Episode 52

This is the 52nd episode of the Removing Barriers Podcast! It is special, because every week for the past year, we have explored ways to remove barriers that may be impeding people from being able to see the cross clearly. We’ve tackled barriers both old and new, and in this episode, we reflect on what it has all meant in the grand scheme of things. We also discuss our plans for the future and reflect back on the very first episode of the podcast: Why Remove Barriers? Join us on this first anniversary of the Removing Barriers podcast!

Thank you for tuning into the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m J and M mcg, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the Cross. This is the first episode. This is episode number two. This is episode number three. This is episode four. This is episode number five. This is episode number six. Number 7, number eight. Number 9. Number 10, 2,030 40. Safety. This is episode 51. This is episode 62 of the Removing Barriers podcast. And in this episode, we are celebrating one year of removing barriers, and we’re visiting why removing barriers from episode one.

So Let’s look back. How has the podcast done over the last 51 episodes? Well, there’s two ways to measure how the podcast is done. We can compare it to the major podcast names on the major platforms that are out there, and we can compare ourselves to them. We can compare what the podcast has done with what we originally set out for it to do. There are many ways to gauge success, and I have to be honest that in my flesh, I want to compare the podcast to all these big name podcast that you will find on any of the major platforms out there. But the truth is that when you consider the numbers that we can talk about, that we’ve done, the geographic locations that we’ve reached, the number of people that we’ve reached, all of those countries and all of those people are countries and people that we would not have reached had we not started this podcast, the message of Christ and His salvation, addressing the issues of our day with the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures, not as revealed by some TV preacher on tbn, but as the scriptures reveal the world to be according to the creator, God Himself. That’s really precious. That’s something phenomenal. If something God has done that I’m really grateful for.

We reach countries on this list here, the netherlands, romania, Sri lanka, hungary, qatar, many people would hit Cotter sweet and brazil, ukraine, india, the United states, of course, singapore, france, ireland, australia, cambodia, russia, italy, germany, the United kingdom, New zealand, canada, all of these countries are countries that would not have been reached with this message of removing barriers had we not started this podcast. And I’m grateful to God for that. And I think that when we measure it in terms of what God has done, even if it reaches one person in the world, that’s glory be to god, that’s one person more that has heard the gospel of Jesus christ, that perhaps would not have heard it otherwise, although I won’t be so pompous to us to say that the Lord would not have brought the gospel to Him in some other way. But I’m thankful that the Lord has used the podcast to reach so many different countries and so many different people, at least as far as we can tell on the metrics here, and the ones that still,

to me, are the ones that I don’t know anyone personally in those countries. Right. Germany. I don’t know anyone personally in germany, italy, I don’t know anyone personally there in Italy or Russia. I don’t know anyone personally in Australia or Ireland or France or Singapore. So these are folks that probably heard of the podcast somehow, maybe found it through Google or YouTube or whatever, and they gave it a listen. Now, we don’t know exactly numbers on how many in the country of listen or, you know, was it a one time thing or is it an ongoing thing? We don’t know, but at least someone in some of these countries that I don’t know anyone personally there, but they listen to us. Most of our listeners are from the us, and that’s understandable we market mostly in the Us in terms of our online reach or whatever the case may be. So we expect that.

But yeah, I would definitely agree with you that a lot of these countries, the the people that are hearing the podcast and hopefully here in the gospel and by the Grace of god, we don’t know, but by the Grace of god, hopefully make a decision for Christ. This is just the podcast, but our blog I know we have seen countries, people that read our blog from Iraq and Iran and places like that. Those countries don’t pop up on the podcast as listening, but some of them pop up as reading the blog. And of course, we can be sure of any of these countries, because people use VPN all over the world, so people can be set in their geographical location anyway. They feel. But I believe some still represents a person who has heard. Right. And I do believe some of them are true. Do we have listeners to italy? Probably. But could it be someone using a vpn? Yeah, it could be that, but it’s definitely represent a human being behind of it. And hopefully not a but and who knows how the Lord will use that in that person’s life? We don’t know how the Lord is working in their life or in their lives, and we don’t know what the Lord is trying to bring about in that situation, and all we can do is trust Him for it. He promises that His Word will not return to Him void. So whatever small role we had to play and putting His word out there, God will take that. I mean, we’ve seen it so many times where God has used us, whether we’re witnessing or quoting Scripture to someone, and we’re so inadequate. We’re so illequipped and ill equipped is a good word, ill equipped to present the word in any kind of fanciful or beautiful fashion. And yet God takes it and works on someone’s life with it. And if you are listening to this podcast and you feel that you can’t talk to someone about the Lord because you’re not eloquent or because you don’t know this or you don’t know that. I would encourage you not to put the Lord on a leash as though he can’t work through you. Remember when Moses was tasked to go and talk to pharaoh? He had every excuse in the book, lord, I’m not eloquent Lord. I got a speech problem, and the Lord used him mightily obviously, we have that history recorded in Scripture. So if you know that God has called you to remove barriers in someone else’s life, talk to them about the gospel or talk to them about what’s going on in the country or in the world. And if you’ve been disobeying the lord, or if you feel like you’re just hesitant because you don’t feel like you’ve got what it takes, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got, it’s what God can do through you. And he’s mighty to do whatever he wants his word to accomplish, and he promises that it won’t return to him. Void. Yeah, definitely.

So what are some of the listening platform that people listening? According to the stats we’re looking at here are listening on Apple podcast. We have about listening and anchor, and that’s our distribution platform actually is anchor. So we have about listening there Spotify. We have about listening and Spotify. There’s another three of people listening to the web browser, and the overwhelming majority with 68% is listed as other, which could be other platforms or other apps, so to speak. But we don’t know exactly where that big is listening, but they’re listening somehow outside of Apple podcast, anchor, spotify, and just purely the web browser. So that’s interesting.

And I also like to look at the devices that people listening on in terms of devices the iphone is, the web is, Android devices are and other devices that people are listening on. So people listening, it seem like overwhelmingly the other category is big. And I imagine some of these folks that are listening in places like Sri Lanka and all these places might be where the other comes in, where those folks are listening. I’m not quite sure. I imagine that we have a good amount of people and listening on Apple enjoyed Elizabeth Small to me. I’m surprised, because Enjoy actually has a bigger platform than iphone. In terms of the number of people that own an Android device is way more than people that own iphones. I guess there’s so many different ways to listen and Android compared to iphone mail, so to speak, but Apple dominate their phone. Of course, people are going to listen to Apple podcast rather than or formerly itunes rather than a different app. And enjoy, people going to listen all kinds of different apps, including Google podcasts, which is one of the platforms we are on. So kind of interesting to me, not sure how informative it is for anyone else, but they’re like, okay, we are people listening in terms of gender. And when we talk about gender, we’re talking about the true meaning of gender in terms of gender.

What does our numbers look like? So it looks like when it comes to gender of the listeners are mail and are female. So I feel like you need to do a little bit more recruiting of my gender. So friends, that the podcast right in front of them so that we can bump up both numbers. But I’m encouraged by that. I think that men are leaders. I’m not saying that women can’t be what I’m saying. They are the heads of households. And so for them to be hearing what the say, the Lord is really incredible. And we’ve had some amazing guests on here that have proclaimed what thus saith the Lord. So I think that’s a great thing. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for more women to hear the message about the dangers of some of the things that were being sold, a bill of goods, feminism and all these different things that seem to have more of a feminine slant in terms of support, but 86% male, 14% female.

What about age? You seem like we have I don’t know how accurate this is. Most of the folks that are listening between the age of zero and 17, I don’t know. Then the next biggest percentage will be 23 to 27, and that will be about. And then you have it being 45 to 50. And then you have being 35 to 44, 6 profit being 28 to 34 and two being 60 and over. And then we have no one listening between 18 and 22. I don’t know. I think age is kind of the tricky area for our distribution platform to capture. So I’m not quite sure about the age, but that’s what they say. So I guess we need to encourage some College age students to listen to our podcast because we have the highest number being high school students. I don’t know. There was a 17 30% that kind of time. People just kind of put random dates for the age on these platforms, so do not reveal it. You age. Is podcasting popular among that age? That demographic, though, because it seems to me that they are more visual, more videos, ticktock type, YouTube type platforms than they are to sit and listen to something. What do you think? I honestly don’t know. I know podcast is a very intimate medium in terms of if you listen to most expert, they will tell you that it’s more intimate than even YouTube and all these other platforms because you’re literally putting the holes of the podcast in your ear. Maybe are you doing a troll or even working out or driving or anything? So you give them a lot more time, then you will give a YouTube like, for instance, if you’re listening, time averages in time on YouTube is five minutes. That’s great because most people don’t listen to YouTube or what a YouTube video more than five minutes. But for podcast, it is no surprise if the listener listen for hour or even two. Look at some of these big podcasts out there. They have three hour podcast, and they have millions and millions of downloads. Podcast a little bit more intimate medium. So I don’t know, zero to 17 is a little bit I’m a little bit skeptical of it, but, you know, it’s technology. So could be, but I don’t know.

So what are some things that you’ve learned about podcasting that you didn’t know before? And I say this because you’re the tech brains and genius behind all of this? Well, I don’t nobody genius spot. But something I learned over the last year is that there’s a lot more to podcasting than just turning on the mic and started talking. That should be obvious. But I think that when you that being a podcaster, you realize, hey, there’s a lot more to this than being able to speak and talk and turn the mic on or whatever case may be. Also another thing that I’ve learned, editing can be a pain. I take time to edit stuff and put stuff together in one of the case may be especially like of producing the episode of wet. It takes time. I guess another thing is that there’s a lot more preparation of studying and researching before you actually go to and recall the episode, that it doesn’t seem like when you listen to some of these podcasts that they actually do it. But as I get into podcasts, and I realize a lot of these bigger podcasts even have their research and have their studying and everything before. As I do it, more, more I’m able to spot other stuff. I’m able to spot the fact that the plan or prepare or plan a segment or whatever case may be. But if you’re really not in the podcast, you might not pick up on it. But a lot of other stuff I can pick up a little bit easier. And there’s a lot of more effort going to it than what met at times. And I guess the most important thing that I’ve learned, I would say, is that just like everything else. And I kind of didn’t expect this to be so much So. But looks like everything else. Marketing is so important is not enough to just create a great product product custom marketed as we put out there. And even if you have a great product, if in that marketed properly, no one will listen to it, no one will hear it. It’s a little bit tricky because I thought you produce a good product, put it on youtube, put it out there on all the podcast platform. We have over 20 something different platforms, and people will find it. No, you actually have to market the product and stuff like that. And there are many ways to do that. The most effective ways to spend money. But if you don’t want to spend money like us, you can use social media and whatever the stuff you can do. But yeah, I didn’t expect the marketing portion of it to be as big as that turn out to be. What about you? I agree. I think you certainly have a perspective on it that I don’t, because you do the editing and you see things that I don’t. But I definitely did not realize the amount of work that goes into creating content and putting it out there. They make it look so easy when you hear the podcast, it’s all shiny and edited and everything sounds great and it’s all put together, but no one can see the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. And I’m not complaining, of course, because every single content creator has that same workload, some more than others, some more or less. But I didn’t realize, well, they can’t see it because if they don’t know what the raw product was like, they can’t compare it to the finished product. Most people aren’t interested in the raw product. Right. And I also discovered that it’s not always easy or intuitive to be able to take an idea from your head and be able to express it in a fashion that is clear and succinct and intelligible to other people. Communication is actually quite a complex thing, and it’s quite difficult to take these nebulous half form thoughts in your head. First you got to identify what you know to be true and what you believe. Then you gotta take these half form thoughts. These nebulous thoughts in your head coalesce em together, find the right words that are able to describe and perfectly express what you’re trying to say, and then say it with the right tone and delivery, clarity being succinct and all those different things to get your point of cross, particularly in a medium like ours where there is no visual components, you can’t communicate visually. It’s all auditory, it’s all audio, and that’s actually quite difficult. I didn’t anticipate that level of difficulty made me realize there’s a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the issue of communication and just a whole layer and level of nuance that I didn’t even notice was there even in listening to other well produced podcasts. Just wasn’t aware of it until you have to do it yourself sort of things, right.

How about looking forward? Should we change our focus? Our focus has been on removing barriers, talking about political, socioeconomical, spiritual stuff, removing those barriers, and presenting the Gospel. Should we be changing off? No, I don’t think So. I think that people are hungry for answers. I think people are hungry for truth. The window of opportunity for people who are searching for those things grows or shrinks every day, because when people become hardened or indoctrinated with whatever they’re imbibing, whatever philosophy they’re listening to out in the world, it becomes more and more difficult to reach them because they’re set and you can’t tell them anything. And so while there’s this upheaval, while there’s this tumultuous sort of upending of things, this is a Prime opportunity to talk to people. You can easily start conversations. Now, that might have been a little bit difficult before, because everyone has an opinion on, say, COVID or riots or government overreach or the vaccine or whatever, perhaps more so than before. Maybe some issues are a little more touchy than others, obviously, but people seem to be more willing to express their opinion because it’s happening right now. It’s a hot button issue right now, and you can start conversations and ultimately share with them the thing that we know to be the solution for any of these really difficult problems that we’re facing in our society today. If you perhaps wonder, well, why would they want to listen to what I have to say? I ask you this, who else are they going to hear the gospel from? If you don’t open your mouth to talk to people, perhaps the only other place they will get the gospel from is from some YouTuber who doesn’t know anything about the faith, or perhaps some TBN preacher, some health, wealth, prosperity type of gospel preacher, and they will never hear the full Council of the Word of God from someone who’s living it, or someone who is genuinely concerned for their souls. And that’s what the Church is called to do. Christ is working through us to reconcile the world to himself, your average TV preacher. It’s not going to be able to affect people positively for Christ. And I say that to the degree that TV preachers have the unfortunate reputation of not being doctrinally sound and also being mongering for money and all that sort of thing. But if their neighbor, if John Doe next door is a genuine believer and John Doe talks to them about the things happening in the world today and their genuine need for a savior and biblically giving them the whole Council of the Word of god, I think that would have a significant effect and more positive effect on them. I say that cautiously because we’re obviously trying to reach people through our medium as well. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m knocking technology in terms of propagating the gospel and getting the truth out there. I don’t want to minimize the importance of encouraging Christians to get out and talk to other people about the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, I think you have a point, but I want to bring it back to this. If you go to maybe, say, Apple podcast, look at the top thing. They normally display like the top five in your category. We fall under the category of spirituality or Christianity. Some platform lists as Spirituality podcast or some of them listed as Christianity podcast. But if you look under Christianity on Apple podcast, the top five podcasts on there. As far as I know, there not sound. So you get to look at the top five. I haven’t even looked at the top five on Apple. I’m sure that’s the case for many other platforms as well. There not sound, but they have thousands of downloads. So I think that this is a medium that is probably right for Christians that have sound doctrine have the true gospel to get out there. Again, we are competing with people that have millions of dollars and hundreds of thousand dollars in Magneti budget per year. So would we ever get in the top five? God can do whatever he flees. I’m not saying that’s impossible, but I’m just simply saying that these people that are in the top five are normally people that have a lot of means, but they also lack in the area of doctrine. I want to actually add to your sentiment there. I believe that our focus should always be to remove barriers so that we can share the gospel of Christ. Christianity is the only thing that presents the worlds, and I say the world as in the objective world that we can see as the hardcore world that we can see as well as the unseen world. Christianity is the only thing that presents those things truthfully, objectively and gives us instruction in terms of how we ought to be living and such a fashion that is not misleading. Any other religion will tell you to do ABC xyz, but you will still end up in the hands of an angry God. And that’s sobering to think about. We have the truth, we ought to be sharing it with people. And I don’t think our focus should change. I think we should continue tempting to remove barriers so that everyone can have a clear view of the Cross. I think that’s incredibly important. Maybe perhaps how we go about doing it, maybe we change our format or change our style later on down the road. But I think the focus and the desire to remove barriers shouldn’t change. I don’t know. Does that mean that there’s something else in the pipeline coming down for removing barriers? What would you say?

Well, our focus definitely going to remain the same, but in Episode 53, actually, we going to set a new series called On the Mission Field. We will be interviewing missionaries and learning about the Mission Field. This is going to be kind of similar in format to ongoing seriously and call. How were barriers remove? Where we talk to professing christians, basically a Salvation testimony, how they got saved, and that’s a hit among our listeners. So hopefully this one stat in Episode 53, On the Mission Fee will be a hit as well. We interview a missionary in Central Ager in that episode, and then we’re also going to talk about maybe do a series install went in and also how to solve into specific groups. You know, not the time they could do knock. And we meet a lot of folks that are Mormon or Jews or people that believe in works will save them on Muslims. We want to kind of put stuff together where we can maybe get guess that can help instruct us on. How do we witness to folks like these? Because a lot of times that we mentioned in many of their podcasts, we tend to witness to everybody the same. And I think that’s a mistake because I think we should be trying to figure out what is a barrier that prevented from being saved and then attack that barrier in a way that we can remove it and get it out of the way. So that means there are times when we might have to talk about politics, their time to re probably going to have to talk about science and evolution. The time let me go to have to talk about history and the racial component that’s going on in this country and all these things. But just going to tell people, hey, Jesus love you. Repent might not work for everybody. There are some people that they have a deeper barrier and we talk about Act up to an Act up to 17 all the time in this part class. So those are in the pipeline. Hopefully we can get gas that can come on and instruct us in those areas. I’ll end by seven days. We praise the Lord for all that the podcasts have accomplished, and I chose that we see fruit of our Labor and that the Lord may be glorified and use it mightily we don’t want the glory. We just felt compelled and moved by the law to say, hey, start putting stuff out there. Start encouraging Christians because majority listeners I believe are Christian and I encourage Christians to share the gospel and don’t just share the Gospel. The all 90 way of sharing the Gospel. I think we need to move to a more apologetic form of sharing the gospel, stating that creation because that’s where God started and bring the folks up from there while the message would remain the same. Our methods need to change. And unfortunately, I don’t think our methods have changed a lot in the churches. Look at our checks, look at our method of evangelism in the same old way for the America that was under or in extracted two. I permanently believe that America is today is more of activity in culture. Yet for majority of our churches we are still presenting the gospel like we are still at a strap it to. I don’t know exactly a reason for that. It could be because Christians don’t want to think that the country has gone that far, but it has. Just look at last summer in 2,020, you have gone that far and Christians need to change the way we preach and present the Gospel.

So if the podcast has been a blessing to you, would you leave us a review on your favorite platform. What is Apple Google Spotify wherever you listen. If you can leave us a review, that will be great. We will ask for a five star. But if the podcast is a two star for you, leave us to review. We just want to hear from you. If you like to reach us, there are multiple ways for you to do So. You can go to removing barriers dot net and right at the top there will be a red button. Click on Contact at the top and there you will find an email address, a phone number, even a contact form that you can fill out to get a hold of us. If you prefer social media, there are links to social media right there under Contact page. You can find us on facebook, twitter, reddit, gab, and Polar. We are also on multiple platforms to include Upper podcast, Google podcast, odify, I radio, and many more. Let’s go to remove the barriers dot net. Scroll down a little under home page and you will see a list of about 20 or so different platforms that you can listen. And also we do more than just podcast. We also have a blog where we regularly post articles concerning evangelism, Christian Living and more. Go to Removing Barriers net for blog and you can see all our posts there if you prefer reading rather than listening. Also, we have recently started Transcribing the podcast. So every episode, if you go to a website and go to the episode link on the website. So if it’s Episode 52, it will be removing barriers dot net, P on the score and then the episode number and you can find the episode there. And if you Scroll down a little on that page, you will see a transcription of the episode if you prefer just to read, that would be on the blog as well. And if you like to support our efforts, there are multiple ways to donate. Go to Removing barriers net or donate and there you will have multiple ways to donate. You can give to online form. You can give to PayPal. You can give to Anchor or Anchor link or you can go to Affiliate page and use one of affiliate links. And if you buy something sure affiliate link, then we will get a small percentage kick back to us just to help us keep the mics on. But this is not necessary for you to listen. If you listen, never done it. That’s fine. If you listen, never review. That’s fine. But if the Lord lay that on your heart, that would be greatly appreciated. I would further do. Here is a rerun of Episode one.

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This is the first episode of Removing barriers. Let’s talk about why we moving virus. Alright, why do you want to do this? Well, I think that in the day and time that we live, things are quite tumultuous. We’re not the first group of people that have lived through tumultuous times, obviously. But it brings to bear a lot of questions that people have a lot of concerns that they have years. There’s a lot of people out there that already adjusting some of these things. A lot of the conservative voices do. We want to be another conservative voice. It doesn’t hurt. There aren’t many of them out there. But more than being a conservative voice, I think that one of the things that we’re trying to do is present the gospel in such a way, or at least talk to people or talk to the audience in such a way that would help them see the cross clearly. So hence the Removing Barriers title.

I think that in the us, especially that the culture has changed so much. But the method of presenting the gospel has remained the same in terms of a lot of folks. We go out and preach and all. They would tell folks how to be saved by saying Jesus love you, repent and be saved without ever really dive into what is really blocking that person from seeing the cross clearly. I remember I think it’s like five years ago now I was a door to door knocking the door and I met a Jewish Man. His name was Erin and he had a bunch of questions. I wanted to leave because it was really going nowhere. But I found myself using a lot of apologetics argument to this man to defend whatever he was putting up. And at the end we were able to share the gospel with him and bought he and his wife said to us, wow, we have never heard the Goth were presented that way before and that prompt me to start ticket. Is apologetic argument necessary for the presentation of gospel? And I will say, no, they not. But I like what Robby Takara said when I was doing is he said that apology argument has never saved anybody. But they do remove obstacles so they can have a clear view of the cross of Jesus Christ. And I think we need to do that at times as Christians to remove those obstacles or remove those barriers so we can give folks a clear view of the Cross. And today this systemic racism is black. Life matter is police brutality. Are these things real? You know, we have a lot of conservative voices out there on YouTube and all over. But a lot of them are not doing it in the light of the Gospel. We want to try to do it in the light of the Gospel. So why are we doing this? Hacking back to Simon phonic. He said, Start with why. And we want to start with why. Because as I said before, I see a lot of Christians want to present the gospel, but they’re not taking the time to remove the barriers. And I believe Ravi Zakar said, if you do remove those barriers, lot of folks will have a much clearer view of the Cross. Yeah. So it’s multifaceted, right? I mean, obviously, spiritually speaking, we can’t do anything to make it easier or make it possible for someone to actually hear the gospel and let it sink into their hearts. So it’s the work of the Holy spirit, the work of the Holy Spirit. And so we would obviously need to do something like this. Preface by prayer, preface by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit. Because ultimately, what we’re talking about is for people to completely I don’t even think the term paradigm shift is enough to explain what it’s like to be removed from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of light. I remember that we purchased a book by Ken Ham in July. I think it was a lie and how people back in the Apostle days. And even before that, when you were talking to them about the things of god, that group of people, they already had a framework. They already had an understanding of what you were referring to.

Nowadays. It’s not a stretch to say that the overwhelming majority of people in this country are ignorant about the scriptures there. That’s true. And even in the Sonic lesson that I teach when I do the meters, part one, we talk about the light with Ken Ham as well, but we also talk about comparing attracted to a Raptor 17, which penham outlining his book as well. The live and in a tractor. Two. You know that they have Pentecost. The Apostles were talking to jews, and they started at Christ. They talk about the same Christ that you crucified is your messiah. They present to them christ, but even go to Act chapter 17. They didn’t start at Christ. They go all the way back to Genesis because that was the barrier that the people in Acts chapter 17 had the people extractor to the barrier they had was if Jesus christ, the messiah. And this is nothing new, because we saw that even in the way Christ all on Savior present the Gospel. He presented the gospel to the woman at the well, differently than how we present the gospel to the young. Which ruler, you know, he presented a gospel to Nicodemus differently than who he presented to all of them. Because what was the barrier for nicodemus? What was the barrier for the woman did the well, what was the barrier for the youngest ruler? They all have different barriers. So he came the message was the same, but the way he approaches was different. I think what we have today is that we have a lot of her Christians who are presented Gospels to people. They believe a Acts Raptor two, but they actually Acts chapter 17. So we are missing the Mark with a barrier, because sadly to it, as I think I said before, in america, most people are living in Acts chapter 17 world where they believe in evolution or they believe in all these postmodern culture stuff that’s going on today. And unfortunately, last man, I’ve never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And because of that, we are still presenting the gospel like they’re extracted two, but they actually accept 17. That’s one reason, even though I really like tracks and I do give out tracks. And one of the reason I believe that us opening our mouth and really presenting the gospel is more important than actually handed out checks, because we can then say, hey, you know, we are not pre written. We are not programmed to present everything one way we can do, as I said in my son, coolass, a spirit or diagnostic, what is preventing this person from being saved? You know, if you go to the doctor and then you go to the doctor, doctor give you a cold medicine. No matter what you have, there’s something wrong. And that’s kind of what we’re doing when we put on the gospel, if we never look at the person and say, hey, what is really blocking this person? Do a diagnostic of the person, and then we can also then decide what direction to come from in prison. The gospel, the message remain the same. But your approach should be different in this world. It needs to be. It needs to be because just look at our society today. Absolutely.

So that’s the why behind of this. That’s why we really want to what are some of the barriers that we’re going to be looking at? Barriers? You mentioned a few of them already. You mentioned black lives matter, systemic racism, racism in general. But it’s so multifaceted because, like, for example, if we’re going to be talking to, Let’s say, a black person, the barriers that prevent them from seeing the cross clearly will be different from any other person. Like, I know we talk all the time about how black people aren’t a monolith. There’s a completely even within that group, there are so many of them that think differently, even within that demographic. We have to contend with pan Africanism marxism, systemic issues that they feel like. And they see that they’re experiencing as a people or even individually, that would lead them to believe that if there’s a god, he doesn’t really care about me, because look at all of these terrible things happen. These barriers don’t necessarily need to be real. Right. I just have to be real to the person. Exactly. They just need to be perceived. And that’s more than enough for some of it. I think we definitely need to hit on black life matter and the mission. What do they believe? What do they teach in particular? Because they get it. Yeah. They have such a grip on the culture of the country now. So you see them everywhere. Celebrities are endorsing them. They’re on the news all the time, sports. It’s everywhere. It’s in the campuses or on the campuses. And so there’s a huge cultural fight. Well, it’s only recently become quite political, but I think that’s only because it’s been gaining cultural fire all of the time. I don’t know. But recently they establish. 2,013. They claim it was because the police brutality, but which have on machine it wasn’t police brutality. But I think they have morph into more of a political arm, no doubt, to push their agenda. But we deal with that. In another episode, we’ll talk about George Floyd. We’re in a tailor. You said you wanted to talk about biblical womanhood. Biblical manhood. Yeah. Those aren’t huge. I really do think that biblical womanhood biblical manhood needs to be addressed because the role of men and women, both in the home and in the world, has been completely turned on its head. So another bearer that we’re going to have to contend with it. And the idea of feminism is going to be another idea that we’re going to have to contend with or a barrier that we need to address and particularly within the black community, especially. I see this is a complete divorcing of biblical standards and manhood and womanhood. And it has not just in a black family do no, no, no society at large. And the reason why a pinpoint on the black family is because the black family has already been ravaged by the effects of political policies and other things in general that serve to break down the family. And so I think that when we go back and evaluate what God established in genesis, one of the first things you established towards the family, we have to go back to the biblical idea of manhood and womanhood in order to address those barriers. Definitely some others that I think about is we need to also maybe adjust some of the barriers that within the Christianity itself. We’re not going to necessarily argue along doctrine lines and stuff like that, but we also need to encourage Christian sure, to consider the way they’re sharing the Gospel. I think that’s a barrier for some because some folks, to be honest, are scared to share the Gospel. That’s probably just a human factor, also a lack of trust in God. But, you know, the scripture sellers to contend for the faith. Right. To be ready to give an answer. Be ready in season out of season. I think a lot of Christians just feel like they feel cornered. Like if they open up their mouths and speak, someone might think I’m a bigot or someone might think this. One of the desires that I have for this podcast is to equip believers, to be bold but also to be loving and engaging and to reach out and not just like you said earlier, just hand out a track and think that you were actually doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You’re actually engaging people, even if it means having these tough conversations that led to me. I think sometimes, especially what our culture today refer as white folks. Culturally, most people will say we are black. Typically, we all human human race. I don’t like the division along racial lines, but we are black culturally. That’s what they will Pegas ads. But both of us have a unique background because I was born and raised in the Caribbean. You were born and raised in florida, but by Caribean parent. So we have unique perspective on that. We also want to talk about look at the black community of diverse as it is in America.

Why is it that, you know, immigrants for me and your second generation that we don’t for most part, identify with the black American culture? Because I don’t identify with a black American culture to some extent, you don’t need even to your rate in the country. So there’s a lot of cultural differences among black people as well that we need to talk about, and also maybe hopefully encourage our Caucasian friends. Yeah, you can talk about black life matter. You can openly say you disagree. Black life matter, if that’s the case, as long as you’re studying a biblical grounds. And I think that’s fear, and that’s something you can do, and it also remove those barriers and shit. A Gospel. Yeah, deal with that fear of Man. So why are we doing this? Ultimately, our goal is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to share the Gospel. I’m anticipating that our audience, maybe if anyone listens to this podcast will be probably majority christians, but I’m hoping that we have a lot of unsafe people listen to this podcast as well. Just because I personally believe that the gospel is that bridge. All these things have been answered in the gospel, racism and all this police brutality and all these things that people are going on. I’ve been answered the Gospel. I have really been watching the NBA tentive start back up, but Jonathan Isaac response to why he didn’t kneel for the National anthem was great. I don’t really know the young man that I don’t know him at all, even though I do follow the and being not as much as before, but I never heard of him before. Of course he’s not LeBron James and all those folks that everyone knows. I was proud to see a young man stand up and say, hey, the reason why I’m doing it is because of a Gospel. And the gospel have answered all this.

So what is the gospel? Yeah. You know what? You bring up a good point when you say, what is the gospel? Because do you remember how the reporter the first reporter, the female reporter that was she let him answer. And then she followed it up with a question that said, yeah, but what does religion have to do with this? The fact that she not only ask that question, but also, number two, phrase it that way, demonstrates a greater truth, a greater reality in the greater part of society where they have no clue what the gospel is. And so they can’t see how it relates. They can’t see how it’s a solution. They can’t see how it can address those things. The fact that she even asked that question, but would demonstrate that. And so one of the things we want to do is to explain how the gospel is the solution were a lot of barriers to remove. Of course, that’s why we call this podcast from barriers. Right. I like his answer because he basically said that he’s not into religion, he’s a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that’s what a lot of folks don’t realize. True biblical Christianity is not a religion, is a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that’s what we’re trying to foster and encourage people to have by repentant faith in Jesus christ, establishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So why don’t we get into the gospel? Alright. I feel like I need to clarify the word gospel, because when people hear that at large, they might just be thinking of, you know, that really so full kind of black Church music, like, and all of that, like gospel music. Or they might be thinking of whatever they might be thinking of. But simply put, the gospel just means good news. That’s literally what the word gospel means. And folks may wonder, well, what’s the good news? Well, the good news is that there is an answer. There is a solution. There is an explanation for all of these things that we see in the world today. And I’m not being too simplistic about this. This is legit straight. The gospel is the answer, the solution and the explanation for everything that we see in the world today. And according to the scriptures, the content, the meet the essence of the gospel is the deaf, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And you might be wondering why what does the death barrel resurrection of christ? Why did he have to die? Exactly. So with us take it apart, right? Why did he even have to die? Well, the reason Christ had to die was because is because god, who is a creator, he is God. He is the originator of everything. Like this is his playground. This universe that we’re living in is literally his playground. He made all the rules. He established everything and he has laws. Let’s call him rules. No laws that he expects his creation to abide by. Why? Because this is his house. He runs this. I’m sure most of the people listing have probably heard some reference to the 10 Commandments may not be able to tell what they are, but at least most people, I would say, have at least heard of the term the 10 Commandments. Those are God’s laws. Those are God’s laws that we’ve broken those laws. Like, for example, the very first commandment, the very first commandment, explains that you shall have no other gods before me. So what does that mean? Don’t have any other gods before me. In other words, now, when we think about it, we think about Israel and all their idols and all of their physical replicas of imagined or mythical creatures or whatever.

But really, if you are living in such a way that demonstrates that you’re your own boss and you’re living according to your own ideas, that’s an idol that you’ve erected in your own heart, right? You’re like your own God. And God says, Don’t have any other gods before me. That’s one commandment and all the others that we could spit out. The important thing to hear is that all of us have broken to broken them at one point or another. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are. It doesn’t matter how good we think we are, I should say, because we’re all included in this, right? All of us have send. All of us have sinned before god, and sin is when you do something that is contrary to God’s law. In other words, you break God’s law or his law tells you to do something and you didn’t do it, right. I didn’t put anything here. Is that when you think about God’s law, God law actually contempt us? Because when you think about it that God says, Thou shall not lie, do shall see Jesus in a New testament, even take it a little bit further because, you know, lying action, stealing another action. But you just say, you know what? If you look at women and left after her, you already commit adults. When your heart goes down to the heart, even money, material stuff, or even as you alluded to, if you have those things above christ, those now become an idol. So the law actually in Galatians ways that he’s a screw master to bring us a Christ because it condemn us to point to us and say, hey, you have failed. Bible says, for all have seen a comp shot of glory of God. When I was in college, my teacher would say all means all and that’s all all means. You know, no one is left out. When you say all have seen a shot glory of God. I remember I was listening to someone speak once and they say that food was the great equalizer. No, it’s not. Food is not a great equalizer. The great equalizer for all men is that, I believe, is debt. But what is the cost of debt? Sin is the cost of debt because of Adam sin that compare all men for all have sin. So if that is a great equalizer. Bible city, Hebrews 9 27 Now with the point into, man wants to die. But after this is a judgment. So the rich die, the poor die, the middle class die. And all of us have to faith our maker once we die. Right? Because one of the things that is a punishment for sin, as you said, or not even punish the wages of sin. That’s what you earn. Every time you sin, you’re clocking in and you’re earning death for yourself. You’re earning death for yourself. And he has said in his word, remember, this is his playground. The universe is like, this is his domain. He’s created everything, and he has declared that the soul that sends shall die. So it doesn’t matter what we would grade our send to be. You know how people talk about, oh, I didn’t tell a big lie. Just told a little white lie as if there’s no before a Holy and righteous and infinitely pure god, which God is. Your white lie is just as damnable as conspiracy. The biggest lie. You know what I mean? Right? But also we also stress on the point that not only in cause that, but if we define spiritual death spiritual, that is actual separation for God. All in. I actually separated from god, right? I know man on a whole is on a quest to find that favor back with God. And that’s what every religion in the world try to answer. How do I find favor with god? And every religion, except for true biblical christianity, which we already said is not a religion, is relationship. Tell you must do something. You must do something to find favor with god, what it is given money, what it is sacrificing to idols, whether it’s on a good person. You’re the good person. That’s a big one. That’s probably the biggest one in our community. People believe they get to heaven because they’re good. That’s in separate from god, manage on a quest to try to bridge that find that favor regard. But they’re all doing it either by saying, hey, I’m going to do something to find favor of God.

Biblical christian, I said you cannot do anything to find favor with God. Why? Because, as we said before, because you’re a sinner are the sinner. You cannot present anything Holy in just the God. Right? So Christ had to die. The reason why he had to die is because the wages of sin is death. Christ paid that penalty for you on the Cross. His death on the cross was that payment. So like, for example, if you were in jail or if you were caught red handed committing a crime and you here before the judge, and the judge says to you, okay, for what you did, you have earned, or you’re going to the electric chair or you’re going to get the death penalty. But there’s a stipulation in the law that explains that if that’s fine or if that fee hasn’t paid in full, you can be released free to go, even though you are guilty. The payment of that fee of that find that requirement. That offense exactly has been paid in full. Legally. God, who is just can let you go. He can declare you not guilty. He can declare you endless, as it were, like He can. We use term redeem, you save you and declare you righteous and legally can let you go. That’s what Christ on the Cross. And I think maybe some of that stems back to a faulty, like when people think about what Christ did, they almost cheapen it in the sense that my sin is not that bad. God is not that mad at me. Why would God be mad at me? I’m a good person. I’m this I’ve met or the other. But when you look at your sin in the reality as facing a Holy god, that’s when you realize, oh, the weight of your sin, the magnitude of it, not because of how bad we think it is, but because of who God is, how infinite and Holy and pure and righteous He is. He’s like, even if we think about it on the base level, how He’s provided for us the sun, the cloud, the moon, the rain, the food that we eat, our families. Every good Grace that He has given to us, his air that we breathe is in our lungs, and we use it to send against Him. Right. And the Bible says, of course, in hebrews, not hebrews, but Eugene two for 89, not by works for residents, which we have done, but according to his mercies, he save us by the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Ghost. And that’s actually Titus 3 5, not efficient to eight or 9. That said, for by Grace as he saved true faith, right? And not of yourself. It is a gift of god, not of works, lest enemies should both. Right. So when the Scriptures tell us that it’s the Grace of God that saves us, Grace is when you are given something that you don’t deserve. Am I right? Am I getting those right? Grace is when you’re given something that you don’t deserve. The criminal does not deserve mercy. The judge can decide to give it to him, but he doesn’t deserve it. The way I normally look at Grace and mercy, Grace and mercy to me, is two sides of the same call. If you express mercy. On the flip side, expressing grace, Grace and God is extended that to us, and we’re saved by that through the conduit of faith. Right. So when Jesus declares that He is the way He is, the truth. And he is the life no one can come to the Father.

But through him, that all of these religions are trying to breach the gap to God that they’re trying to reach across already. That exactly. And so when you take Jesus at His word, when he says that He is the way he’s the truth, he’s alive, that no man cometh to the Father. But through him, when he says that whoever believes in him shall not see death, what did he tell Lazarus sister? Was it martha, though he died, yet will he live? Do you believe this? I am the Resurrection. Do you believe this? You know, when he makes that promise. So when we talk about faith, like he mentioned in Ephesians 289, that faith is literally putting your trust in faith in what he has promised. He has promised that because he is God in the flesh, he is the sinless Holy one who bore God’s wrath on the Cross. He promises that whoever believes in him, he will raise them up. At the last day, he will redeem them. He will save them. That’s what we mean when we talk about saved or Salvation or redeemed, though, we were wretched and lost and sinful and just all sorts of unworthy before God Christ. And I think about what God commended His love towards us, that while we were yet in Christ diapers, she was saying, while we were in that sin, while we were still being unlovable, right? God send his Son are the demonstration of His love for us. And that’s important, right? Because the idea of why we were unlovable, it highlights and reminds us of the fact that there was never a time where we were lovable. We were always unlovable, even when we were trying to do our best. Our best is not good enough so far. Shot of a shot of the of God. And I take it with John 3 60, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that’s who’s ever believed him should not Purge. But I’ve been blessed in life. So how can a man be saved? The Bible say, For whose Isha call upon the name of the Lord shall be fate? Call upon him, believe in faith. Call upon him, and he will. He will respond. He will, because he said he would, he must, and he’s gracious, and he’s loving, and he’s merciful, and he wants to save us, but not on our term. And I’m looking at Romans 10, verse nine, that if those shall confess with the mount, the Lord Jesus and she’ll believe in thine heart, a God of rhythm from the dead, though, shall be saved. For with the heart man believe it unto righteousness. I would amount confession is made unto salvation. If you jump down the first 13 the service you call out the name the Lord shall be safe. So that’s your gospel as a bible, according to the scripture, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus christ, where Christ had to die because He took our police. His death should have been our debt. We should have died for our sins because the Bible said, the wages of sin is death. But in order for Christ paid parently for our sin, he had to be sinless. I cannot die for the sin of any man because I have my son on myself. But because he didn’t have any sin, he was the anointed one. He was able to die for the sin of all men. And while we were still no sin, he died for us. And if we put our faith and trust repent and fate by was a reprint now of this, that weakness and pray God that he perhaps the thought of the heart, maybe forgiving the if you repent of your sin and trust in christ, meaning that all your hope to get to heaven into five favor God is placed into what Christ has done for you. Upon the cross of calvary, you will be saved and saved. Not just saved from the penalty of sin that got you in this predicament in the first place, but saved from the power of sin. Saved from the influence of sin, like before we were saved from the wrath of god, from the wrath of God. Absolutely. Because that penalty is paid. But when I mentioned the influence of sin before a person is in christ, they are dominated by sin, like they don’t even have the option. Everything about them has been polluted by the fall. When I say the fall, I mean the first sin that Adam and Eve send in the garden and that affected all of us. And so all of your faculties, your intellectual capacity, capabilities, your thoughts, your heart, everything about you is sinful before God. And the Bible says that sin is like your task master, your slave master. You’re enslaved to it. You have no option but to sin. But when Christ saves you, he breaks that power. He has become your master. And so you have the power in Christ. God has given you that power in Christ to be free from the just like the Bible shall confess. Confession is agreeing with the charges against you. God said the charges against you, that you’re a sinner and you agree to that. You say I’m a sinner. And also, like say, if dosha confess with them, out the Lord. He didn’t say confess Christ to be the Lord. But if you confess with them, out the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s a declarative statement saying that Jesus Christ is Lord. So what your contestant and agreeing to is that you’re a sinner. And yes, Christ is the Lord. You know thou shall be saved. Let me put it because I know sometimes within our Christen when we want to say, okay, we make Him Lord and Savior crisis, Lord period, period. What are we doing when we get saved is actually now we’re confessing the fact that’s there that he’s Lord and we re sinner. We’re coming postate before His subjugating ourselves to that. Right. And that, lordship, for lack of a better expression. And with that, you don’t get religion, you get a relationship. Right. And so if Jesus Christ absolutely. And if he’s Lord of everything, that’s going to affect how you look at your world is going to affect how we talk about black lives matter. We talked about these huge barriers that we need to remove. It’s going to affect all of those things, because Christ is Lord over all of those things. Everything. He’s Lord over creation ourselves, everything. And so when we subjugate ourselves, when we submit, and we appeal to Him and we ask Him to save us, he says that he breaks the power of sent over us. And now we have the scriptures. We have the Holy Spirit. We have Him. We can think clearly about these things. We can see a little bit more clearly. We could remove those barriers. Right. Definitely.

Ultimately, Chris is the one who has remove the barriers. Yes, he’s the one. If we can see things through the prism of salvation, realizing that we are all sinners, were all on the same level. Right. We’re all sinners. If there’s such a thing as we see, of course there is racism is a sin, just like line stealing. Fornication on all those things, there are sin. Christ has come, as you said, to break that power of sin upon your life is that we can have life and that more abundantly. So that’s what we want to do is to present price as the answer to the social issues that were going on. Again. As I said, there’s many conservative voices out there, but we want to be a voice that present the gospel as the answer to our social issues. And also to talk, to some degree, bluntly about some of the issues that are going on there. Right.

Thank you for listening. To get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers, go to removing barriers. Net. This has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clear view of the cross.