Agnostic Becomes Christian During Livestream!

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Again, that's why we do these call on stream, ladies and gentlemen, because we are going for the lost sheep and trying to bring them into the kingdom as quickly as we can.

[00:00:09]>> All right, let's bring in Jay. Can you hear me?

[00:00:12]>> Yes. Hello.

[00:00:14]>> Good. Yeah, we can hear you. How you doing?

[00:00:16]>> Good. How are you guys? Um, >> good. Are you Muslim?

[00:00:20]>> I I am not, but I am a agn I I was agnostic. I was just wondering if I can join um if if it's possible. Um, >> it's it's completely it's completely fine. It's completely fine if you don't.

[00:00:34]>> You said you're agnostic, right?

[00:00:35]>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm on the verge of converting. I'm on the verge of converting.

[00:00:39]>> We I was going to say, yeah, you'll be our last guest. Let's uh let's just uh What do you want to talk about?

[00:00:44]>> Okay. So, so I just want to know is I just want to know if is um Jesus God and I want to know if um like what's like the Pascal wager.

[00:00:59]>> Okay, >> those two things.

[00:01:00]>> Well, let's do Jesus as God first. I got some good slides here from a live stream I did a while back, but they're still pretty good. So, one of the places I like to go to is what we were just talking about. So, uh you see this here.

[00:01:12]These are two verses in the Bible. Luke 6:46 and Matthew 7:21. Jesus says, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?" Now, people have looked at that over the years and they go, "Why is Jesus saying it twice?

[00:01:23]That's kind of weird." Well, scholars have started to point out that probably means Jesus is claiming to be divine.

[00:01:29]Michael Patrick Barber says, "The double vocative lord, Lord," is applied to Jesus in the sermon on the mount. As Jason Staples has shown, this expression always represents an illusion to the to the tetetrogrammaton in the septuagent.

[00:01:41]In places where the Hebrew has adoni Yahweh, the Septuagent has kic.

[00:01:46]So in other words, when you read through the Greek Septuagent, sometimes you'll see Lord, Lord Ky right there.

[00:01:55]>> Jesus says that about himself. Of all the Greek texts from the time of Jesus and prior, the only two who ever say, "I'm Lord, Lord," are Yahweh and Jesus.

[00:02:07]Therefore, Jesus is explicitly claiming to be Yahweh in these verses.

[00:02:13]>> Okay.

[00:02:14]I think that's a I heard about that argument.

[00:02:17]>> Okay.

[00:02:18]>> Actually know this argument actually.

[00:02:20]>> So, do you believe Jesus is God? What's the issue then for you? I mean, I think I think I think he I mean, I was just I think this is a strong argument, but I am I I am having a difficult time also believing like like that the trinities in the Bible. And I know it's like a whole different topic >> that I didn't mention before.

[00:02:40]>> I got slides for that too. I got slides for that too.

[00:02:43]>> Did you watch my two powers video?

[00:02:45]>> Two. No, no, no, no. It's an hourong giving evidence for this idea that there is one Yahweh, but there was multiple figures that the early Israelites and second temple Jews prior to Christianity saw multiple figures as Yahweh.

[00:03:03]>> I'm going definitely look at that for sure.

[00:03:05]>> Here's a here's an interesting passage.

[00:03:07]I'll show you the Trinity in the Old and New Testament. So, this is God speaking.

[00:03:10]He says, "Draw near to me. Hear this.

[00:03:12]From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret. From the time it came to be, I have been there. And now the Lord God, Yahweh, has sent me and his spirit.

[00:03:21]>> Okay. Um, let me see. So, what is what does that like? What does that necessarily mean to to you? What is your interpretation of that?

[00:03:29]>> My interpretation of this is that these are the three persons of the Trinity.

[00:03:32]God is speaking and he talks about his timeless nature and then he says, "The Lord God has sent me and he also sent his spirit."

[00:03:44]>> That's That's right. I mean, >> there it is.

[00:03:49]>> Yeah.

[00:03:51]Yeah. I mean, yeah, I I agree with that for sure.

[00:03:54]>> Yeah. It's also in the um the New Testament as well. So, here's John. He's in John 14. Jesus says, "I will ask the Father. He will give you another helper to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be with you." Then Jesus says something fascinating. He says, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. So if you go through John 14, John 16, Jesus talks about himself, the father and the spirit being one and how they operate, one in essence, three persons of the trinity throughout these chapters here.

[00:04:30]>> Mhm. Okay.

[00:04:32]Um, and also the the Pascal wager which I am trying to pull right now because I feel like the resurrection is the best evidence uh best explanation for the historical facts in my opinion which could be subjective but >> um >> so knows a lot of about Pascal's wager.

[00:04:55]What I will say very briefly on Pascal's wager is I don't use that as an argument for God's existence. I use that as for someone like you where you're currently at right now, which is essentially that if you're on the fence about converting, you have a wager here. On one side, Christianity infinite gain.

[00:05:12]If it turns out that Christianity is false and like atheism is true, doesn't matter. You rot in the grave, your mind goes to sleep and you never wake up again. So, you don't lose anything. But if you take the other side of the fence, the other side of the wager, and you just say atheism is true, you have infinite loss. because if it turns out Christianity is true, you know, you have infinite loss after that. So Pascal's wager just sort of sits at sort of like the end of the discussion. If you get to where you're at, Jay, where you're like, I've looked at all the evidence. I I think there's strong evidence for the resurrection, it makes far more logical sense to just become a Christian because there'll be infinite gain there.

[00:05:48]>> Oh yeah. And um one more question um if you don't mind. Uh I don't know if you guys have Okay. But um what's your what's your guys' interpretation of like power of the tongue? Like does that necessarily mean like is it like let me give an example like if I tell myself like today I'm going to have a bad day and I end up having a bad day. Is that is that ex like what that verse is basically saying or is or does that verse mean like if you tell somebody like if you tell somebody if you tell somebody something mean or something like that um it can get destructive.

[00:06:24]Well, I tend to think it does. It's not like some sort of magical power. The power of the tongue is that we with our words, we really can hurt and affect people in bad ways. Like if I woke up and I was mean to my wife and daughter, it's going to affect them because we're a family. We're a unit. And like, you know, when one of us is sad, we are all sad. Like if your spouse is sad, you're not just going to be I'll be great today. Like you're sad because that's the person there. So what we say does affect people. Uh because we're we're humans. We were made to be a community.

[00:06:53]That's what humans are. We are we are creatures that that crave community and we that means what we say affects the people around us. So we should be careful with our tongues because there is power in it what we say. If sends me a video to review and I go this sucked.

[00:07:08]What the heck were you thinking? That's going to bother him. He's a sensitive little boy over there. But um if I said hey there's some great parts of this video I like. However, there's a couple things here that I think we can make better. What if we do this? That's gonna that's gonna notice the power in the tongue there. That that builds him up.

[00:07:25]It allows him to go further versus me just being a total douchebag.

[00:07:28]>> Um so so basically so so it doesn't mean um like if you tell yourself something like like you have a bad day, it doesn't really mean it doesn't really mean nothing or >> Well, it it I think it can affect you.

[00:07:43]Like you shouldn't like if I if you go around and you constantly are saying things like I'm worthless. I always do things wrong. I'm always bad. You're going to start to think that because you keep hearing yourself say it.

[00:07:55]>> So, what you say does have an effect on you and you should try to be more positive and how your outlook is.

[00:08:01]>> Um, Jade, that's actually what Mike's just saying too is basically proven in cognitive behavioral therapy research.

[00:08:08]Like part of healing from even like social trauma and stuff like this, right, is you literally have to teach yourself that you're safe, right? and and that involves these processes of tiny little exposures to things that you're afraid of um or social settings you're afraid of and you literally have to let your body feel safe so the words you're saying can actually get encoded into like your nervous system so to speak.

[00:08:37]>> Okay. Um well I appreciate you guys so much um like a lot. I really appreciate you guys. Um keep doing what you guys are doing.

[00:08:45]>> Well, hold up before you go. I want to tell like so you said you're close to becoming a Christian. What What is Are you ready to become a Christian?

[00:08:52]>> Yeah, >> I w I would become a Christian, but I will I will continue I will probably continue to doubt a little bit.

[00:09:01]>> Um >> that that's fine.

[00:09:03]>> Doubt. Wait. Yeah, doubt is okay, right?

[00:09:06]It that's never you're never going to not have doubts, >> right? You're gonna you're gonna have to learn to be okay with that. Um because if you're chasing like a 100% certainty, well that's just like a fool's errand, right?

[00:09:20]>> Yeah.

[00:09:22]>> Yeah.

[00:09:23]>> So, so help me understand where you're at.

[00:09:26]>> Well, I mean really it's just the really really the only thing is like the it's the suffering part. That's really the only thing. That's it. But I mean like >> like the problem of evil.

[00:09:41]>> Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much all, you know.

[00:09:44]>> Have you seen um my uh talk on Problem of Evil?

[00:09:48]>> Is it the video you posted 12 years ago or >> I'm think I' I've updated version one.

[00:09:54]So, >> sci-fi fantasy promo.

[00:09:58]>> Man, you're old, Mike.

[00:10:00]>> Huh?

[00:10:02]>> Sorry. Nothing.

[00:10:04]>> No. So, I did a I did have a lecture very recently, a year ago, called How Sci-Fi and Fantasy Explain Why God Allows Suffering.

[00:10:12]>> Okay. Okay. Um, and somebody I mean, somebody told me something that really that really stuck out to me like and it really got to me. That's that's why I'm here now, like on the edge of, you know, converting, but I still doubt like why there's evil and stuff like that, but I'm willing to take the chance to believe. Somebody told me that um there is always there's always going to be it's always a good reason why God allows something like we might not know it but there has to be a good um a good cause behind it. You know >> I got an idea. Let me let we can walk through this very quickly. There's an easy way to do this. Easy way. So what if I had you locked in a room and I said, "All right, I I'm gonna give you two options, Jay. You can either watch season one of the Teletubbies or you can watch the entire Lord of the Rings series. Which one are you going to pick?

[00:11:11]>> The second one.

[00:11:12]>> Exact. But you just chose a world with evil and suff suffering. The Teletubbies world has no evil and suffering. So why'd you pick the second?

[00:11:21]>> I mean, I'm just going to have a better experience. I mean, >> this is There you go.

[00:11:26]>> Notice what you said. But notice, you don't you didn't just choose a world with evil and suffering.

[00:11:31]>> You chose a world with evil and suffering that gets defeated. It gets triumphed over >> because you recognize, Jay, you recognize the greatest kind of world that could exist is a world where evil and suffering does exist, but it gets defeated. It gets triumphed over.

[00:11:46]>> And guess what world you live in? You live in a world where that's going to happen. This is the promise in the Bible. Jesus is going to come back. He's going to defeat all the evil and suffering. He's going to wipe away every tear. pain shall be no more and you get to be a part of that story. The Christian message is that on the day of the death of Jesus, evil thought it won.

[00:12:06]It had finally defeated everything. It scattered Israel, God's chosen people.

[00:12:10]It converted the Jews into becoming legalists and now it killed the Messiah.

[00:12:15]It's over evil one. And then the resurrection happens. The new kingdom enters the earth and now the kingdom grows to take over and defeat evil once and for all. and you're called to be a part of that. So if you choose worlds where there's evil and suffering, but you want to see it defeated, wouldn't God also choose a world where there's evil and suffering, but God defeats it?

[00:12:36]>> I would say yes.

[00:12:38]>> Exactly.

[00:12:39]>> You chose that world because it was worth having despite the suffering, >> right?

[00:12:47]>> Yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to keep you guys I'm not but this but I thought about I thought about this today. Um, like I was thinking about like what's my purpose here? Like I feel like >> me personally, I feel like I cannot find my purpose. And I and I and if there's no God, I really don't have any purpose necessarily. You know, I don't I that's what I was thinking about earlier. If I don't have any purpose, why am I why am I here? What am I here for? And you know, and it's, you know, it gets it gets >> you're here because you're meant to be a king over cre creation. That's how what we were originally meant to be. So my my view of the escaton is that we get resurrected in eternal bodies here on the earth. But we have a giant universe that needs to be turned into the garden of Eden.

[00:13:37]>> So God needs as many people as possible to be ready for that mission. Because he established in Genesis 1, it was our job to make the world a better place. We were to subdue creation, bring Eden to all the world. So that's what we're going to keep doing in the resurrection.

[00:13:52]And that So that's your purpose. You You're here, Jay, to make the world a better place in the name of Jesus. And that's what he's calling you to do.

[00:14:03]>> Um, okay. I think I I think I want to uh I think I'm just probably going to convert.

[00:14:11]>> Excellent. Let me u I want to put something on the screen then. is >> I just love I love how you said I love how you said that. That's all.

[00:14:19]>> So, Romans 10:9 Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." So, can you do that?

[00:14:29]>> Yeah.

[00:14:31]Um, wait. I I just I just say it. I mean, >> yeah.

[00:14:37]>> Well, I I I just read I just read um what it say on there.

[00:14:41]>> Yep.

[00:14:42]>> All right. Um, >> okay. So, Jesus Jesus is Lord.

[00:14:52]>> Yep.

[00:14:53]>> And I believe I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead.

[00:14:59]>> Amen.

[00:15:00]>> You're a Christian.

[00:15:03]>> I'm I'm a Christian now. Just wait. Just from that I don't need to get baptized or I don't >> You need to get baptized. Yes.

[00:15:11]>> Yeah. Yeah, I was going to ask, is there is there a church nearby that you that you know of? Do you need help finding a church? Um, how can we help you? Cuz there are next steps, right?

[00:15:23]You should get people that can actually disciple you, people that care about your growth, >> people that will guide you in the right directions, right? So, I'm not going to ask you to tell us where you live or anything like that. Do not dox yourself.

[00:15:37]Um, but if you do need help, like you can email me, you can reach out to me.

[00:15:43]Like, I'm happy to help you find a church, whatever. Um, >> I mean, what what does the does a specific does denomination matter? I mean, >> we at this this channel, we're pretty ecumenical. We we encourage support all churches that don't preach heresy.

[00:16:00]>> So, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, we want you to find a church you're going to grow in. We work with Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians. We just don't work with like people that deny the Trinity or preach heresy, those kinds of things because that's not Christian. So, what I always tell people is find a church you know you're going to grow in and you're going to come closer to Christ and that most importantly is going to baptize you because baptism is a means by which God saves us. So, we need to be baptized. We need to be partaking of the Eucharist.

[00:16:30]So, can we help you find a church that's going to help you do that? Is there is there a church that you feel particularly drawn to between >> orthodoxy orthodoxy or >> then do it do it. I loved it. I love it.

[00:16:43]I love it. Let's do it. Okay. So, um if you'll feel if you feel comfortable, shoot me an email. I don't know if you're in our Discord server. If you are, you can D. You can just at me in the Discord and then you and I then then I went I know your username um we'll DM um and I'll help you find an EO church.

[00:17:01]Um and we'll we'll get you planted, man.

[00:17:05]>> Well, I appreciate you guys, man. 100%.

[00:17:09]>> And don't be a stranger. Seriously, like this is this is huge. This is this is awesome. I want like Mike and I cannot be the people that disciple you sadly, right? The people that are close to you in your physical community are the people that should do that, >> right?

[00:17:22]>> But >> we love you nonetheless and you're our brother and we want to be there for you in the capacities that we can and should be.

[00:17:30]>> 100%. Same to you guys, man.

[00:17:32]>> Yeah. I put fans email in the private chat. Do you see it there?

[00:17:36]>> Uh, yep. I see it.

[00:17:39]>> That's the best way to contact me.

[00:17:41]>> Copy and paste it. will connect with you and we'll get you in an Orthodox church in your area as soon as possible because you need to get baptized. That's that's that is Jesus commanded it. The Bible says baptism is a means by which we are saved. So, we need to do what Jesus commanded and we want to get you through the process as quickly as we can.

[00:18:00]>> All right. Uhuh. Thank you so much, you guys. Thank you so much. I would I would email right when I get off here.

[00:18:07]>> All right. Thank you so much, man. God bless.

[00:18:09]>> All right. God bless. You see >> paid >> made another ortho bro.

[00:18:20]>> Oh that was amazing. Always happy to do that again. That's why we do these call on stream ladies and gentlemen because we are going for the lost sheep and trying to bring them into the kingdom as quickly as we can. So it's been super effective and he was on the edge. He just needed that final push and that's what we came to do. So praise God that he brought him here.