Inspiration, now in session. I'm trying to put out multiple videos every week. Now, we had a good video this week and you're going to hear the audio, but as I promise, because I really appreciate my faithful audio audience. First of all, let me apologize for the fact that you're getting it a few days late on audio.
All that happened was I was on vacation and we were leaving out and I have forgot. I did the live stream the night before, meant to go into the studio the next day and get the audio together. And you know what I'm saying? I've, you know, I prioritize home life, keeping the wife happy, all those things.
So we were prepared to travel for a couple days and yeah, when I got on the road, I was like, you know, I never, I never did do the audio show. So here we are, but as I promise, right, to make this valuable for you all people who listen on audio, you will always get a little more than what's on video through this introduction. So give me a couple minutes. And this is, again, this is probably one of the more controversial shows that you're ever going to get out of Inspire Guys, people.
Why is it controversial? You're asking? Well, we talk a little bit about Roe v. Wade and the abortion issue and we're talking a lot about how the enemy uses the media, celebrities, and the people who are there.
And we talk about media, celebrities, and things like that in order to win over our hearts. But I really break it, break it, break it down. You feel what I'm saying? We like to break things down on this show.
And I think you're going to enjoy that. But before I jump into that, here's the nugget. Here's the bonus clip. I should have made this a Marvel, I should have made this a Marvel credit, but I'll give you this on the front end of that.
You know what I'm saying? You're welcome. Not that you even care. You know, you're welcome.
I don't care what this guy thinks. Anyway, all right. So let's talk about this. There are so many issues in the world today that I sit back and I look at and I listen to people's opinion.
I really try to listen before I give an opinion, like to understand and to make sure I'm processing everything the best that I possibly can. And there's a couple things, a lot of things going on in the world today. I don't have enough time to get to today. But I really started paying attention to why is this stuff working?
And what do I mean? I'm going to use, again, look, we diving in, not for the sake of being controversial or to ruffle up feathers, but because this stuff is out there so thick and so heavy, what I'm really trying to do is provide a biblical Christian logical, emotionally intelligent perspective on some of these things and challenging others to do the same. It doesn't mean I'm going to always be right about my opinion. That's not what this is about.
When you listen to this show, I'm not into trying to force my opinion on you. But what I am trying to do is challenge you to have an educated opinion. So I respect different opinions all the time, but what is somewhat discouraging and frustrating to me is when the opinion I can talk hasn't been vetted properly or logically based on a reason. And so we don't get into some of that.
But here's the one issue I want to give you that I didn't talk about. Brittany Griner is a WNBA player that is unfortunately in Russia right now being detained on trial. Okay, so let me say this before I jump into it. Number one, because that's a serious issue.
And she is a human being. And the last thing I want to do is put salt on her name or whatever. I have not closely followed the trial. I only know loosely that it seems like she is somehow called into selling vape, whether they vape pens, the thing, the electronic smoke, I think it is.
I don't know what those things are. I'm not here to act as if I've been following it closely. I don't know all the legal ins and outs and things like that. So I don't want to, you know what I'm saying?
Somebody on trial trying to get it. Look, last thing I want to do is kind of throw a negativity on that. But I saw something and this is where the frustration. So now again, if you're following this, I'm separating like Brittany's issue in her trial and her coming home, you know what I'm saying?
Because I don't wish being trapped and stuck in Russia on nobody. You feel what I'm saying? But there are a couple of dynamics to this. Hey, what I'm not going to talk about, I just said is the trial itself.
I don't know if she's guilty or innocent. I really don't. So not going to deal with that, but that does matter. If I was following the trial, that's what I would be trying to figure out is like, well, then she guilty, right?
Because the way people are talking, bring her home and justice for her and all of these things. Again, when I talk, when I talk like that, I like to make sense. I like to actually be saying something I believe. So it's like, well, do I genuinely believe like justice.
We do realize like justice being served. Also me. That's being served also means that the guilty person gets like they get arrested. That is justice.
So when people throw out terminology, I'm like, well, is it that we want justice or do we want forgiveness for BG? I don't know. So let's put that aside. Here's the thing that is a little frustrating.
So her coach came out her coach here because she's a WNBA player. So let me bring some perspective. She makes about $220,000 based on something I read today, but I'm not sure I didn't fact check it. I don't know if that's true or not.
But that's about how much a WNBA superstarship probably made. I know on average, they make about $130,000 per player, which means some make less and some make more. She is I believe I don't watch female basketball. But she's a pretty well known name.
I know she was really good in college. I think she's won a championship. She's probably a top play player. I can talk at around $220,000 a year.
Well, you know, the WNBA players, because that's about the max they can make here. Sometimes they go to other countries because over there you can make a million two million a year. I think she was making about a million a year to play basketball in Russia. Makes sense.
You can maximize go travel. Basketball players play overseas all the time. That's common in the culture of basketball. Although to me as the commoner, you wouldn't be able to ask me to go do sales and marketing in Russia because I'm not like, no, I'm good.
I don't want to go somewhere where the only thing I hear is a little bit of negativity. So cool. Whatever. That's my opinion.
I heard her coach say something to the extent of like, if it was LeBron James, he would be home already. And I'm like, like, yo, like, yeah, that's what it is. She would be home if she was a, oh, it says she would be home if she was a famous male athlete, at least to this. I just put it up on Google and looked at a headline.
And I saw another headline specifically named LeBron James. So here's the thing, right? You have a lot of challenging, like, again, these are statements that are made. And when you listen to the rest of the show, you're going to hear a lot about how we break this down and how I believe the devil uses these type of things to win our hearts.
So now you have this situation with a female basketball player that is detained overseas, like anybody with a heart instantly, she's an American. You're going to feel like, oh, I'll bring her home, right? That makes sense to me. That's how I feel.
Like, yo, all right, if she did something wrong, man, it'll probably be better to get her over here. And if we got to, you know what I'm saying, we got to reprimander or something here. And maybe that's better because I don't know what they're going to do to her over there. Right?
So that's my heart. But it gets a little deeper than that when people start throwing out like these random things to like further their point because they don't have an intelligent perspective. So to simply say, if it was LeBron James, he would be home by now, like based on what premise, like based on what, like that, like, we cannot just say we can't roll with these things that like, why are you saying that? First of all, LeBron James would have to go to Russia and do whatever she did that we don't know and we're not going to touch on it.
All right. So that's that. But then just to say like, so that means LeBron can't be guilty in another country. I don't know, but it's just people jump to things to try to touch your emotions and they think they're making a good point.
But it's like prove that. Like, if you're going to say that, prove that. All right. That's one thing.
Here's the other aspect of it. Like to say if she was a famous male athlete, now is obviously a ploy again to pull on your heart stream to make this about female empowerment. This gets so weird and interesting to me because that literally has nothing to do with this whole thing. Russia's not holding her and saying we're holding her because she's a woman.
They're not holding her and saying if this was a male athlete, they would be home. How do we know that Russia, they're Russia, like they're not America. They're not making their decisions based on whatever. But I get what now here's the other point what they're saying is that.
Oh, but the US president America would have gone and got a famous male athlete. Wow, we're talking about war. Like we're talking about like prisoner exchanges. This is like you seen the movie sought like this is like the entry scene of salt.
How do you know that? I'm not in the CIA or FBI fan. You're not like, all right. So here's what I'm saying, y'all.
These are the types of things that flow in the everyday news cycle today. People are saying things that sound good, but they literally are illogical or invalid or just haven't been proven or can't be proved. And what I'm saying is that as a society, if we operate in that level of chaos, the devil will enjoy that because the devil will definitely win over your heart in the midst of chaos. And if he can tap into your emotions and make you a more emotional creature, again, we're going to talk about this in some of the show.
I mean, we'll win over your heart and turn you away from God because the Bible says I throw the scripture out there all the time. There's a way that seems right to a man, but the end there of his death. That always reminds me that there are things that seem or feel right from a human perspective that have the ability to turn me away from God. Me too.
I'm human. That means I can't just fully go off of what feels or sounds good. I have to vet it out. Like this idea in society today that we no longer have to vet things out as long as they sound good is ridiculous to me.
All right. Now, let's go on this last part because I heard some people giving feedback and saying, well, LeBron James wouldn't be in that situation because they were saying this to victim. Again, we're not talking about the case of Brittany Griner, right? And I almost hate to be using her story as an example.
But this is a story that's out there and this is the level. It's almost like every story these days is attached to a person because that's how they build their case. It's just anyway, look, I'm not, I'm not trying to pour a salt on her. But here's a, like, here's an interesting dynamic to this to me.
There are people because again, in a women empowerment age, look, if you want to empower women, by all means do that. But don't do it with illogical or invalid reasoning. So people started saying, well, LeBron James makes enough money. She only makes like, I literally saw somebody say today, she only makes $220,000 a year.
So she has to go to Russia to make a living. Okay, guys. Only $220,000 a year. I am willing to bet you that even if you're listening right now and you're a millionaire, a network millionaire, or have saved a million dollars, I bet nine out of 10 people listening to this right now have never made $220,000 a year.
So the idea that you only make $220,000, therefore you have to go to Russia to make a million dollars a year. You gotta go. Like, that's where this gets really illogical and really invalidate. I'm going to talk today about some things to further drive home.
I point here. I'm just really setting the stage to you for the dynamic conversation that we had on the live stream. Again, this was a live stream. You can see if you want to also see it, click the links in the bio.
You can see it on Facebook, Jermaine James or inspire guys, people on Facebook. You can also see it on YouTube, which is where I would prefer you to look at the preferred channel of watching and listening to the podcast when you want to see it visually is when inspire guys people, YouTube page, but also always Apple podcast my Spotify, PODB, my listeners always appreciate y'all. If you want to see the interaction in the dialogue and I also share some charts, I have presentations all the time. So when you go to the YouTube page, you can also see some of the things if I'm referring to presentations.
And if I'm talking back to people, that just means people were coming in on a live stream. I'm trying to make it make sense for my audio people. Here's my last point here. Those words, she only makes $220,000 a year.
And so therefore she has to go to Russia again, illogical and invalid. And we're going to talk about that. And those are the type of things I don't rock with. Those are the type of things that I feel like are probably the most dangerous thing going on in society today.
Is this twisting of words because that's exactly what Satan does. That's literally what he does. And we have evidence in a in a Bible to show him acting this out in person. So when I see this type of activity taking place, it only makes me think this is saying that work.
And so, but it's working. It's actually winning people over. People are actually being won over by these invalid in illogical points of reason. So here's the last part of that.
People who want to try to use these weird examples to prove that women should make more. Now the WNBA and the NBA are both businesses that generate revenue. They are not the same business, but they are both owned by the same people. And I want to make this make sense for you from this standpoint.
There are products that you go out and you buy in your home all the time who are owned by a company that has different variations of that product, but they don't go to the same bottom line. They're not on the same profit sheet. So as an example, I think T mobile owns man. I don't think I don't know if it's boost mobile, but I'm just getting example.
Boost mobile, I believe is owned by a larger entity. Right. And so what ends up happening is because just because they're owned by T mobile doesn't mean they're T mobile. They have to go out and be profitable on their own.
They have their own budget, their own profit. And then they are paid based on the revenue that they produce. So just because you work for a company that is also owned by a company that is bigger doesn't mean you get paid revenue based on the bigger company's profitability. So the NBA generates about $8 billion annually.
There is something called revenue sharing between the owners and the players of the NBA. That means the money that they get through TV deals and endorsements. The ticket sales think about you go to an NBA game again, NBA games come on TV. Why?
Because people want to watch them? Those are a billion multi billion dollar deals. So what is my point here? In turn, players like a LeBron James are able to sign contracts based on a collective bargaining agreement that their players union and association has collectively bargain and negotiated with the NBA owners.
The NBA owners are not interested in paying the NBA players. First of all, there's not a WNBA team in every single market that the NBA team is generating in second of all, third of all, whatever fourth, whatever we own. The W NBA doesn't come on TV and has the TV deals that the NBA has. And lastly, it's not as popular.
I believe the W NBA came around in 1996. If I'm not mistaken, they're a third of the age. The NBA is 76 years old. That would mean that the the W NBA is around 26.
So there's a 50 year gap where the NBA has been able to build a fan base, become popular and bring in revenue. Now, again, the W NBA, their players have a collective bargaining agreement that they have with their players. I believe they signed a new collectively bargain agreement back in 2020. If I'm not mistaken, increase their average salary, maybe from like 106 a year to 130.
And again, they do not generate anywhere near the revenue that the NBA does. That's not to say that I don't want them women to be paid more, but you cannot illogically let use the NBA as the standard of comparison. That would be like me comparing myself to the Bronze James because I play basketball in the YMCA and nobody comes to my games or I don't sell. No tickets, the hot dog prices, we don't sell more hot dog because I'm there.
Listen, people buy tickets to those games. If you want the women in the W NBA to make more money, go to their games, watch their games on TV. But here's the thing at the end of the day in the sport of basketball. It is a revenue generating business just like your job and my job.
I am not paid if my job does not produce revenue. There is no money to pay me. So this idea that we should just illogically create a premise and conclusion of comparing W NBA players to NBA players doesn't make sense. We are in a world.
Everybody doesn't make the same guys. You have to make money to be able to pay people. This idea, because in the last year, last couple years, we have the government has printed so much money that it has actually generated the mindset of the people that we're just, hey, let's just create money out of nowhere. Let's get the PPP loan has messed y'all up.
Some people got them loans and look, man, mopo, I would tell you if you got it, but it's not going to be the feather. You know what? I'll talk too much because I got a lot more to say. So hopefully you stick around and listen to this live stream, how did they will win their hearts and also check it out on YouTube if you want to be able to follow that way as well.
And thank y'all. You know what I'm saying? Because I think we got like 16, so we getting like a subscriber every other day in the last 28 days, y'all. I think we got 16 subscribers.
We over 159. I think we have the 152. Don't play with me 175. Here I come.
No play with me 175. Here I come. This is Inspire Guys, people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. I appreciate the support and the continued listenership and now watch your ship of all y'all people that's been rocking with us.
We will be four years old on October 10, 10, 10. We turn in four. And I don't know why I just said that, but let's get into this live stream conversation. Now again, today we're going to talk about some things.
It might get a little, I don't know, like my goal today isn't to focus on like the specific politics or specific things that people are arguing and debating about. But my goal is, because I don't want to lead the witness, you know what I mean? I'm not going to lead the witness, but I do want to give you some information and equip you with ways to protect yourself from what I see happening in and around the church today and how to how to devil is winning over people hearts through a couple of key tactics that if you understand them, you can break them down and you can protect yourself. But if you don't, then you really are kind of like you could become a victim of this, you know what I mean?
And so you can be won over into evilness. Like one of the tricks of the devil is that he turns evil things into sympathetic, beautiful things. And I know that sounds crazy on the surface, but the devil has been a devil longer than you've been you. And that's one thing I always tell myself is like, the devil had an opportunity to study everybody in my bloodline.
So he can actually look at the things that make me weak because again, you know, genetics, right? Like maybe my great grandfather had a struggle that my father had in the devil was like, Oh, I know how to get them and they bloodline every time. And I think what happens is that we're walking around living life like the devil just became the devil. The devil ain't a baby.
Like he's not a baby. He didn't just start his job. You ever had a job and like at first it was hard. It was tough.
Then you do the job again and again again and again. Over time, you could do the job with your eyes closed. The devil can devil with his eyes closed at this point. And the problem is that so many of us don't recognize him that way that we, I guess we don't think the devil is real.
We don't think temptation and evil is real and subtle craftiness. And we just think that, Yo, I'm me. Hey, I'm living life. I can handle anything.
I'm right about everything. Everybody thinks they're right about stuff these days. We're going to break some of that down. I'm going to share one last story and then I'm going to jump into this content.
So it was maybe Sunday morning. I don't know what day it was now. I'm not mixing on my days. You know, you haven't extended weekend and it gets real confusing what day it is.
So I go to the smoothie shop. You know what I mean? Just me. I'm just getting a smoothie.
Anybody, if you ever encounter me in life, I'm pretty social. Well, at times I'm social in one-on-one interaction. So we're not necessarily one-on-one. It could be two of us, whatever.
When I go to public places, if you are a worker dealing with me, I tend to be a talkative like, Yo, actually, how you doing? What's going on? I try to be a nice person. You get what I'm saying?
So the girl who's making a smoothie, it was early in the morning. So really it was just me, her, and whoever was in the back. So I'm like, Hey, how you doing? This was before the holiday.
How you doing? What's up? How you doing? Enjoy your day?
She's like, I'm not that good. This is a young girl at that. And so just a very interesting conversation where it first started off happy and she was like, Oh, how are you? And blah, blah, blah.
No, that's what it was. I asked her what she was doing for the holiday. And she got down and out. She got serious.
I'm not feeling patriotic right now. She started talking about the Roe v. way thing. Now, here is the thing.
Listen, yes, from the gas station to the smoothie shop. The thing is, Jen, people out there, I'm everywhere, baby. That's the thing. I'm everywhere.
Like that's what it come down to. But she starts saying she was down and out. She starts talking about the Roe v. way decision and saying she doesn't feel patriotic.
Now, again, I was like, Hey, I hope you feel better. Again, if you want to counter me, I'm not the kind of person that just tries to come at people with my points of view is a opinion without relationship or some type of dialogue. So I left it at that. I didn't try to like dig or anything.
But I found it interesting on a couple of levels. Hey, I was looking like, yo, she's really like engulfed into this whole thing, right? And that made me think like, man, the enemy is really crafty at how he reaches us. And also the other thing that was interesting about that is that when I go out in public and I interact with people, especially when they're at work, like people are very open with their political views.
But only when it seems like they're sharing like some common narrative that's being pushed out in the world. So every, every issue has like a common narrative that's pushed out. That's just marketing. You understand all these politicians, they have marketers and people writing their speeches and leading their campaign.
That's just business. That's how it works. So there's messaging behind the politics and the things out there today. I know a lot of us want to believe that it's just all about the issue, but really it's about the messaging and what they're trying to accomplish.
So today we're going to talk about some things, right? Because I see the devil winning people's heart over with the surface level issues. And the reason I'm saying this this way is like, it's not just the Roe v. Wade.
It's a lot of things regardless of what side of the argument you say and my goal is to equip you with some information today, some tactics to understand how to protect yourself and really even challenge yourself about like, what do I genuinely believe? Am I allowing the devil to win over my heart? And let's jump into it, right? Because I think when I jump into this, you're going to be able to hopefully understand and rock with the content today.
So how to devil one their hearts. Let's first start with the Bible, man. This is this is really where it all starts, right? Genesis chapter three, verses one through seven.
I'm going to rock this real quick. This is the English standard version. It says now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the lower guy had made. He said to the woman, listen to this, you got to like really see how he rocks.
Did God actually say you shall not eat of the tree in the garden? This is what I need you to understand. The devil is so crafty. Notice his first question on the surface.
It sounds like a simple question. It sounds like he's just asking. Oh, I just really want to know. Did God really say that you don't want to eat of any tree in the garden?
That's how the devil operates. The devil doesn't operate and come at you and just knocking stuff down and, you know, all loud or whatever. The devil comes to you as like a caring confidant that really wants you to be at your bed. Like he really sounds like he wants the best for you.
But there's a lot of craftiness to what he did. And I really want you to pay attention. He said, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? So, the first thing that that would imply is that he doesn't actually know what God said.
See, this is how deceptive the enemy is. He will ask you a question that he knows the answer to, but he's trying to change your perception of the answer. I know it sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? But let's rock with this.
Verse two, and the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the tree of the fruit that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. Now, here's what I found interesting. The devil asked Eve a question that both of them already knew the answer to.
This is where this is where it gets crazy. This is where it gets really crazy to me. He asked a question and the goal of this is, I believe, what am I reading? How you doing?
I believe that we are not critically thinking through things. And part of the reason why the devil is winning over our hearts is speed. Life is coming at us so fast. There are so many new stories in the cycle every day.
It's like they just got bullets in the chamber and they letting them loose with a semi-automatic weapon. Maybe that wasn't the best example. But my point is that the stories and the topics come at us hot and heavy. Every day that we wake up, there are new stories strategically chosen.
This is not like anybody who rocks for me even listening to the podcast. We got over 170 episodes, 180 episodes of audio on Apple Podcast. I actually think it's a great time to tell you should go and listen to the podcast. Inspire guys people.
But we have over 180 episodes. We don't mess with conspiracies. We don't jump to conclusions. But I do believe in critically thinking through things.
So I like to take my time, step back, slow it, slow it, down. I tell people all the time. Every news story in the cycle each day is not my problem. Number one, I'm not God.
Number two, mentally, physically, emotionally, I actually cannot carry that bird. I actually can't handle to know everything. Like, do you know something happens right now in New Zealand? If something crazy happens, it might pop up on my phone because Apple decided to alert me through the news on an iPhone?
I can't handle that. There are times that I'm getting news from Oklahoma or Chicago. It's like, yo, I'm in Michigan. The local news is more than enough for me.
I can barely handle that. So what am I saying? Some of us are getting caught up in the speed of things. Things are coming at us so fast that we're not taking the time to step back and critically think and reason logically through these things.
So what's happening is one of the ways the devil is winning over our hearts is keeping us at the surface. He's not allowing us to dig deeper and to critically think and reason through the issues and the topics that are coming at us. So what's being sold to us is one liners and marketing campaigns in means and these things can be very convincing because the devil is very strategic. He asks you questions that he already knows the answer to that you already know the answer to, but he has a really unique goal in asking that question to change your mind or at least imply something different.
It's like, it's actually kind of crazy how he does it. Let's get back into it. So when you go to verse three, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither show you touch it, let you die.
Verse four, but the serpent said to the woman, see, I want you to understand something. When you're dealing with the devil, there's always a but and there's always something that he's trying to convince you of through illogical and invalid reasoning to change your mind. Everything starts in your mind. That's why the Bible says in Romans, be he transformed.
How what by the renewing of your mind? Some of us. Again, I might be guilty to this. I'm not pointing a finger at you.
I'm just talking about the world and how we are moving through the world today. We are allowing our minds to be corrupted with so much false information, so much emotional. See, if you only deal with an issue on the surface, you may actually believe something different than you truly believe in this situation that we break down right now. The serpent was living on the surface with Eve and trying to convince her by asking her questions, presenting himself as someone who cared like, yo, let's just get back into it.
Let's get back into it. What up, Liz? Keep that heart with all diligence for out of it, all the issues of life. Thank you for sharing that scripture.
You know what? I encourage all the scriptures. I love that. As we're thinking through scripture and talking through these things, we should be reminded of other scriptures, right?
Out of our heart flows the issues of life. That's a great scripture because the devil is winning over our hearts. And what we're doing, Liz, thank you for bringing that up. We're actually allowing our hearts to be the gospel.
So we're almost worshiping ourselves because what we're saying is that what I feel in my heart is actually more important and more the truth than what the Bible says. So at the enemy, if the devil wins over my heart, meaning he presents a topic or issue to me on the surface, he has to keep you on the surface because if you logically reason through it, he knows you will get to the truth. But just like Eve, if he can keep you on the surface, he could change your mind and win over your heart. All right, let's rock with this.
Where we at? Verse four, but the surface said to the woman, you will not surely die. Notice how if you go back. Let's see, let's see, verse three.
Verse three, it says, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. This is Eve talking. But then the enemy jumps in and says, you will not surely die. I need you to understand something.
The word surely seems subtle. If you blink, you might not even notice that is there. So God said, if you touch this, you would die. The enemy comes back and says, but you won't surely die.
And what is up happening is in order to deceive us and win over our hearts, the devil slides in little words, little wrinkles, little nuances that are actually invalidate reasoning because they don't support the premise, right? The conclusion should support the premise. Whenever there's a premise being presented to you, the conclusion that you arrived to should actually support the premise, not contradict the premise because the enemy was not telling Eve that God didn't talk to you. The enemy didn't go to Eve and say that God isn't real.
Notice that. Notice that the serpent never said God isn't real. Never challenged the validity of the conversation that Eve had with God. But what he tried to do was change what God said by adding a new word saying, you will not surely die.
Jackie, what's up? Little technicalities. Do you feel me though? And that's how the enemy operates.
So let's go to verse five. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil. Verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to her eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. I want you to understand something about the enemy. The enemy is not just coming to change your mind and to get you to be out of pocket and to draw you away from what God has called you to. He wants to draw away the people that are close to you as well.
Your husband, your wife, your children, the enemy doesn't just want to change your mind. He wants to use you as an influencer to change someone else's mind. And I think we see this happening across the world every day today because people are being influenced by the enemy and they're using that influence to go out and change people's mind with surface level arguments that really don't stand up against the fire of any type of real objection or any type of real interaction or dialogue. It's really just, hey, if I create a mean that says something that touches your heart, you will take this mean as the truth without ever even testing it with the fire.
The Bible says, try the spirit of the spirit. There are things that we should be doing. There are things that we should be testing. We should be searching the scriptures.
We should be studying. So what is it? Reprove? I can't even think of it.
I'm sorry. Like my mind just scattered on that. Judge me later. Okay.
Let's jump back into this. So here's what we have going on. I want to talk to you a little bit about fallacies. Okay.
And again, now we're about to jump into some of the tactics that the enemy uses and I genuinely believe that the number one goal, I'm not going to say number one, that's an exaggeration. But one of the key goals and tactics of the enemy is to actually just twist and change the argument with the subtle invalid reasonings in order to change your mind. And he does it in ways that again, you will not surely die. He adds a word.
He takes away a word. He puts music behind the commercial. Let me tell you something. You can take a dog eating a biscuit and put it behind some violins playing and make a commercial telling us how we should also eat dog biscuits.
And I'm telling you, I might shed a tear. You have to understand your own emotions, man. The enemy uses your own emotions against you. You are emotional, but you should have emotional intelligence.
You should also understand logic. You should also understand reasoning. You should also understand. And again, this is when we talk about the Bible.
The Bible is not just something we should just read and talk around and treat it like it's the horoscope or fortune cookie. This is the word of God. This is something that we should be studying and looking at and also understanding the context of the things that are being said in it. There's no book in the world that you just open up to any page and read it without understanding the context and run with it.
But we do that with the Bible. We close our eyes, open it up. Oh my God, Psalms 118. There we go.
Let's we read that and then we never actually find out what's being said. Who's saying it? Why are they saying it? What's the context of timing?
All of these things in order to be able to properly apply it to our lives. And that's what we're talking about today. What we got? Liz, study the show thyself approved unto God of workmen that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Thank you so much for sharing that. Let me just say this, right? Thank you for sharing that, Liz. Rightly dividing the word of truth.
Listen, y'all, I know we want it. We just want memes. We don't want to take any time to step back and think through anything. You probably don't have time for this right now.
People probably like, I don't have time for this, you may. Could you put this in a 15 second Instagram reel so I can digest it? No, I want to challenge you to actually take a step back because we should be rightly dividing the word of truth. And unfortunately, in order to rightly divide the word of truth is going to take more than a 30 second reel.
It's going to take more than a TikTok video of somebody crying, singing, dancing, or a baby eating pudding. You have to rightly divide the word of truth. That means it's going to take some effort. That means it's going to take some time.
But if you really care about the truth, if you really care about the issues that are in the world, and one of the reasons I'm creating this video and this content is because there are a lot of serious issues happening. And the problem is that if we don't learn how to critically reason through these situations, the devil will continue to win over people's heart because all he got to do is give you an opportunity. Most people, a lot of influencers out here, I understand it. There are people that say, yo, I'm trying to get an endorsement or I'm getting my followers.
I've watched this through the years. I will watch a major Christian influencer, pastor, rapper, artist, singer, whatever it is. They will skate away from the serious issues in the church in a minute, but let there be something at the world, plus their sample of approval on and they will be at the front lines acting like they're the most brave person in the world, you know, speaking up and speaking loud and speaking proud. If you are a believer, man, if you believe and love the word of God, I don't understand how we could say that God gives us these platforms and we never use them to give him glory.
Look, I don't care what you ate for breakfast today. Look, we make videos about everything. Congratulations. 20,000 people want to see you eat an apple today.
But if you have that kind of platform and you call this ministry and you call yourself a believer, you should be brave enough to rightly divide word of truth. And if you're rightly dividing it, yes, some people won't like it, but you're not doing it out of hate. So many times what happens is the devil paints the image of Christians, Christianity, believers, he paints this image and we sit back and allow it because we don't say nothing because we have not allowed challenged ourselves to rightly divide it. When you rightly divide something is much harder for people to take it and try to spend it for what they want to do it for.
That's just my two cents on that. All right, let's keep it rocking. So let's look at what a fallacy is. And this is part of what I believe the enemy is using to get us a fallacy is a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.
Then it also says a failure in reasoning which renders an argument invalid faulty reasoning misleading or unsound argument. So let's let's really take a step to think about this. I believe that one of the ways that the devil is winning over people's hearts is fallacies. I believe that the devil is creating invalid arguments and reasoning.
He is taking a topic that you care about. He's taking something real and he's spending it. And I'm going to give you one example of how people spend things whenever you see data and statistics. Statistics are very, very deceptive because people can take statistics and make them mean whatever they want them to mean.
I'm going to give you an example. Let's say if there were 10 people and all 10 of these people drunk this juice that was making them sick. And all 10 of those people also chewed a pack of bubblegum. But the pack of bubblegum only made six of them sick.
It didn't make all 10 of them sick. But here's the nuance. So what the data would say is that the juice made 100% of the subject sick, but the gum only made 60% of the subject sick. So you would say that the juice is more dangerous than the gum.
But here's how you could flip that. Let's say that whatever the juice did to them, even though the symptoms are exactly the same. Let's say we came up with a rule where we all agreed. We're not calling that sick.
Whatever the juice did to you, juice doesn't count as sick. So we can say we can come out with a commercial and we can say the leading cause of sickness. It makes 60% of people sick is this bubblegum because we want to get this gum off the market. But what we've done is we've padded the evidence in order to have a technicality where we don't call the juice what it actually is.
Right? That happens, believe it or not. And I know like one of the things is that abortion is a very self-topic for people to think through and talk about. I'm not going to go too far down the road, but I do want to just share like some factual statistics.
This is fat, right? When it comes to abortion as an example, you will read about the number one cause of death in the African American community and it will be health related. They will say that the number one cause of death in the African American community is hypertension and high blood pressure, right? And high blood pressure and hypertension kills a lot of people.
So that is true. But here's where it's tricky. I think starting back in like 2013, I think New York was the first state in 2013. You don't mark me on that, but I advise you to go look up the numbers for yourself.
Where for the first time in the black community, there were more babies aborted than born in New York. Now what I can tell you about abortion as tricky is way more babies are aborted than people who die from hypertension. But abortion isn't counted in the death statistics. So if you don't count something in a statistic, you can change the data to make it seem like something else.
Now again, I'm not here to argue with you about the nuances or however you feel about an abortion. I'm only giving you factual evidence of the fact that there are more babies in some states aborted than born. Now, just speaking as a black man, this is just again a simple math in a way that I look at things. I look at it and I say, man, this is interesting.
As black people, we are minorities. Now, the Hispanic race is really going to be the majority I think in the next 10 to 15 years. Don't quote me on that. But there's data that supports the fact that they are a growing population.
Cool, great. The African American community, we have such a small voice and we are the minority. At the same time, we abort more of our babies than we allow to be born. So just off simple math.
Again, I'm not trying to debate or anything about your feelings about abortion. I'm just breaking down some simple math. If we allow more of the babies to be born, then we might be the majority, which a lot of the things I see as complaining about is like, you know, we complain about not having a voice or one other people to give us a voice. I'm like, man, there might have been another way to solve this issue.
Let's just give birth to more people than the rest of the races or nationalities, which I'm not saying this in a literal sense like, let's do that and then go against everybody. That's not the point. But what I'm saying is when I look at it, now here's the last part I want to add. Also want to add that when you when you really look at the fact that what was our name, Margaret Sanger, who started playing a parenthood again, this is just back.
I'm not getting into any like debates or something. There was what was it called the Negro project? I believe it was called the Negro or the Black Project, the entire goal for Planned Parenthood in the beginning, everybody knows this now. It was to eliminate the Black race.
It was literally to do that to do that. That's not a conspiracy or anything. That's just the truth. Well, they've changed the messaging again.
It gets really tricky with this stuff because if you change the messaging on things, you can win over the hearts of people by simply changing the messaging when the results and the outcome are exactly the same. But so what's intriguing to me is that something that was started and pushed to Black people to eliminate that. Again, this isn't me. This is if you just read the actual like the origin of it.
It actually is successful and we are now like aborting more than we are birthing. But if these nuances of like if it's not a baby, then it's not a murder, if it's not, but it could have been a life. But so if it's born, it is a life and then you understand how tricky this stuff gets. The reason I'm bringing up something so dynamic as abortion, again, not to make you mad not to get people up in arms is to simply say when we have something so layered, we really have to think through it.
And as much as we want to make everything Black and White for the sake of a Facebook post or Instagram post or a meme, because we want, you know, we post these means in a matter of fact way. And that's one of the things that's really interesting to me about the way we communicate these days is that we communicate in matter of fact, Black and White ways about very complex issues that at times we haven't even given the proper time or effort to actually study. And so for me, just thinking through logic and reasoning, I'm like, how can we come to conclusions if we don't even understand the premise and we haven't even broken down the premise to understand like what are we calling what and why are we calling that and asking ourselves, well, what do I truly believe? You get what I'm saying?
If you keep people at the surface, you at the surface, you can win over their hearts with messaging and music and get your favorite celebrity to have a commercial and I'm not saying those things are all bad. But what I'm saying is that, you know, I'm the kind of person where if you want to convince me of something, I ask questions. If you want to sell me something, I ask questions. I want to know like, well, why?
Why are you saying I need that? Like, you know, and if we live on the surface, the enemy will continue to win over our hearts and we haven't critically thought through. Now, if you critically think through everything and properly research the data and you still land at the conclusion that you feel, then I'm not mad at that. That's the other thing is that I believe when we grow through our critical thinking and reasoning that we also are able to disagree with people without, you know, being angry at them, a disagreement should not always equal anger.
It just means that me and you read the same book, we looked at the same data and we feel differently about it. And I think that's OK. But part of what's being pushed in the world today through invalid reasoning is this idea that you can't have an opinion that's different in my list. I'm telling you right now, if you're watching this and you feel different to me, like I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ, if you don't, that's fine.
I can still talk to you at a smoothie shop. I can still go to the movie with you and ask you how you're doing today. I can still shake your hand and do a business deal with you. I don't have to project out of my emotions the way I feel onto you.
But I am open to a logical, critical thinking and reasoning to have a discussion with you where I believe strongly in the data and the research and the reasons I believe what I believe in a way that I can share with you, not in a forceful way, but just share them and allow you to critically reason. But the devil doesn't want you to critically reason because if you critically reason, he might lose your heart. See, if he could just keep it on the heart and stop you from actually thinking beyond the surface, then he can win you over. All right.
So that's fallacies. What's next? What we got on board next? So here's a couple of things about fallacies, right?
Fallacies are errors or tricks of reasoning. Now, when it's an error, it's accidental. When it's a trick, it's if a speaker or writer uses it in order to deceive or manipulate his audience, this is very important to understand. Fallacies can be an error of reasoning or a trick of reasoning.
So again, if it's an error of reasoning, it just means that I created an invalid argument by mistake. I didn't mean to do it like I gave some wrong data or I gave the wrong statistic. Like what I just said about New York, if you look it up and you're like, yo, it wasn't more babies born, uh, aborted than born in New York in 2013. The fourth thing was wrong.
That would mean that's an error and reasoning, right? That would mean I gave you incorrect information and you should feel free to hit me up DME or email me or leave a comment and tell me that I was wrong and share the right and then I would have to relook at it and say, Oh, wait a minute. It was 2015, whatever it is, right? But that would be an error of reason.
A trick of reasoning would be if I was to purposely leave out or change information or add a word like a serpentia, you will not surely die in order to manipulate my audience. This is very, very tricky. A trick of reasoning. All right, so let's keep it going.
This is important, whether a fallacy is an error or a trick, whether it's formal or informal. It uses its use undercuts the validity and soundness of any argument. At the same time, for the least reason and can damage the credibility of the speaker writer and then properly manipulate the emotions of the audience or reader. Whether a fallacy is an error or it's a trick, a formula informal is just simply a formal, a formal fallacy means the form of the argument is incorrect, right?
Like the structure of it, meaning that your conclusion, you have a premise and we go look at an example real quick, but you have two premises and the conclusion is just completely off the rails. An informal fallacy means the content is incorrect, the substance of it, right? So again, that would mean if I gave you incorrect data, that would mean that was an informal fallacy. At the end of the day, the premise might be set up properly for a proper conclusion, but the content and it makes it informal because I gave you false information.
If the enemy gives you false data and false information, it's an informal fallacy. If the enemy structure something incorrectly, twist words to deceive you, that's a formal fallacy, right? These are just ways to think through reasoning. All right, so when you think about a formal fallacy, here's an example, right?
Most formal fallacies are errors of logic. The conclusion doesn't really follow form. It's not supported by the premises. Either the premises are untrue or the argument is invalid.
And here's an example, premise one, all black bears are omnivores, premise two, all raccoons are omnivores. So here's the conclusion, all raccoons are black bears. Now, we know that that's not true. Now, again, when we talk about fallacies and these invalid reason is when someone gives a premise and then they give another premise and they jump to a conclusion that has nothing to do with either premise, whereas just incorrect, right?
All black bears are omnivores. All raccoons are omnivores. Didn't a conclusion that doesn't make you to lead? Well, all raccoons are black bears.
No, that's invalid reasoning. But if you only have somebody's attention for 15 seconds, you might be able to make them believe that you know I want you on your own to look through your timeline tonight after this video and tell me how many formal or informal fallacies you see, whether it be a meme, I saw some other day. I actually saw AOC posted a post AOC. If you don't know AOC, this is one of the major politicians that's pushing socialism.
She has like 18. Don't don't get me. She has millions of followers on Twitter and Instagram and AOC said something really tricky. She said I have it on my phone, but I didn't put it in this presentation.
She said something to the effect, right? Don't quote me on this, but she said forced pregnancies are something against humanity and she was talking about the Roe v. Roe v. Way thing, but she said something interesting forced pregnancies and I thought, wow, that would imply.
Well, again, whether you I'm not here to tell you whether agree or disagree, I'm just pointing out some of the messaging and things that I critically think through when I see it. Maybe I want to agree with AOC and I'm giving her a chance to say, let me read and see what AOC is saying. But when someone says forced pregnancies are and don't quote dot dot, it was like something to say this and act against humanity or something like that. Well, a forced pregnancy, we're talking about logical.
If I told you someone forced someone to get pregnant, then that would mean that they forced them to have intercourse. Like that's not the same a forced pregnancy. See, if you wanted to technically be right with the point she was trying to make, she would have said a forced birth, but she understands that in order to have a greater impact to stay on the surface to win over people's hearts, you have to use certain messaging and terminology. So you would say forced pregnancy.
Well, that's a fallacy. We're only talking logic. People, there's no law that's forcing you to get pregnant. If you are not pregnant right now, right?
If you're not pregnant and you have no intention to get pregnant, there is no law going around and says, hey, you that doesn't have a baby that doesn't want to have intercourse or doesn't want to have unprotected whatever it may be. This is a family show. Hey, you I'm going to force you to get pregnant. See, that is just invalidate reasoning.
And that's what I'm talking about today. I'm not trying to lead the witness and make you agree or disagree with me. You can go in through the reasoning or so. But what I am saying is that there's a lot of invalid reasoning and people's hearts are being won over to the enemy.
And here's the thing I'll say. If you're going to go to any, either team, whatever team you're going to go on, right, whatever side of politics and all that you're going to go on, wouldn't you prefer to have logically reason and critically thought through and really believe the side that you own versus having been tricked to be on the side of you? See, I don't have a problem with people on any side of politics or anything like that. You can kind of do what you want to do.
That's what I love about being in America is that you have the right to disagree with me and I shouldn't harm you. I shouldn't be disrespectful to you or anything. That also goes the other way around. Just like people can come on the internet and they can share why they are for something, I should be able to share my perspective, right?
Just like people at work can say how they feel. I should be able to say how I feel. But we're creating an environment in the world today where in order to destroy God's traditional values and families and adoptions of the Bible, the enemy wants you to be invalid in your critical thinking illogical. He wants you to judge the conclusions that don't support a premise.
He wants you to just other things that are not the truth, but they sound good. People rally in protest for things that are invalid logically. And that's scary. That's a really scary thing.
Let's see what Christian Palmer says. Oh, imagine how to look, Chris, I'm going to be honest. I saw the craffload dollar thing. That's a good example, right?
I saw that is being talked about. I haven't watched what craffload said. I think I watched the first five seconds and I got tired. But that is a great example, right?
These things are coming on the internet every day. There'll be something tomorrow. There'll be something to go on the up world about tomorrow. And that's the thing you have to understand about the 24-hour news cycle and unlimited access that the internet provides us, which could be really good.