Take Your Thoughts Captive: Faith, Culture & Renewing Your Mind
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
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He's just a regular guy with a cool job that God loves for some reason. Welcome to The Steve Marston Show, a daily journey in learning how to live more like Jesus, conversations with those that God is working through, and dad jokes. It's the most unique show you'll hear today. Now, here's Steve. Okay, here we go. Welcome in. The Steve Marston Show is back, especially for those of you listening on radio.
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We haven't been with a fresh show for you since Monday of this week. And that's because there was so much been going on, but I'm thankful that you're here. We are live every weekday, Monday through Friday at 3 PM on a couple of amazing radio stations. One of them is the OG that's in Little Rock. That's the one that first put us on the air. That's the word 99.5. And then a few months after we launched there, were...
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added to the lineup of the amazing AM 630, the Word in San Antonio. And we've been there and then the podcast has kind of developed out of that and kind of grown into it's a life of its own. And so we're thankful to be able to be with you whenever you are listening. Cause look, I know how podcast listeners are because I am one. I know you may be listening to this six months from now, maybe even a year from now. So I get it. I understand.
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But I thank you, no matter when you're listening, that you are joining us here today. And I wanted to start today with Lainey Wilson. Now, Lainey Wilson is the biggest thing in country music right now. And she has some amazing songs that are not necessarily Christian-based. I never would have really said, oh yeah, Lainey Wilson is someone who is a godly person that is just happening to be singing country music.
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Never would have made that kind of guess, but she came out with an Instagram reel and I found fascinating. And it's something that we talk about on this program all the time. So am I saying that Laney Wilson is a low key listener of this program? Well, I'm just not ruling it out. Let me just say it like that. But what she talked about in her Instagram reel was about how much faith is a mindset.
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And again, that's a principle we hit on all the time because it really is between your ears living this Jesus life out. Not just being a church member. I'm not talking about that. We're not talking about just being a quote-unquote Christian on Sundays when church is open. But I'm talking about the day in, day out, everyday struggles of life trying to allow Jesus to live through us and not ourselves. That...
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is what is a mindset. That is so much saying, okay, this is how I'm going to do it. You have to be intentional with it. So anyway, I want to play you a couple of clips from Laney Wilson's Instagram reel about this. And I just thought it was fascinating. And I'll let you hear it right here. Did y'all know that you have between 8,000 and 80,000 thoughts and feelings every single day, like automatic thoughts and feelings, but here's the scary part.
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Two thirds of them are actually not real. They're false. And so when you let thousands of automatic untrue thoughts run wild in your brain, they do something dangerous. And this is what I'm learning. They create a negative reality around you and your world starts to really look like your worries. That's terrifying because your life goes exactly where you place your attention. It's about where you position yourself.
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And what I'm learning is that you can take your thoughts captive. You can decide that you are not gonna be a victim of your mind. You are the gatekeeper. And the Bible actually tells us that we can be transformed by the renewal of your mind. I'm over here just trying to renew, renew, renew. Lord help me. But I'm learning that if you shift your focus to a gratitude focused life,
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that can do it. And life and death lies in the power of the tongue. Your girl's tongue be over here doing crazy stuff. But what you speak and what you focus on, that is what you will grow. So I'm learning that through Christ, we have the authority to speak to the problem. That once again is country music superstar, Lainey Wilson from an Instagram reel she posted not terribly long ago. I'm so thankful to hear how she's growing in her faith and she's right. We do have the power.
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of life and death in our tongue. I mean, that comes straight from Scripture. And the whole thing about speaking to problems, we have the authority to do that. I know that you can kind of get carried away with that sometimes and get it out of focus of what God originally intended for it, but still, that's really good stuff. Then she finished up with something that I'm not exactly sure about, but I want to let you hear it anyway because I don't want to be accused of just playing parts of...
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her Instagram reel. Here's the second part of Laney Wilson from the other day. And there are two books by Tara Sierra Mosley that have helped me just lean into that more. And I keep them right next to my Bible. This one right here has been out for a minute and I give it to all of my friends who come through the door. Um, and her new book right here, House of the Forest, it actually comes out on September 15th.
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and was able to get my hands on it early. And y'all, these books are really incredible. These books are for decrees and declarations, and it is teaching you how you can renew your mind and fight what is not true. I mean, these books right here, they remind me to stand on his promise. It has specific decrees too, like.
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a decree for widows, a decree for your husband, a decree for childhood cancer. And so on the list goes on and on and on. Really anything that you can imagine. feel like this book has one specifically for that. And so I just wanted to share with y'all what I'm learning and books like this are helping me learn. So let's learn together. I love y'all. good. Once again, there's Lainey Wilson from her Instagram reel not terribly long ago.
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And she mentioned this Tara Sierra Mosley. Now, I have no idea who that is. This is the first time I've ever heard of her name. I'm sure she's a great person. I'm sure she uses her left and right turn indicators when she's in traffic. I'm sure she has excellent manners. I'm pretty positive, even though I've never seen her.
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I bet she does not have a contemporary liberal hairdo. You got a contemporary liberal hairdo. What in the world is wrong with you? And because I don't know her, I'm not going to recommend you buy any of her books. However, I do like that fact that Laney Wilson is taking Bible study that seriously to be able to find other resources to help her learn and continue to grow. And there's such a place and such a need for that. And that dovetails nicely.
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with what we offer at our website, stevemarsdonshow.com. When you get to a point where you're ready to maybe take the next step in Bible study, you don't necessarily have a workbook or a devotion that you want to do. You want to try to figure things out on your own. You want to be able to open up God's Word and treat it fairly and be able to judge it rightly and be able to interpret it for yourself. It can be done.
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I know that sounds maybe intimidating to some people, but look, it's absolutely possible. mean, God wouldn't have given us His word if it was going to be some kind of coded thing that we were going to have to, you know, cross our fingers and try to hope for the best. No, it can be done. And one of the ways I've been helped in studying Scripture by myself is some of these strategies that I have given to you. It's called Five Tips.
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for Bible study, can find it at our website, stevemarschdonshow.com. It's a PDF and it's absolutely free. And look, all I want to do is get it into your hands. So just go to our website and you can download it there and boom, it'll come to you as a free digital download. So it's not like something you have to wait on. You just go there, fill out the little form and it comes right to your...
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to your inbox. And so I think it will really help you. These are not something that necessarily that I came up with on my own, and there are certainly more strategies out there than these. But these are a good start. These are a good place to begin when you really are serious about studying the Bible and getting the most out of your time with God. Again, there's just something to be said about that when you don't have another person, whether it be through a devotional book.
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or through a workbook to help you and you just kind of are able to mine the truths that are in God's Word on your own. Yeah, man, there's something really special and neat about that. So go to the website stevemarschdonshow.com and look for the banner that says free PDF and we would love to send it to you and get it into your hands today so that you can get going with your Bible study. Okay, stay with us more coming up.
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Welcome back! The Steve Marston Show continues. Discipleship has never been more fun.
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I gotta tell you something that's gonna be really cool coming to our YouTube channel real soon. Now, one of the trendy things to do is to celebrate milestones at YouTube. So when you get to a certain number of subscribers, usually the content creators will do something fun. And we're gonna try to do that with the 250 number. Now I know that in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but look, we stripped our YouTube channel literally down to the studs, not.
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terribly long ago, so we're building it back up. And once we get to 250 subscribers, I want to give away a prize from John MacArthur in Grace to You. This is a wonderful prize. It's a study Bible with John MacArthur's notes in it, and it's got genuine calf skin leather. So, I mean, this is a Bible that's valued somewhere around $150 or $200. So when we hit that 250,
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subscriber mark on YouTube, we will do a drawing and get you a chance to win this. It's really a beautiful resource. I use the commentary from John MacArthur all the time, and the commentary is basically built into the study Bible here. So it's his notes from Genesis through Revelation, and what better Bible teacher to have than John MacArthur, right? So we'll do that when we hit 250 subscribers, which, by the way, if you haven't subscribed, you know what to do.
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So Steve Marston Show is the name of the channel and we would love for you to hop on over there the next time you are on YouTube. All right, on Fridays we like to do some fun things, including review the Babylon Bee. Now the bee is our kind of online resource of record. A lot of people will tell you on Christian radio shows what's going on according to maybe things in Politico or maybe in the Washington Post.
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or maybe the New York Times or the New Orleans Times Picayune. Maybe not that one, but it is fun to say Picayune. So we don't do that around here. Nope, we go straight to the most satirical website on the internet, especially when it concerns those of us that live and work in the Christian bubble. It's the Babylon Bee. So let's get started with today's review of the Bee.
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And this one is good for all of the fellas listening because this, according to the Babylon Bee, 12 common trap questions from your wife and bonus, how to respond to each one of them. So men, the Babylon Bee says, if you've been married for any length of time, then you have no doubt fallen prey to a trap question. Women love asking these type questions that they don't want answers to.
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just so they can start a fight. That's from the bee, not from Steve. In their nature, it's in their nature, so you need to be prepared. And we got you. So let's get to it. Here are 12 common trap questions in no particular order and how to respond to them when your wife throws them out there. Are you ready? Here we go. We'll start with number 12. Do you remember what today is? The answer to that question is,
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Throw a flashbang and run. Good advice there. 11. The question is, do you like my family? The answer, I don't know half of them, half as well as I should like. And I like less than half of them, half as well as they deserve. Wordy, but that's a quality answer. Okay, we're up to number 10 on the Babylon Bee's list of 12 common trap questions from your wife.
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and how to respond to them. Number 10, do you notice anything different about the way I look today? The answer, only that you grow even more beautiful with every rising and setting of the sun. Yes sir, that's quality, that's the answer. Number nine, what's the best way to repair the carburetor on a 1988 Ford Ranger that's stalling at idle? The answer,
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Ah, see that's a trick question. 1988 Ford Rangers uses a fuel injected engine, not a carburetor. The issue is probably a dirty throttle body or small vacuum leak. Babylon B thinks of everything, don't they? We're at number eight on the list. The question, what should we watch tonight? The answer, no matter what you put on TV, I'll just be watching you.
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That's smoother than fresh churned butter, isn't it? Okay, we're up to number seven on the list here of the Babylon Bee's 12 common trap questions from your wife and how to respond to them. what do you want for dinner? The answer, whatever you're thinking of right now, sweetheart, is perfectly fine with me. Again, really good. Number six, which celebrity do you have a crush on?
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You have to be careful here. The answer? Tom Holland. Number five. Oh, this one has gotten a lot of guys in trouble. The question. If I die, would you remarry? The answer. No, because I would die too. That is genius. We're continuing on in the Babylon Bee's 12 common trap questions from your wife and how to respond to each of them.
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We're up to number four. Would you still love me if I were a colossal desert sandworm? The answer, what shy Hulud has decreed must be. Bless the maker and his water. Bless the coming and the going of him. May his passage cleanse this world. You have to be a fan of the movie Dune to understand that reference. Okay, we're up to number three.
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on the list and this one has entrapped many male species by the female wife. And the question is, does this dress make me look fat? Well what is the only answer guys that you can deliver without getting into any trouble? Get thee behind me Satan!
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We're up to number two on the Babylon Bee's list of 12 common trap questions from your wife and how to respond to each. do you think Sidney Sweeney is attractive? Answer, what is a Sidney Sweeney? Ah, that's well played again. Love it. And finally, the number one trap question from your wife and how to respond to it, fellas, is this one.
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Which one of my friends is the prettiest? The answer, you have female friends? I have never noticed. There you go, the Babylon Bee, looking out for all of us married guys and helping us with these trap questions. Such good stuff. Okay, stay with us when we come back. Adam Holtz from Plugged In.
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and focus on the family will join us to talk all things movies and technology here on the Steve Marston Show. Don't go away, back in a fly.
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Welcome back to Steve Larson Show Continues. It's where faith and fun are both taken seriously. And on Fridays, just about every Friday, we like to welcome in our buddy Adam Holtz. is with pluggedin.com, which is a ministry of focus on the family. And we talk about all things entertainment, especially related to movies and the streaming shows, and just all things, not only entertainment wise, but technological wise as well. So Adam, buddy, welcome back. Steve, great to talk to you. Thank you.
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Yeah, man, this is going to be a kind of a big week because there is a blog that you guys have out there we want to touch on before we get through. That's going to be really interesting, I think, for everybody to check out. But first, let's talk about a couple of movies that are hitting theaters this week. And one of them, I think, released was yesterday. And I got to be honest, haven't heard anything about this. It's called Daniel and the Fiery Furnace, which I'm assuming is talking about what happened with in the book of Daniel.
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No, it's totally about smurfs. Yeah. Although that would be kind of interesting, wouldn't it? That'd be a nice little take on it. The smurf version. No, I make that joke because sometimes when you hear a title of a new movie, you know, like obsession or back room, it's like, well, I have no idea what that means. Right. It could mean anything, but this is a nice, straightforward, concrete title that tells us, okay, what's the story about?
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and it is indeed the story of Daniel and his three friends and their faithful witness to their faith in God as they are deported to Babylon. And of course, we know them as more commonly as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Those were the Babylonian names that they were given. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that because Daniel's the Hebrew name, but
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That was not what he was called in Babylon, and then the opposite happened with the three pharens. Yep. So they were Hananiah, and Michelle, and Azariah, and we just we get their story. I mean, this is pretty straightforward. I don't think there are any huge surprises here. I believe Michael W. Smith is either producer or executive producer on this project, so it's really faithful to the biblical text. Obviously,
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we could maybe call it the chosen effect. Whenever you're telling a biblical story, there are going to be places where maybe you're not coloring outside the lines so much as just filling in details imaginatively that aren't necessarily there in scripture. And certainly we have some things in this movie that you're going be like, wait, I don't remember that from scripture. But thankfully none of those things are
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theologically problematic or creating other problems that they shouldn't be, which sometimes that can happen. So I think that speaking of The Chosen, I feel like with The Chosen's success, we're just getting more and more of these Bible projects on film, on TV, and where I think there's an opportunity for families
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Obviously, you'll want to check out our full review and make sure that it is appropriate for your family. PG-13, mostly for suggestions of the violence that could take place, although we know what happened in the fiery furnace, right? I think the value here is to watch these shows as a family and then get your Bibles out and read the stories that they're based on.
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Kind of do a compare and contrast exercise, you know? I couldn't agree more. That is such the way to do this because I remember taking my family to see the Star Wars movies. Of course, you know, final three Star Wars episodes, you know, we don't have to rehash that. But we went to Burger King, which was adjacent to the movie theater right after and grabbed lunch. And that's what we did. We did like a full breakdown of what we thought of the movie.
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And when you can add the Bible to that and to really break down what did we see and hear that was really true and what was just kind of added in for story sake, that is amazing and so good. And one of the things I find kind of interesting is I'm looking at pluggedin.com's review of this movie. All of the actors are Middle Eastern, which brings a more authentic feel. Right. Usually we have British actors and somehow we think everybody in the Middle East was speaking the King's English.
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oh it was so authentic, like what they were all British? That doesn't make any sense. But yeah, I think it has a very authentic feel to it. And you know, I think also maybe this is taking another step. This part of the world is still in the news today, right? you know, Babylon was in Iraq, I believe, and just the Middle East tension.
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I think it gives us another window to say, why is there all of this conflict in the Middle East? I know when I was growing up, I'd watch the news and it's like, why are they always fighting over there? not everything, but a lot of the core conflicts are religious conflicts between Jewish people and Muslims and different cultures clashing. And we see that here too, right? You have the Babylonians, the pagans coming and
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taking away the faithful Israelites. But one of the interesting things about this movie is it gives a little bit broader historical context and that Jeremiah is a character. You know, we see the prophecy about what's going to happen. So it's not just laser focused on Daniel and his friends, but I think the bigger story of Bible prophecy of judgment of how God was, you know, very much present even in the midst of something that seemed so terrible.
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I think there's a lot of value there, Steve. Yeah. And again, we're talking about Daniel and the fiery furnace. hits theaters, I think yesterday. So you can go at, check that out this weekend. Of course, check out the review that Paul Ase did on pluggedin.com. Okay. There's another more family kind of friendly movie that's hit theaters as well. Sean the sheep, the beast of Mausie bottom. I love that title.
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Beast and mossy bottom and everybody under the age of 10 is giggling. Yeah, exactly. Your inner Beavis and butt header are awake. He said mossy bottom. So if you've seen, I think there were two previous Shawna Sheep movies or Chicken Run or Wallace and Gromit, you know, the kind of claymation animation style that is at work here. And they
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comes courtesy of Ardman animation. This time around, Sean and his friends are approaching, it's almost Halloween, they're trying to grow their pumpkins, their pumpkins aren't big enough. They're looking for tonic, anything they can do to get their pumpkins to grow faster. among the things that get considered is a hair growth tonic, which they end up tossing out pretty much.
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and when you know if there's a a desperately bald farmer who is ashamed of his baldness who comes across the serotonin and is so excited that uh... you know he uses it pretty much on his whole body and for all intents and purposes turned into the werewolf i mean he's not a werewolf but he becomes this incredibly hairy monster and of course this is the beast of mossy bottom
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His own dog doesn't recognize them. The people come after him with, you know, proverbial pitchforks and whatnot. And Sean, the sheep and his friends are there to, you know, mitigate the damage. So it's just, it's a ridiculous lark, you know, if you've seen any of these other movies and you appreciated the sense of humor, you'll probably like this one. If you've watched Wallace and Gromit and Chicken around, you're like, I don't get it.
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this is probably not the movie for you. That's probably a great way to describe it. And I think that they do a little bit of that Pixar thing that they will sprinkle in references and allusions to things that a 10-year-old is not going to get. They're not going to get the psycho reference. They're not going to get the Jurassic Park girl. Well, maybe Jurassic Park. We've got Frankenstein. We've got Dracula. We've got some witchy stuff, but it's
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It's all in the context of Halloween. There's not really any spiritual content directly in the story, but some of that creepy Halloween stuff might be the reason to at least read our full review and tap the brakes if you have really young or sensitive viewers. And I should also say that there's one other element and that is there's a same gender couple that shows up at one point as well, which you know,
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That's where we're at culturally. I don't want to sound like I'm dismissive of it It's not an everything kids oriented these days, but we certainly see it a lot So that is present here and you'll want to weigh the extent to which that affects your your perspective on this as well Yep, and again plugged in comm is an amazing resource It will break it down for you and you can make the best decision for you and your family so let's talk about something you mentioned some witches and stuff and this is
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Something that we're seeing is kind of making a little bit of a resurgence. I happen to follow a lot of cooking people on like my social media feeds and one of the ones that pops up is Tiffany Thiessen who used to be on Saved by the Bell back when we were kids. So she's a big time like little social media and she has a lot of cooking videos. Well apparently she's in this new Disney movie or not movie, it's a series called Coven Academy.
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Basically kind of a, it's it's a sitcom for teenagers, but it's set in New Orleans and it's be, it's kind of involving kind of some dark stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's basically a school for witches and warlocks. And it's just one of several things that's in that general neck of the woods. There's another movie coming out later this fall called Hexed, Practical Magic 2 came out last weekend.
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And I think it's just a reminder, well, of a couple of things. Scripture takes, you know, witchcraft really seriously. And the reason for that is that in the Old Testament, we see that witchcraft is really seen as an attempt to usurp God's power and authority, right? Witchcraft is an attempt to be in control of our own destiny, apart from God and apart from His providence. And so,
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That's the core spiritual principle here is that witchcraft is a spiritualized expression of trying to take control that you shouldn't be taking control of. Now in entertainment, we have the whole gamut, right? The whole spectrum of witchy stuff and witchcraft. But I think it's important for us to remember those roots. And I think the other thing it taps into spiritually is that we live in a culture
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that has largely thrown a Judeo-Christian God and understanding of reality out the window, but God has created us in His image. We are still hungry for spiritual things, and I think this is a reflection of that hunger spiritually for answers, for a sense of transcendence, maybe for hope. And so I think it's the right impulse that gets directed the wrong direction.
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Yeah. It's a misapplied, a misapplied hunger for God. And my guess is that the people working on these shows, it's just a trope, right? Maybe there's somebody that really, really has that as their worldview, but, but even that is problematic when we want to say, Oh, it's all just a joke. It's just part of the plot. Um, when we treat something this serious, like it's a joke,
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that sort of numbs us to thinking about it seriously as well. And so I think with all of this witchcraft stuff in the entertainment industry right now, it's just a good opportunity for us as parents to think through how do we approach this? Where are our lines on this? How do we talk to our kids about it? And maybe they have an interest in it that is unusually strong or concerning to us. And if that's the case, I think
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We've got to take it even more seriously. I don't think these tropes are going anywhere. It's Halloween. It's that time of year. But all of those things are worth talking about with your family. They absolutely are. And it'll be interesting to see whether this Coven Academy turns out to be more like, which is a Waverly place, or if it's going to be a little bit more deep and a little more kind of meaningful in the writing. Paul. Yeah. So before we get away here,
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I do want to touch on this, uh, this new blog that you guys have out at pluggedin.com about the movies that we should be looking forward to coming up for the fall releases. Yeah. And these are movies that are all more or less aimed at families. So this list is not necessarily, you know, pre-vetted go see all of these, but these are just the things that are coming out this fall. are aware. We already talked about Sean the sheep, uh, forgotten.
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Island is a new DreamWorks movie that comes out September 26 that deals with Filipino folklore and these two girls that get sucked into a realm where they gradually forget their identity. We have yet another sense and sensibility movie. I think this is the fifth or sixth one. It is coming out. know, it's like it's been two years. We better remake the again. But call me a hater, right?
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uh... and for the dude you know if your wife and daughters are going to be sent to the ability same weekend october sixteenth street fighter comes out uh... which of course is based on the popular video game for from the early nineteen nineties can read review and you know those of us who grew up at that time introduces whole genre of uh... you know horizontal fighting games and so they've taken all those characters and we're trying again i don't like the third time
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this franchise and they've mostly been terrible but we'll see if they get it right this time. and that's the thing. go ahead, sorry. Go ahead. No, no, that's good. You're good. Yeah, I was going to say about the video game things, those video games were kind of lame in the 90s. Who would thought that to make it a movie would be a good idea, you know? Right, like three times. I maybe the one with, I think Dolph Lundgren is in one of them, so you you automatically get points for including Dolph Well there you go.
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I think maybe Claude Van Damme was in one of them. Jean Claude Van Damme. It's been long enough I forgot the guy's name. There you go. November 6th we have a movie called Brummer Boy which is about two brothers on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War. It's done by Joel Spallbone and it is an action musical. So if you have been waiting for an action musical Revolutionary War movie,
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It's coming. It's coming. I love things I didn't know I wanted to see. There you go. Cat in the Hat is not dead and he is coming back to theaters November 6th. Sorry. I didn't mean that to be quite some morbid, but again, are there any new ideas? And yet, you know, Dr. Seuss, we like Dr. Seuss. We have another Hunger Games prequel, Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping. For those who are still engaged in that franchise that
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is dramatic and it has a lot of problems because the core of it is about kids fighting to kill each other. And then we already talked about it. Haley Steinfeld and Rashida Jones will be in Hext November 25th, just in time for Thanksgiving. Just in time. Adam Ben, it's always a pleasure. We'll, catch up with you again next week. Check out pluggedin.com everybody. Again, thanks Adam. Thank you, Steve. Glad you're listening. The Steve Marston show continues.
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faith and fun are both taken seriously. I want to get to some of the stories that you may have missed over the last couple of days or so. This one is pretty interesting. I'm not a big fan of American Idol, haven't watched it in years, but there is a young lady that's on there named Brianna Nix and she is a Christian, which by the way, we have seen more Christians in the last probably, I don't know, four or five years.
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compete not only on American Idol, but the voice in all these reality singing programs. And she had a very interesting story to share. Brianna said that an 80-year-old lifelong atheist that was grieving his wife's death became a Christian after hearing her sing Christian songs at a country concert, and she was able to share the gospel with him. So here's what happened. In an Instagram reel, the American Idol finalist explained what
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happened and urged her followers to confess their sins and to trust Jesus. She said, a couple of months back we were at a concert and it was actually a country concert and we were singing a lot of country music, she said. At the end, I slipped in a few Christian songs in there and at the end of the show I was at my meet and greet line. I had quite a few people there, but there was one special man who really stood out.
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The man waited to be toward the end of the line and then once he came up to me, he hugged me and started crying, Nick said. The man said, I am 80 years old, my wife just passed away and I moved in with my daughter and she brought me to this concert to try to get my mind off of her death. He went on to say, I have been an atheist my whole life. I've never believed that there was a God or any kind of power, but you have made me start to kind of question that.
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as you were singing and you're the first person in my life to ever do that." Again, this is from an 80 year old man. And to tell you the truth, the process was not long at all, she said, describing how she reached out to the man. She said, all you need is John 3.16. And then she quoted it to him and she said, I'll never forget the look on his face.
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Tears started to go up in his eyes and he started looking at me and smiling and he said, young lady, you might be a little crazy. He said, are you sure this is all there is? And she then of course said in the affirmative, yes it is. And then she went on the challenge, her Instagram followers saying, have you been like this man? Have you been walking through life day to day, not knowing what really happens at the end and when we go? If you've ever felt...
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There's been a whole list of steps and rules that you have to follow to be a child of God. She said, tell you today, friend, that if you confess your sins and believe that Jesus died for you and rose again, you too can be saved. In fact, if you believe you're seeing, I believe if you're seeing this video and you're still watching it, he's tugging on you. He's pulling for you. Why don't you just come home? Boy, I love that. And again, never heard of this lady, but her name is Breanna Nix and she,
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is not only a finalist in American Idol, but she's a follower of Jesus that is really taking the gospel seriously. I love hearing that. Another story you may have missed comes from President Trump. He nominated Billy Graham's daughter for a real job. This is not one of those fake posts. It says Donald Trump nominated C.C. Graham Lynch, the granddaughter of the late evangelist Billy Graham and daughter of Franklin Graham.
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to serve as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Now this oversees the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, which works to preserve and promote religious liberty internationally. So yeah, a real job. And she said in a post on X that President Donald Trump has asked me to serve as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. I would consider it a great honor and privilege to do so.
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If I am confirmed by the Senate, please pray that I would serve with excellence and make the most of every opportunity to protect our most precious and fundamental right and one that far too many people around the world still live without, and that's freedom of religion. Wow, I didn't even know there was such a job that was available, but I'm thankful that someone like her has been put into place and not somebody like Paul the White.
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I know that was a shot. I should be sorry for it, but I'm not. All right, let's move on. Another story that you may have missed comes from an ex MTV reality star. Now, look, if you're as old as I am, you remember how the real world show changed everything. That was like the first legit reality show where it brought all of these people from different walks of life, put them in a house and just kind of recorded what happened.
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as all of these kind of people who would not be friends with one another had to interact together. Well, this former reality star, guy named Davis Mallory, says he looks at life dramatically different today after a renewed encounter with Jesus led him to reconsider his sexuality relationships in Christian faith. He came out as a gay man and now has come back to Jesus.
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Mallory said his decision to share his story publicly hasn't been easy. After his testimony gained attention, he said he received death threats online and it left him fearful about continuing to speak out. Well, I guess it would for just about any of us. Mallory said his decision and his transformation is especially notable because his sexuality was a significant part of his public identity during his reality television career.
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He grew up in a Christian conservative household, but later came out gay. said, looking back, he said, sexuality eventually overrode his religious beliefs. But over time, Mallory has said repeated relationships caused him to question his direction in life. He said, for me, the transformation was gradual, describing failed relationship after failed relationship and those relationships he found to be only really lustful and
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very unfulfilling. Mallory said the contrast between his past and present is striking. Years after becoming known to television audiences as openly gay, he now identifies and is deeply rooted in the direction of his relationship toward Jesus Christ. And then it finishes up by saying, despite the controversy surrounding his testimony, Mallory says he is no longer afraid to tell it. That's good stuff. That comes from our friends over at Belief Net.
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Okay, we've got one more segment coming up for you and before we get to it, let me remind you again about our YouTube page. We're going to have a chance for you to celebrate with us. When we hit 250 subscribers, we're going to give away a John MacArthur Study Bible that's valued at like 150 or maybe $200. It's really a sweet deal and I can't wait for us to hit that number so that we can give this bad boy away.
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If you haven't already done so, head over to youtube.com and search for the Steve Marston Show and subscribe. Back in the Flash.
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Here at the Steve Marston Show, we are serious about faith.
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The dad joke of the day comes to us from the home office in Whitehall, Arkansas. What is orange and sounds like a parrot? What's orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot.
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It's almost like, durr. Steve Marsden Show continues. It's the Christian radio show and podcast that really matters.
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For those of you listening on radio, you know this is the first time we're back since Monday. We've had a lot of stuff going on and yesterday was a big pastors event that they asked me to MC and I was grateful to do it. It was just a day to encourage pastors and to love on them and just to tell them and remind them, hey, you really are doing God's work and to keep it up. And so it was a wonderful afternoon, got to a chance to meet some new people and
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say hi to some friends that I've known for a very long time and I was asked to start earlier than what we had on the schedule. I was only supposed to talk for like, I don't know, five, ten minutes tops, but they said no, we need you to go ahead and get started and you need to go for 20 minutes. I thought my soul, I've got to double my time. Okay, so knowing that, I started telling a story about a friend of mine who was in the audience and this guy I've known
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literally for 15 years. And I'm looking at him right in the face. His first name is Emmett. I know that. And I know his last name is Fowler. Yes, I know that too. But for whatever reason, the name Emmett Smith came out of my mouth. You know, the Dallas Cowboys, all-time leading rusher, right? One of the greatest players ever in the history of the NFL. Yeah. And Emmett Fowler and Emmett Smith looked nothing alike.
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Although they are both bald and they both do have a little bit of a beard, that's about where it ends. But yet, for some reason, I called Amendment Smith and I heard about it for the rest of the afternoon. But you you give somebody a microphone, especially me, and the chances for me saying something stupid and just totally random are...
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par for the course. You shouldn't be surprised by any of that. So that's on the people that gave me the microphone. That's not on me, right? Okay, as we get ready to wrap up here, we have been going over the Bible verse between, Faith Between Your Ears from Isaiah 53.5. Now, we've only had a couple of days to do it, so we're going to carry it over to Monday of next week. But the Bible verse is, He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
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and upon him the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed." It's a prophecy about the unbelievable sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross and it happened like 800 years before Jesus even walked the earth. So a powerful piece of Scripture there. Let's learn it. We'll take through the weekend to learn it and then...
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We'll bring it back next week as well, but that's faith between our ears to be able to get that Bible verse learned and not only in our heart, but again, in between our ears. Okay, we leave you every day with a call to action. We call it your next step. Your next step is to have a great weekend. Enjoy your time with your family. Be in church. We'll get back together on the radio Monday at 3 o'clock. Everywhere else?
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head to SteveMarsdenShow.com. Talk to you soon. Adios.
