragedy.

0:29:42 – (Steve Gray): It was preventable, but it says they were hidden. So they didn’t know what would bring peace. And so what they did instead is they started storing weapons and planning attacks on Rome. Riots and skirmishes and that, thinking God will back them up and we’ll. And the Romans will finally just leave. They’ll had enough of our, you know, kind of like fleas biting at them just constantly, you know, maybe I’m tired of living, let’s leave. But. But they didn’t. Instead, they came and destroyed Jerusalem.

0:30:12 – (Steve Gray): And Judaism has not been the same since. So it was hidden. So I’m trying to open people’s eyes. That’s why we say a guide to the clueless generation. Because when the flood came and Noah knew, he knew how to. He says he built a boat to save his family. Okay, he was not clueless, was he? No, he wasn’t perfect, and his family wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t clueless. He knew what to do with what was coming, and so he built a boat. Well, we want to build a spiritual boat. It’s not an actual boat, a spiritual boat of safety for the people of God and all that.

0:30:53 – (Steve Gray): If all the people had repented, what would have happened with the flood? I don’t think there would have been a. Well, there wouldn’t be any reason to have a flood if the world had repented and turned to God. The flood was to start over. But if everybody turns to God, there’s no reason to start over. Or there was another option is that nobody gets it, but you get it. You got it. And so what’d you do? You looked over, you saw. What is Noah up to?

0:31:21 – (Steve Gray): He says there’s going to be a flood. Cause he’s a preacher of righteousness. And he’s doing what? You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to repent, turn to God, and I’m going to build a boat. Now, do you think God would have stopped that other guy said, no, no, you can’t build a boat. You’re not Noah. No. He’d say, your faith is building this boat, isn’t it? Because you’re believing the word of God. So he, somebody else, they could have built a boat for the neighbor, Noah’s neighbor could have built a boat right next to his boat. They could have both sailed away, built a boat. God wanted to start over with people of Faith and people of loyalty and people of righteousness. He didn’t care how many he did. He had taken them all.

0:32:03 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:32:03 – (Steve Gray): You see what I’m saying? Yeah. So the flood, even in my opinion, in the book, once you’re not clueless, then you know the flood and you realize it and it is preventable.

0:32:13 – (Kathy Gray): Very good, Very good.

0:32:14 – (Steve Gray): It’s predictable because God says floods will come, storms will come. Remember what he said? You know the house that’s built on the sand when the storm comes, that house will collapse when the storm comes. He doesn’t say if a storm comes, when the storm comes. But if you build it on the, on Jesus on the rock, your house will keep standing, right? Yes. So storms are predictable.

0:32:34 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:32:35 – (Steve Gray): But they’re preventable if you build it on the rock of Jesus. So that’s my theory of clueless. Because they didn’t, in my opinion, they didn’t perish just because they were sinful in Noah’s day. They were. But it wasn’t just that they could have repented. Right? And if they had repented, then they could have built a boat too. So the problem is they would have built a boat, but they were clueless that a flood was coming.

0:33:02 – (Steve Gray): I mean, what person in his right mind, if they actually did know a flood was coming, Noah did, wouldn’t have tried to build a raft or something, you know, but they were clueless, clueless. So the problem with our generation today is do we have a lot of sin? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sin’s always been here. God knows how to deal with sin, doesn’t he?

0:33:20 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:33:21 – (Steve Gray): He doesn’t know how to deal with stupidity. That’s clueless. Blank out. How do you teach somebody to build a boat that is clueless when they’re clueless?

0:33:32 – (Kathy Gray): Well, okay, so how can we get them not.

0:33:37 – (Steve Gray): Let’s get some clues. We’ll get out of our mind.

0:33:39 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah, let’s look at today. I was going to ask you, how do we handle this today? Because to me, billions of people are totally clueless. And what can. Is there something that we could do, Christians can do, or what can happen to get the blinders off of people before we can even build an ark?

0:34:03 – (Steve Gray): Well, I said we’re going to get out of talking about Noah. Let’s go back to Noah one more time. What is, what could have gone wrong in Noah’s day, that the whole thing could have gone wrong? It goes back to if Noah had not been faithful and been a righteous preacher, then he wouldn’t have been. He did not heard from God he wouldn’t have built a boat either. And God would have had to do something. I don’t know how God would have done it, but he’d have done something.

0:34:30 – (Steve Gray): So to fall back, it falls back on the preacher actually. Because those people cannot repent. If there’s not a preacher of righteousness saying this is what’s right today, we could change this. We don’t have preachers of righteousness. When I say that, I don’t mean they’re unrighteous, not them personally. But preachers are not preaching what’s right, the right lifestyle. They’re not preaching the level of Christianity or religion that’s in the Bible. The, the level that Paul taught, the level that Jesus taught and the disciples taught, where it’s loyalty, sacrifice to the highest level.

0:35:11 – (Steve Gray): I die, to myself. I get smaller, he gets bigger. All those things, right? Crucified with all those phrases that we throw around. But nobody’s saying we got to do this, we’ve got to get in line, we have to find our place in all this. We can’t be the king of our own life. We can’t have the government on our shoulders and being self ruled people. Okay, so if you do, then what’s going to happen? Then a storm’s going to come or a flood’s going to come and you’ll be clueless because nobody is telling you the way to escape the flood is exactly what you know, Noah would have said.

0:35:50 – (Steve Gray): Do what’s right on what God calls right. The level of religion that God says is right and it’s pure devotion, as Paul said. I’m afraid that just as Eve was deceived, that you’ll get deceived and you’ll not have your pure devotion to God anymore. You’ll lose pure devotion. That kind of preaching will cause people to build their own spiritual boat and we’ll be able to save ourselves and we won’t be clueless because somebody told us.

0:36:21 – (Steve Gray): Now if you’re told and you don’t want to listen now, it falls back on you. But if there’s no one preaching, I.

0:36:29 – (Kathy Gray): Was going to say, where are the preachers of righteousness and not self-centeredness or building your own kingdom or feeling good about yourself or keeping people depending on them. Where are the preachers of this kind of righteousness? And I don’t want to sound negative or like woe is the world and you know, there’s one or two preachers of righteousness. But Steve, there’s some good, where are they?

0:36:56 – (Steve Gray): Of course, but the general mood, the general Mood of religion in America and around the world is self-centered religion. It’s a commercialized Jesus that’s worried about your feelings all the time.

0:37:09 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:37:09 – (Steve Gray): And when you read the Bible, you know it’s dying to self. You can’t die to yourself and be worried about hurt feelings at the same time. And so, so we’re not hearing it now. There’s have to be some out there.

0:37:22 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah, I know there are.

0:37:23 – (Steve Gray): That’s why you and I are here talking in those cameras right now.

0:37:26 – (Kathy Gray): That’s right.

0:37:26 – (Steve Gray): We’re trying to convince people, whether it be pastors, leaders or churchgoers, to say, hey, I have to either find a church or I have to wake up my church to say we’ve got to begin to preach the level of loyalty that is biblical rather than an Americanized commercialized Jesus that’s continually worried about my feelings and how I view myself rather than how I view him.

0:37:51 – (Kathy Gray): I mean that makes us so powerless to. How can we help prevent what possibly could be coming? How can we do that? Because this teaching and this lifestyle just creates powerless, not only clueless Christianity, but powerless.

0:38:10 – (Steve Gray): So this little booklet, If You Only Knew: A Guide for the Clueless Generation, I wrote this little booklet quickly as election was coming on and you know, they were having political meetings. It’s only five chapters now. I want to talk to you today, tomorrow, this, over the days about expanding this to a bigger book because I had to do it so fast. So I’m holding it’s, it’s still free. If you want to download it free, you need you, really you, where else are you hearing this stuff? And I’m not pumping myself up, I’m just saying please get it and hear it.

0:38:37 – (Steve Gray): Get it, give it to your pastor, read it yourself, send it to your politicians, right? Hand it to people of influence, anybody you know that’s influential in your community, whether it be a banker, a politician, maybe a teacher or a pastor, whatever, and just hand it to them and let them do what they want. If they don’t want to pay attention to this, then they’re going to be clueless. If they read this and get it, then we won’t be the clueless generation and we can not only know of what’s possible, but we know what’s preventable in this day and age. So get this, tell your friends about this podcast because I mean look at all kinds of just even the little jewels and a little revelation that popped out today that can help a lot of people. So anyway, be sure and tell your friends, subscribe to it. Get this, it’s still free. If you download the one and get it into somebody’s hands.

0:39:25 – (Steve Gray): Until we get to be the believing, righteous generation. Powerful, full of God, with the spirit of God moving over the face of the deep. How about that, Kathy? Till next time. Bye.