Greg Laurie
Appearances
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
You know, I think the thing to start with is just that God spoke to Abraham. He's coming from a completely pagan background. And God establishes a relationship with him. And then he has a tension with his nephew Lot. And you can compare the two of them because it's like Lot was drawn to the bright lights of the big city, if you will, to Sodom. Yeah, he pitches his tent towards Sodom.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And progressively goes downhill from there. And Abraham is looking elsewhere. In the New Testament it says he was looking for a city that had foundations whose builder and maker is God. So I think there's this longing in Abraham for God. But you know, him and his wife never have a child, and they finally have Isaac in their old age. And Isaac means laughter, he's the joy of their life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And then the Lord asks for the ultimate sacrifice from Abraham, take your son, your only son, whom you love, and offer him as a sacrifice to me. And kind of a common misconception, I think, about Isaac in some religious art is you see him portrayed as a young child, when in reality he was probably a young man.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And therefore, it wasn't just a father sacrificing a son, but it was a son fully cognizant of what he was being asked to do, willing to sacrifice himself. But the Lord intervened, said the angel, and it was never God's intention for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but it became a perfect picture of what would happen later at the cross.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I think one of the best summations of it all is the story that Jesus told. We call it the parable of the prodigal son. But we wonder, what is God like? Is God austere? Is God harsh? Is God distant? Does God have an interest in us? And if Jesus had not suggested this, it might even seem somewhat irreverent. Jesus portrays God as a father who loves his son, who misses his son.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And when his son is gone, he longs for his return. And not only that, but when the son is a long ways off and comes to his senses and returns, the father runs to him and kisses him. And a better translation would be he smothers him with kisses. So this is an affectionate father. And, you know, you think this is a boy who came from an affluent home. He came from a loving home. But yet he went away.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
But that's God. Like, what is God like? God is like a father that misses us and longs for fellowship with us. And then, of course, the son is restored to sonship. So I think we're all longing for that. Just to go to my own personal story, Jordan, you know, my mother was married and divorced seven times. And she was a beautiful woman, literally a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And she had a bunch of boyfriends in between. She was a raging alcoholic. So I never had a father growing up. And I was searching for a father myself. And so I saw my mother's lifestyle that was sometimes affluent, primarily alcoholic. She would drink to excess and pass out. in a stupor every night, and suddenly I became the parent in the relationship.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Even though I was a little boy, I did make sure my mom didn't die, right? So get her in bed, make sure she eats something, and care for her. So I can understand young people searching, young men searching. I was searching too, but I didn't know what I was searching for. I just knew out there there was something better than the life I was living. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And so it's almost like my mother engaged in a form of pre-evangelism. She sort of in her way showed me the adult world had nothing that I really wanted. And so the answer must be somewhere else. But unfortunately, the whole drug culture was happening. And I bought into the lie of turn on, tune in, drop out, you know, along with a lot of other young people. Timothy Leary.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Yeah, Timothy Leary, exactly. And I quickly found that wasn't true. And I tried, I smoked a lot, I did those things every day with the And I saved that for weekends. And I had a couple bad trips, and I thought, this is not the direction I want my life to go. And I lived for a time with my grandparents, and they had a portrait of Jesus on their wall.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I would often look at it as a young boy and think, I wish I could have known Jesus. It's too bad He was merely a historical figure. And somehow I made a connection on my high school campus when there were these kids that were very outspoken for their faith, that were talking about Jesus. We called them Jesus freaks, not meant as a compliment. And I thought they were all crazy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And that was the year that I, well, I saw these Christians on my high school campus that would sit around at lunchtime and sing songs about God. And I just looked at them and thought, they're all crazy. And then I tried a thought on for size. What if it's true? And I quickly dismissed it as impossible. It couldn't be true because I'd become very cynical because of my upbringing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I've been so disillusioned by the adult world. But then I tried that thought on again. What if it's true? And there was a guy speaking that it's in the movie, the Jesus Revolution movie that it's shown in the film. Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in The Chosen, plays the role of Lonnie Frisbee, this evangelist who had long hair and a beard, who was speaking that day.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And he made one statement that got my attention. He said, Jesus said, you're for me or against me. So I looked at all these questions. Jesus freaks, and I thought, well, I'm not one of them. Does that mean I'm against Jesus? I thought, well, I don't want to be against Jesus. I believe he's out there. I've seen all of his movies. What I know of him, I have a respect.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
But then I realized, but I'm not a believer in this sense. Could this happen for me? And I ended up praying, and that was the day that my life changed. And so coming back to fathers again, my mom had been married and divorced so many times, I had a full-time ministry trying to evangelize my former father, so-called. But, you know, here's what happened.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, I think it's just that they seem fanatical. They seem extreme, and it seemed too obvious. Like, are you kidding me? Are you telling me that... after my search into all these things, thinking maybe it's in astrology, maybe it's in Eastern religion, maybe it's in drugs, maybe it's in this or it's in that, that it's literally Jesus Christ, that portrait hanging on my grandmother's wall.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Like I never even considered that is what I was looking for, or I should rephrase it, that's who I was looking for. But there it was in plain sight. And so it was, it can't be this simple. That seemed too absurd in a way. Well, yes, but then there was something. Some of these kids, I knew them. I grew up with them. I partied with them, and I saw they were changed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So I couldn't dismiss them as all being crazy people because I knew them before, and I saw transformation had happened in their life. So I prayed a prayer, and I said, God, if you're real, you need to make yourself real to me because I'm full of cynicism. I'm full of doubt. How old were you at this time? I was 17. Okay. Yeah, but I felt like I was older because I had to grow up faster.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And so I think my life experiences were not the typical 17-year-old, but yeah. Well, especially for that time, because at that time, where'd you grow up? I grew up in California, Newport Beach, Orange County.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
No, not really. Not until later, where there was one person, Oscar Lorre. So my mom almost looks like she kept marrying the same guy. They were kind of, you might call them bar flies. You know, the guys that have just a few too many of their buttons on their shirt undone. And they're hanging out in the bar. And so she kept marrying like the same guy in a sense.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And then she met this guy from New Jersey. He was an attorney. He was intelligent. He was educated. He was very conservative. And I don't know what my mother saw in him. He was so different, but he literally took an interest in me. He adopted me. He gave me his last name and treated me as a father should treat a son. So one day- So you had a-
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So he was that one bright spot. And then there's a neat connecting story where I was able to reconnect later with him and in a sense, return the favor a little bit. But so he, when I came out of school one day in New Jersey, where we were living at the time, the car was packed up with all of our luggage. And I said, well, where are we going? My mom said, we're going to Hawaii.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I said, well, where's dad? She said, he's not coming. And I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood. So we flew to Honolulu. She had already met another guy who was the most abusive of all of her husbands. In fact, this guy knocked her unconscious with a wooden statue when they were having a drunken fight.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I climbed out of the window of my bedroom and ran to the neighbors and we moved back to California. But, you know, so this was, I remembered him. And he was someone that was stable. He disciplined me. He gave me an allowance. One time I stole something from a store and he took me down to the jail and introduced me to the prisoners trying to keep me away from a life of crime.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Hmm. You know, it seems to me that this young generation, so many of them raised in broken homes and often fatherless homes, which really is at the root of so many social ills. I'm sure you know a lot more about this than I do, but I've done a little research on it and you can almost trace everything in culture from
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I had the opportunity today to sit down with Greg Laurie, and many of you will be familiar with Mr. Laurie as a consequence of the movie Jesus Revolution, which is really the place where he came to
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Problem was, I thought it was kind of cool. I kind of missed the memo. But he was a father figure. So even though I never, because I was not planned. My mom had a one night stand in Long Beach and I was conceived. And I found that out like 30 years later. But because he treated me as a father should treat a son, I've always thought of him and spoken of him as my dad. So here's the cool thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Even if you're raised in a broken home and you don't have a biological father, I think a man can step in and be a father figure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
It could be a pastor. It could be a coach. It could be an uncle. It could be a friend. But a man can step in and show a young man or a young woman, because young women obviously need dads too. He can step in and be that father figure for them. And Oscar did that. And then later after I became a Christian, there was a pastor named Chuck Smith.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
who was kind of that father figure for a lot of us so it kind of helped me and a lot of other young men find our way and i i think that needs to and like i was saying to you earlier um i watched a film about you and in uh the rise of jordan anderson and and i saw these young men coming up to you and it was so interesting to me because they're very young
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And they're reading what you've written, and they've found you on YouTube. One young man said, I was extremely depressed and even suicidal, and you helped me. And I just thought, you're doing that in your way, being a father figure to a generation that is seeking. And I think that's fantastic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
people getting into crime, drug use, girls getting pregnant outside of wedlock, to broken homes, specifically the lack of a father. So I think one of the reasons that you have connected with younger people, and especially younger men, is you're a father figure. And they're looking for an authoritative voice.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, I'm over in this category here. You know, I was the one, like my cousin older than me named Wayne, he is a psychologist, preparing to become a psychologist. And so he did a study on me as a young man. And he said, clearly you're headed in the wrong direction. And I was always getting in trouble at school, always creating chaos. And I think I was just looking for attention.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I was looking for purpose. And so for me, I didn't have any religious hypocrisy to rebel against because I didn't know any religious people. All I knew were basically hedonists, adult hedonists. Right, right. Who didn't give me anything even remotely close to an example worth emulating or following. So all I knew in life at that stage at 17 was like a process of elimination.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I hadn't found what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn't here and it wasn't there. Right. So where was it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Yeah, if anywhere. But there was something in me that said, it's going to get better.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I think sometimes parents are trying to be a friend to their children when they need to be parents to their children. And so I think that there's something about coming to a church and hearing someone say without apology, here's the Bible, here's truth, here's what God says, and here's the way that you should live. And I think that there's an appeal to that that is just lacking in our culture.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I think that, I think God, you know, the Bible says that God has put eternity in our heart. And I think that deep inside of us, we're pre-wired to know God. I think that there's a longing, you know, it was C.S. Lewis that called it the inconsolable longing. Something that won't be satisfied by anything. But the right thing. But the right thing. And so that was in me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I became an artist, a little cartoonist, and I drew these little cartoon adventures. And I created my own characters because it was a private world I could retreat to. And it was also where I developed a slightly warped sense of humor. It's very sarcastic. Like I was more drawn to reading. I don't know if you've ever seen these Mad Magazine.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
instead of normal comic books, because I liked things that were subversive and sarcastic and somewhat irreverent. And I still have that sense of humor today. It's changed somewhat as a Christian, but it's still there. You know, I see the absurdity in situations. I think I see facades maybe a little more quickly. But at the same time, there was a longing for something good and pure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So when I met my wife-to-be, Kathy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I was, let's see, I would have been probably 18 years old. And we got married, and we just celebrated 50 years of marriage. We're still together. We're still celebrating, but she's here in the room with us. So to be able to come from a home where my mom was married and divorced seven times with a bunch of boyfriends in between, with a life that was on the wrong trajectory, going the wrong way,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And then to have everything changed, that can't be explained to me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
You know, I've never been to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I feel this is my first time in your life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Okay, here's what it came down to. This guy who was preaching, his name was Lonnie Frisbee. He said, come up here and I'll lead you in a prayer. And I walked up there and I thought, this isn't gonna work. Where were you? I'm high school, high school. It's high school at lunchtime and Newport Harbor High School in Southern California. and Newport Beach, California. So it's lunchtime.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
You know, we push so hard against these values and against these absolutes that there is, you know, a reaction. There's always an action and a reaction. So my generation, You know, the baby boomers were the children of the people that came out of World War II, you know, building families, rebuilding America. And so many of us maybe didn't get the affirmation or attention we thought we should get.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I've walked forward in this public meeting that I was kind of attending. I was far enough away where I wouldn't be looked like I was a part of it, but close enough where I could kind of eavesdrop. No one invited me. Normally people become Christians because someone invites them to church or they share the gospel with them. No one did that for me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
But I walked over to this evangelist and other kids were praying. He said, pray this prayer with me. And you know, Jordan, this is a prayer that I've led people in for over 50 years. And I've seen their lives changed. And there's nothing magical in this prayer. It's just a prayer based on biblical principles. But all prayer is, is it's communicating with God.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I don't think it has to be sophisticated. I think it needs to be genuine and from the heart. And the prayer went something along the lines of, God, I know I'm a sinner, but I know Jesus Christ is a savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. And I asked Jesus to come into my life. I didn't know what I was doing, But I believed it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I didn't have an emotional experience, though people next to me did. One was laughing, one with joy. One was crying, maybe over their sins. I felt nothing. And I thought, that figures. God rejected me. But I marked that day in 1970 as the day that Christ literally came into my life. And it changed everything for me. In fact, that weekend, we had planned to go out into the mountains and take...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
and smoke and I went out with my friends and I broke away. I felt like being alone. I had this little baggie full of and a pipe and it just dawned on me, I don't want to do this anymore. And I don't know why I felt that way, but I thought I don't want this anymore. And so I said, God, if you're real, make yourself real to me. And I threw my pipe away and my way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Yeah. And it was and there was no one talking to me. No one explained like what we do when someone prays at one of our events. We're there to explain it. We give them a Bible. We're there to follow up on them. No one did any of this for me. But, you know, God says those that seek me will find me. And I think if we genuinely reach out to God, God will respond.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
You don't have to do anything perfectly. It just needs to be a movement of your heart toward God. And as much as I knew as a 17-year-old kid, I took that step of faith. And that is when my life began to change. And I've led people in this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So maybe we overindulged our children. Then there's a reaction to that. And it just goes on from generation to generation. But I think this is a generation that to me, having lived through a few decades, is in many ways parallel to my youth generation. I see more of a connection between the late 60s and the early 70s and today than they do in any other decade.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So I go back to school, and the Christians there saw me and said, hey, Greg, come to our Bible study. And, oh, okay. And I went, and I felt kind of uncomfortable there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I had a bunch of low-life friends. I was going to one school called Corona DeMar High School that was kind of a— a school attended by a fluent kid. So I was not an affluent kid. Uh, we lived in a little apartment in, in that area. And so it was very different. I literally transferred to this other school, Coronado high school to Harbor high to change my identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I said, I want to become a different person. I don't want to be the preppy guy that everybody knows. And, and, you know, uh, And trying out for the football team, I was ultimately rejected. But I hung out with those kids because my grades were too low. But anyway, so I wanted to be a different person. And I thought the drug culture had the answers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So what happened ultimately was I transferred to another school where I had relative anonymity because people didn't know me like they knew me at the school I transferred from. Right, right. But in reality, I ended up becoming a different person, just not in the way I expected.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I don't see that with the 80s necessarily or the 90s, but today I see young people, they're looking for a cause, they're looking for meaning. I was talking to some Gen Z kids recently. I said, why do you think so many kids of your generation are out there protesting against Israel? was slogans like, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Yeah, I did. But there was a time I was in the drug culture there, very much so, every day as a matter of fact. But then when this transformation happened, so here's an illustration. So I'm walking across the campus and one of these Christians says, hey, Greg, here's a Bible. And they gave me a Bible. And I'm like, wow, I'm not going to carry this Bible around.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So I shoved it in the pocket of my coat and I went over to my friend's house, which was a stone's throw from our high school because we would literally get high there every day at lunchtime. So I walked over there. I hadn't seen them since I'd prayed this prayer with these Christians. So I looked around. I'm not going to walk in with a Bible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So I took the Bible and put it in the hedge in front of my friend's house. And I walked in. They said, hey, Lori, where have you been? I said, nowhere. Hey, we're going to get high. You want to get high? I said, no, I don't want to. Really? They kind of looked at me, what's wrong with you? Like, what have you been doing? I said, nothing. I wasn't going to talk about this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Suddenly my friend walks, mom walks in, holding my Bible. I'm thinking, what is this woman? Check her bushes when she comes in her house? And then the thing that struck me, he says, who does this belong to? I thought, lady, kids are doing drugs in your house and you're concerned about a Bible in the bushes? She holds it up. Who does this belong to? It's so funny.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Every eye in the room went to the Bible and they looked at me. And I said, that's mine. And one of my friends said, you're reading the Bible? I said, yeah. And they said, oh, are we gonna be nice little Christians now and follow Jesus? I said, no, maybe I'll hit you in the mouth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I hadn't read 1 Corinthians 13 or anything at that point. And so they all started mocking me. So it kind of helped me because I thought, these are not good people, and I don't need to hang around these people anymore. They made it easy to make a break with that crowd. So I thought, I'm going to give the Christians another try.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I went back to their meetings and ended up at this church that was in the middle of a spiritual awakening called Calvary Chapel, filled, packed up with people of all ages, And then Chuck Smith, who I mentioned earlier, this older man who is the pastor, opened up the Bible, and suddenly this book came alive to me. And suddenly I found truth. I never had any absolute truth in my life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I was just looking for something. I remember we're in school, and Ray Bradbury, the well-known author, came and spoke. And we thought, he's gonna give us truth. We were just looking for someone to give us some truth. And he didn't have anything for us. And all of a sudden I find that truth I've been looking for in the Bible. And so then you can't keep me away from the place.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So I was like a sponge wanting to make up for lost time and just absorbing these things. And then my life was changing. And it wasn't long after that that I started talking to people about this because I wanted to talk to people that were like I used to be, cynical, closed off. And I wanted to say, if God could change someone like me, he can change you too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And fast forward 50 years, I'm effectively still doing the same thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, it's funny, because this young hippie evangelist, he was kind of cool. We all looked up to him. And so— That was Frisbee. That was Lonnie Frisbee. That's hilarious that his name was Frisbee.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I don't even think they know what the river or the sea are, but they're involved in it. And they said, they're looking for a cause. They're looking for something to speak up for, something to believe in. So I think that when you come to the church and you come to the Bible, If we offer theology without apology and make it understandable to people, I think there's a great appeal in that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So we kind of came for Lonnie, but this older man walks out. I had a problem with older figures, authority figures, because all of the adults in my life I didn't respect. And then I was always being sent to the principal's office for misbehaving in class. So I just had a chip on my shoulder for all adults. Like, there's nothing you can tell me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, actually, to illustrate that, during my mother's wild adventures, I lived with my grandparents for a time. She sent me to military school on two separate occasions where, like, I lived on campus. We were cadets. We wore our little uniforms. We had barracks. We had a house mother. And it's funny. I hated it, but I flourished there. Because if you mess up, you get disciplined.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And we're talking corporal discipline. They had something notoriously known as the cheese paddle, which was a large paddle with holes drilled in it. And they'd swat you with that thing. And suddenly I went from delinquent kid to honor roll and good grades. And so when I was pulled out of military school and went back to public school and realized how much I could get away with,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I returned to my old ways again. So it shows when absolutes were in my life, I would respond. I needed that. But this is different, though, because that was a very strong authoritarian thing. But I think in many ways, it was actually kind of good for me at the time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And that's probably part of the reason that young men in particular, but I think people of all, young women too, are looking for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Kelsey Grammer plays Chuck Smith. Right. In the film. And I think Chuck came out on one service, and I looked at him, and, ugh, an adult. I don't want to listen to an adult. You know, it's going to be boring. And he opened the Bible up, and he began to speak in such an understandable way. So he's like a father, but a benevolent father, but strong.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And so he was someone—I'd never met anyone like this before, apart from Oscar Laurie, who adopted me. what I needed, a father figure to help me and to be a model for me. And sometimes it's not just in theology, it's just in the practical things of life. You know, he was kind of a salt of the earth guy, hardworking guy. Like for him, a day off was actually building things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So he was like a classic dad. I think they call them trad dads now, you know, but kind of like, wow, this is what I've never seen this before. How interesting, you know?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Maybe because there was one bright spot there. So looping back to him again. So I got married and I'm a young pastor. I've started my own church now that grew out of a little Bible study of young people. I never intended on becoming a pastor. I kind of thought I might be called to be an evangelist and travel around and speak to people. But a little Bible study was developing. So
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
This was in that church to begin with? No, this is another church about 45 minutes away in a community called Riverside that I went and established this little Bible study.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Young, very young. So we were all young kids, and I had no intention of starting a church. You know, today we have what we call startup churches. They pop up all over the place, not unusual to see. Back in 1973 or 4, you didn't really see startup churches. They were traditional churches that had been there for a long time, and then the pastor would die or retire, and someone new would come. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
But you didn't see, oh, we're starting a brand new church. And especially a church of young people and especially a bunch of hippie kids. You know, you could quickly dismiss it as almost cultic. But one of the good things that Chuck Smith did for us is he got us studying. He got us into great books. books, and we built our library, and we built our messages on the Bible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
It's called expository Bible teaching, where you go through chapters of the Bible and let the Bible speak for itself as opposed to imposing your view on the text. Let the Bible be the Bible. It's alive, it's powerful, and it impacts people. So coming back to Oscar, so I thought... I would like to see him again. So I was speaking in New York City, and I reached out to him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I found him through the Bar Association. A lady that went to our church worked for the Bar Association. I didn't even know if he was alive. This is before Google, right? And so we found his office, and I called it, and I said, hello, is Oscar Lurie there? And the secretary said, no, he's at lunch. who is calling. I said, Greg Laurie. She said, how do you spell your last name?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I said, well, the same way he spells his. This is his son calling. He calls me a half hour later. He says, Greg, it's so good to hear from you. And I said, Dad, I'm going to be in New Year. I don't know if I called him Dad at that point because that... Maybe it was a bridge too far at that moment. I just said, I'm going to be in New York City. I'm going to be speaking.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Maybe we could have lunch because he'd remarried, had a new family, and I didn't want to interrupt his life. And he said, no, Greg, come and spend the weekend with us. We want to see you. So I went there with my wife. That's a good thing to have happen. Right. So I went with my wife and our oldest son, Christopher. So the first night we caught up. And I told him what happened to me in my life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And he said, I tried to get custody of you. But even though your mother was living this crazy life, she fought me and would not let me get custody. Because I would have lived a very different life if I lived with him. So we had dinner the next night. And his wife, Barbara, made a great Italian meal. She said, Greg, tell us how you became a Christian and a minister. So I started telling my story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And my dad, he's an attorney. And he's sitting at the other end of the table. He says his hands up to his face the whole time like this. I felt like I was in a courtroom. I was giving my testimony, and I wasn't doing a very good job because he was not reacting in any way, just staring at me. This isn't going well. Barbara's very emotional, reacting. This is wonderful.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And so after the meal was over, he said, Greg, I'd like to, would you walk with me in the morning? He had to walk every morning. One thing I left out, he was older. He blacked out behind the wheel of his car and almost died. He was having heart issues. So he said, Greg, I'd like you to walk with me. So the next morning he knocked on the door of my bedroom. It's three o'clock.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
California time, six o'clock, East Coast time, and we start walking, and he said, I listened very carefully to what you said last night. I said, right, and I'm calling him dad at this point. Yes, and he said, I would like to accept Jesus Christ into my life right now. And I said, well, Dad, let me go over that one more time. And I explained it again. He goes, I want to do that right now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I said, well, he says, what do I need to do? I said, well, we need to pray. And he drops to his knees. We're in a park at this point. I wasn't going to get on my knees, but he's down there on his knees, so I get down on my knees with him. And I put my hand on his shoulder, and I lead him in that prayer I was talking about, similar to the prayer that I prayed. And he said, pray for my heart.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Pray God heals my heart. Okay, let's pray. So we prayed for his heart. And he gets up and he was so excited. And he said, Greg, I wanna go to my doctor's office and I wanna have him do a check on my heart. I believe God has healed me. I said, well, I don't know if God's healed you. And so we go to his doctor's office later And he's a nice Jewish gentleman. And my dad introduces me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
He says, this is my son from California. He's a preacher. And I just accepted Jesus into my life. And I'm thinking, oy vey, this is like, this doctor's going to think this is crazy. And so they ran tests on my dad and his heart condition was gone and he lived 15 more years. So I lived in California.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I left and I got him a Bible and I came back, oh, maybe three weeks later and I started saying something from the scripture. He'd read the entire Bible already. Because he was always reading, reading, reading. Read the whole Bible. He's quoting it back to me. His life was radically changed. And so, you know, it was really a great thing for me to be able to... Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
To go back and, you know, the Bible says that God can bring beauty out of ashes, right? So, and we, you know, we've had to deal with this because our... Another story about our oldest son, Christopher, died in an automobile accident 16 years ago. So we've dealt with severe pain and suffering. But we've seen how even in tragedy, God can still do amazing things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And, you know, we're all dealt a hand in life, so to speak.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
we don't determine what that hand will be but we have everything to say about how we will react to it what we'll do with it you know we can harbor bitterness and anger we can also choose to forgive uh and you know so i was able to do this for him and i felt when i said return the favor i felt like i was able to say thank you for being a dad for me when i didn't have one
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And now let me introduce you to your Heavenly Father, coming back to your original theme of fathers and the importance of fathers. And so that was a beautiful— That's what happens in the Pinocchio story. Why would Geppetto—I mean, the puppet turns into a boy, and the next thing you know, he sends him off to school. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
It's like, maybe you want to nurture him a little, teach him— Well, he'd give him a foundation, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
It would have been a different life with him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And in a way, even though I wouldn't wish my childhood on anyone, all of those things through process of elimination brought me to that crisis point where I made that step of faith. And if I'd been raised by Oscar Laurie, it would have been a better life. It would have been a safer life. an easier life. But I don't know that that is what would have happened to me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So you can look back into the Bible says, God cannot cause all things to work together for good to those that love God. And that doesn't mean that everything that happens will always lead to something better. There are things that happen in life that are just awful things. And coming back to my son, you know, that was, I never have thought, wow, that happened. So this good thing will happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I see that more as this horrible thing happened to me. I wish it had not happened. If I could bring him back, I'd do it in a heartbeat. However, despite this, now my life has changed. And now I want to help other people who are maybe suffering something similar. You know, the Bible talks about comforting with the comfort that we've been comforted with.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
It's been said, you know, if you preach to hurting people, you'll never lack for an audience. And I think it kind of broke me in a new way. And it made me want to help other people who've lost loved ones, especially children, because when it happens to you, you wonder if you can survive it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I mean, even though I'm a pastor and I have been for 50 years and I've done the services of many children, which are the hardest to do, by the way. And I believed everything I said to those parents. I would say as I would leave that service, I hope that never happens to me because I don't think I could handle it. And it did happen to me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And instead of being behind the pulpit, I'm sitting in the front row as the grieving father and my wife. as a grieving mother, but I found, interestingly, that when I helped other people, it helped me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And even when I was closer to the event, when our grief was still very fresh, when I would meet someone that maybe had just happened to them, they lost a child, because people that lose children somehow find each other very quickly. And I would find when I would tell them, you're going to survive this. You're not going to get over it. But you will get through it. And life will be better.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And it'll take a lot of time. And it's okay to cry. And you should cry. Because the depth of your sorrow is an indication of the depth of your love. But I would find as I would say those things, I'd kind of be speaking to myself a little bit. Because you can be okay, relatively speaking. You get your head above water. You get a gulp of air. I'm going to survive this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And then you go into a deep time of grief and you're turned upside down. And you just need to be reminded over and over again that as a Christian, I believe I'll see my son again because he believed in Jesus. So he won't be in heaven because I'm his dad. He'll be in heaven because he put his faith in Christ and he had that relationship with God. So I know he's not just a part of my past.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
He's a part of my future as well. So that gives me hope. But also I realize that God can allow these things in our life. I don't know why. I can't explain it. I don't even try to explain it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
But then there's the afterlife. And I believe in the afterlife. And I believe in heaven. And I believe in it more than I've ever believed. I've always been a student of heaven as a Christian, and the Bible speaks so much of heaven. But when my son went to be there, I wanted to know more about it. And as you read the Bible, you realize that heaven is a real place for real people to do real things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
You know, Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. And heaven in the Bible is pictured as a city. It's pictured as a country. It's pictured as a paradise. The Bible tells us we'll eat in heaven. We'll be reunited with loved ones in heaven. We'll be active. And then one day heaven comes to earth in what we call the millennium. Heaven and earth become one. So I believe very strongly in that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Now, can I prove it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, I think coming back to the statement of Jesus, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Bottom line, nobody can be perfect. We fall short. So the point of that to me is, is we sin against God. Now, some of us sin more than others, but we all sin. We had a little Halloween event at our church and we had one of those, you know, the bell where you hit the thing with the hammer.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And so I've hit that and hit the bell in the past. So I got it out and I hit it and I got so close, but I never got it. I think I spent a half hour trying to ring that bell and I fell short. So God has said, perfection, that's the standard for humanity. Well, who can be perfect? Answer, no one. That's where Jesus comes in. Because the Bible says, why were we yet sinners? Christ died for us.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So going back to the Garden of Eden, our first parents sinned. And because they ate of the forbidden fruit, which by the way, the Bible never says was an apple. I don't know where the apple came from. But, you know, it was something that was very attractive. If you ate of it, it would give you this supernatural wisdom, knowing good and evil. Supposedly, that's what the lie was.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
They ate of the fruit and sin came into the world. So if Adam and Eve had not eaten of the forbidden fruit, we wouldn't die. If they had not eaten of the forbidden fruit, we wouldn't age and get sick. If they hadn't eaten of the forbidden fruit, I'd probably have hair right now, right? So these are the effects of aging. But here's the thing. The earth, life on earth is not everything.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
This is the before life. Then there's the afterlife. C.S. Lewis, you know, what did he call it? He had a phrase for it that he used often in his writings about shadowlands. That's right, shadowlands. So the idea of Lewis was that what we're seeing now at its very best, take the greatest moment of your life with your friends, having a meal, enjoying life together, maybe a beautiful sunset.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
It's a shadow of greater things to come. It's not like earth is the real thing and heaven is the imitation. It's actually, according to the Bible, the other way around. Heaven is the real thing. See, going back to Abraham, he was looking for a city that had foundations, whose builder and maker was God. He was looking for something he never found in all of his journeys.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I think it was a longing for the afterlife. And we all have that longing. And one day when we get to heaven, I think we'll see that the greatest experiences of earth were only a shadow of greater things to come. So I believe very firmly in a real heaven where I'll do real things and I'll be reunited with my son.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, that's one of the biggest questions of all. You know, what happens after we die? You hear these near-death experiences, and they're hard to quantify because... How can we know, you know, really what happens? But we hear certain similarities that people say, I went up and I looked down and I saw my family grieving over me. So I prefer to go to a reliable source, which is the Bible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And there actually is a story in the Bible of a man who died and came back to life again. I'm not talking about Christ, that's obvious. But it was the Apostle Paul. And, you know, he was beaten many times and on one occasion he was stoned. and left for dead. They thought he had died. And so Paul, in the book of Corinthians, writes about being caught up into the third heaven.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
He says, I knew a man in Christ, whether he was in the body or out of the body, I'm not sure, but such a one was caught into the third heaven and he heard things he can't describe. You know, it's interesting because people write entire books about their experiences in heaven, but the apostle Paul, who actually had this happen, didn't write a book, but he did write a little bit of a chapter on it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And but he says it was paradise. So the word paradise is translated like the royal garden of a king. So I don't know if we would have even a parallel to this today. But if you go to some of these incredible British estates where these gardens go on endlessly. Maybe that gives us a sense of what he was talking about. But he just used the word paradise.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And that's the same word that Jesus used when he hung on the cross and the thief said, or probably guilty of a worse crime than stealing, but the criminal next to him said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Same word. So Paul went there and he came back.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
and and then after that he said i have a desire to depart and be with christ which is far better so i think ever since that moment in his life he had a homesickness for heaven so coming back to my son i can't explain it but i would say this when he went there i feel like a part of me went there too and your first inclination is communication and i understand why people
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
are so desperate to communicate with their loved ones. But according to scripture, we can't communicate with them and they can't communicate with us. David lost his son. He said, I will go to him, but he won't come to me. So I think that that is something that's futile. But after my son died, I had his phone number with a recording still attached to it that he had made.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I would call it over and over and over. Just to hear his voice.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
So there's a longing for communication. And so it really just kind of opened up something in my heart. where I thought, wow, okay, I'm 72 now. How much longer am I gonna live? I don't know, but I'm not afraid to die because I know that I too will go into God's presence. In the book of Luke, there's a story of a man who died.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
He's called a beggar, and he went into Abraham's bosom, coming back to Abraham, and he was carried by the angels. So I believe when my son left this world for the next world, and that tragic automobile accident. that he was taken by angels into God's presence. And I believe that I will go there too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Well, it's just, it's just faith. You know, it's faith. I mean, how can I explain it? It's faith that's in my heart, but the Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen. I believe this firmly. Now, I have indications of why my faith is worth having because I've seen the change that's happened in my life over the years.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I've seen the change that's happened in other lives. So that's sort of like a down payment on greater things to come. God said, listen, you follow me and here's what I'll do for you. I'll forgive you of your sin. I'll give you a peace that passes human understanding. I'll give you meaning and purpose in your life. I will guide your steps. Okay, God made a lot of promises.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I've put those promises to the test, including the worst thing of all, to lose a child. And I've seen how God came through for me. And, you know, and so, because if he didn't come through for me after my son died, I would have given up preaching for sure. Why carry on? But he did come through for me. He came through for me because I've seen what's happened to other people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
I've seen how their marriages have unraveled. I've seen how they've turned to drugs and alcohol. I've seen how they become bitter, angry people. And that didn't happen to me. And that's not because I'm some virtuous person. That's because I believe the promises of God and I lean into them and I found them to be true. And I continue to find them to be true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And there's no human explanation for getting through something as awful as that apart from faith. Faith is, you know, you say these things, but when you have to walk across the bridge for real, it's different. It's not theory now. This is like in Job after all of his suffering.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Yeah, he said, I heard this with my ears, but now I've seen it for myself. So it's one thing when you believe something, but then you put it to the test and you find it's absolutely true. Therefore, if all of these things that have been done in my life up to this point have been true, which they have been, therefore, I accept God's promise of the afterlife. And I accept what God says about heaven.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And there'll be no more pain and no more suffering and questions will be answered. And so I think, so I get little glimpses of heaven and the great moments of life, which I appreciate. And I think you tend to treasure those things more because it seems like the great moments of life are the in-between moments that we take for granted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
You know, we're always waiting for the big event, Christmas or this or that or whatever.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
this trip but a lot of times it's the little things in between you treasure those and but then i know i'm going to have new memories to create with him in the future and i'll be in god's presence and and so that and i want to tell other people that because ultimately when everything's said and done what's more important than the afterlife and what's more important than where we spend it and according to the bible i believe there's a literal heaven a literal hell
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
And I believe we choose in this life where we will spend the afterlife. And the reason I'm going to go to heaven is not because I've lived a good life, because I've failed in many ways, but because Christ laid his life down for me on the cross coming back to Abraham. I mean, what a picture. The son was willing to go and be sacrificed by the father. He knew what was going on.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Hey, Dad, where's the sacrifice? My son, God will provide for himself a sacrifice. But Isaac made that sacrifice too. The son, Jesus, made that sacrifice for us because he knew there was no other way that we could reach God, no other way we could satisfy the righteous demands of God. So heaven isn't for good people, as it's often said. Heaven is for forgiven people. That's how I see it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
499. The Jesus Revolution: The Real Thing | Greg Laurie
Thank you for explaining the Pinocchio story to me.