Can you recognize the warning signs when someone you love is being spiritually manipulated?

Today's conversation with Peter Young, real estate professional and author, is a sobering reminder that spiritual deception can happen to anyone—even lifelong Christians.

Peter grew up in a strong Christian home, accepted Christ, was baptized, and read his Bible cover to cover multiple times. Then he married a woman who brought a "family guru" named Uncle Robert into their marriage—a man who would control their lives for the next 20 years.

Uncle Robert taught that casinos were the true churches. He convinced Peter's wife she wasn't saved until he pointed it out. He told Peter's father-in-law he was on par with a cockroach. Slowly, like a frog in boiling water, Peter found himself brainwashed for two years.

The turning point came when his wife left and Uncle Robert told their five children that Peter was just a "sperm donor and bloodline"—not a real father. That's when the lies started to crack. It took a full year for Peter to realize it wasn't his fault and he wasn't crazy.

Peter learned three critical lessons: First, a strong Christian marriage needs Christ at the center—not a parent, priest, or guru. Second, isolation from the body of Christ makes you vulnerable to false teachers. Third, salvation comes before sanctification—anyone switching that order is acting as a gatekeeper to God.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

1. Be honest—period. You're either honest or you're not. Truth doesn't mind being questioned.
2. Stay connected to the body of Christ. Isolation makes you vulnerable. Fellowship and accountability protect you from deception.

One challenge from today:

1. If someone you love is headed down a dangerous road—whether a cult or spiritual deception—don't shy away from the hard conversation. Be loving, be kind, but be bold. They don't know they're in trouble. You see it, but they don't.

More About Peter Young

Website: https://www.authorpeteryoung.com/

Book: Stop the Tall Man, Save the Lion

More About David Schmidt

Free Resource: What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business

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What God Says About Business

Peter Young

And that was a very tragic, hard time in my life. But God turned that tragedy into something greater in my life that actually is impacting the rest of my life. But that's a story for another day. What I learned out of all that is that God is good always. And now I have a hard time calling anything bad because I don't know how God's gonna use it for his purposes. It reminds me so much of Joseph when his brothers sold him into Egypt and at the end of Genesis, he told his brothers,

Don't argue. You meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. And that's a better aspect that I've seen in my life lately. Today, I brought on Peter Young, who also has a story. He unknowingly married into a cult, but God rescued him out of it. And we're going to talk to him about that and the lessons he learned and the testimony he has today because of it. It wasn't fun, but God is good always. Peter, welcome to Redeeming Business Today. And to start off, please

What is one way you have found to honor God in your business that others may not know about?

David, first of all, thank you for having me on. So one way that I honor the Lord.

Um, you know, I remember a client of mine pointing this out, something silly I had said when I was going over a listing presentation about the numbers and my duties and my roles. And I said, I'll be as honest as I can. And he stopped me and he said, Peter, no, you either being honest or you're not, you know, we all kind of chuckled and laughed at that. That was 15 years ago. And so, uh, I've, kind of learned my lesson and he's right. You're the honest or you're not either pregnant or you're not right.

And so whether my clients see it or not, I am honest because I don't have a poker face. And if I'm hiding something or there's something I know that I should be sharing, you'll know it.

Yeah, it always gets me when people say, well, I'm not lying. It's like, so other times were you lying to me or what? I don't know. Why do you have to preface that with I'm not lying? Yeah, same deal there. So Peter, take some time, tell us about your story, take as much detail as you want and what God has brought you through and where you are today.

Yeah.

Sure. So I was born and raised in a wonderful Christian home ⁓ in New Jersey, youngest of five boys. My parents are still alive. They've been married almost 70 years. ⁓ so, you know, went to church, went to the summer camps, accepted the Lord, you know, realized that I was a sinner, needed to be saved. I was baptized. Then in my mid to late 20s, I was in Pocatello, Idaho. I was a sports broadcaster. And I met this woman that I, you know, this is exactly who I prayed the Lord.

that he would bring into my life. This tall, beautiful, Christian, athletic woman. And I call her Paige in my book. I wrote a memoir about all of this. And she brought to the marriage a weird family guru, a guy we called Uncle Robert. But Uncle Robert wasn't related to anybody in her family. He was born and raised in Syria and met my future in-laws at a tiny seminary in Fresno, California, before Paige was even born. So she grew up in a world where Uncle Robert was the expert on everything.

When I mean everything, let me tell you about the first time I met my future father-in-law. I was down in Southern Idaho, drove up to Northern Idaho, the Panhandle to meet them right around Thanksgiving. And I go down the hall to go to the bathroom because it'd been a six hour drive. I'm a guy. I stand up to go pee. When I come out, he's standing right there, right as I opened the door, which was weird. Number one, weird. Number two was he said, you know, in our house, you the men need to sit to pee. So obviously he'd been listening, prevents, you know, splashing and it's cleaner.

And then he said the phrase I heard a thousand times over the next 20 years. He said, Uncle Robert taught us that. And if Uncle Robert taught them anything, it was unassailable. You could not question it. So that was my first introduction to how much this man controlled everyone's lives. Now I say everyone, you know, was my wife, her parents, and then one of her brothers. And so we did end up getting married for the first few years of our marriage. He didn't really have much influence on us, at least I thought.

I thought I was the best husband ever. She was the best wife ever. We had the best marriage ever. And she was a Christian. Her parents claimed to be Christian. But Uncle Robert, who lived in Southern California, and we would have these conferences where once or twice a year he'd drive up to Northern Idaho. We would sit in the living room and listen and talk for hours. He had convinced Paige, my wife, that she wasn't saved. And she was only saved when he was brave enough and courageous enough to point out to her that she was a fraud and not truly saved.

And then he did the same thing with my father-in-law, that he was on par with a cockroach, because cockroaches can have offspring, and just because he had five kids didn't mean he was a good father. So in his 60s, he was unconvinced. He was ⁓ a fraud, never Christian. And then he and Uncle Robert made sure that my mother-in-law realized that. They treated her like dirt. So this pattern continued where everybody had to be saved, more or less, by Uncle Robert.

And fast forwarding, you know, about 15 years, I was the frog in the pot of boiling water where I went along with his crazy ideas to get along with my wife for the first few years. You I thought the guy was nuts. Couldn't wait for him to leave, but he never did. And she revered and adored and respected the man in many ways. She didn't me. So ⁓ I finally caved about 16, 17 years into our marriage. And I true thought, you know, maybe there's an elemental.

principle or principles of Christianity that I missed all these years. Even though I grew up with a faith, I've read my Bible several times at this point, cover to cover, I've been baptized and professed ⁓ openly and publicly. And so I allowed myself to really be worn out and I caved and I was brainwashed for probably two, two and a half years. And acting as a gatekeeper to God is a very ⁓ typical

behavior of cult leaders. And at the time I had no idea it was a cult. No one ever knows they're in a cult. No one ever knowingly joins a cult. I thought it was weird. I thought he was odd. ⁓ But then, over the years I just kind of thought, well, maybe I'm missing something. I tried to cut the guy some slack and you may be thinking, well, ⁓ you know, what was wrong with this guy? You know, it's, not illegal to be weird. I'll just give you a few quick tidbits. Thankfully there was no physical or sexual abuse.

in this little cultivar is not at all. It was very small, 50 to 20 people tops. But he taught the casinos of the true churches in America and the churches that you and I would go to on a Sunday are a waste of time because only he knew the true gospel. We believe that only he knew the true gospel, no one else did. And you could go into a casino and be blessed by the Lord, which if I go into a casino, I usually see people worshiping money and not the Lord.

He taught that all of recorded history was a battle between the descendants of Jacob and Esau. Esau becomes Eden, which becomes modern Jewry. Jacob becomes the 12 tribes, which becomes modern day Christianity. So every recession, plane crash, you name it, was a Jewish conspiracy to take the birthright back from Jacob that stole it from Esau. with everything he shared, there was always an element of truth. And then he would twist it and pervert it with everything. And then the brainwashing was very deep.

certainly for my in-laws and my wife. We had five kids. Again, many years into our marriage, after having five kids, she wanted to be a surrogate and provide Uncle Robert with a male grandson. So Uncle Robert had two sons who were married and they had daughters, no grandsons. And so for my wife and my in-laws and the other little people in our little cult, which to me was just a group at the time, but it was a cult. You the only thing preventing World War III or the demise of the human race was Uncle Robert.

He would go to Washington DC and share his pearls of wisdom with senators and representatives. Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Fed, he wrote letters to Saddam Hussein, on and on and on, right? And that's what we were told at least. And so it was ⁓ paramount in her mind that Uncle Robert had a male heir to carry on his precious lineage, his DNA. And so, you know, she's around the age of 40, she wanted to be a surrogate.

and so have a son through one of her grandsons. And I was repulsed by the idea. And thankfully it never happened. But then, you know, around that time she considered herself Abigail, which, you I'd read the story and needed to read it again. So she was Abigail. Abigail. That meant that I was Nabal. And so Nabal in the Bible is described as a mean, surly drunk, a fool. And I'm like, wait a minute, after 16, 17 years of marriage, and I've been completely faithless the entire time, never even thought about an affair. I love this woman.

Whenever I would ask questions about, well, okay, I've got an open mind. Can you show me that this plane crash or this recession was a Jewish conspiracy? Where's the evidence? And what I would always get back is, Peter, why are you so stupid that you don't understand me? I never get the answer. So she drew, wanted to draw closer to him. So she left me and the marriage after around 20 years. Again, I was devastated. Was never suicidal, but I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. I hit rock bottom. And I always tell people I bounced along the bottom.

you

And

also during this time, Paige and Uncle Robert and Paige's parents, my in-laws, were convinced that I was not saved, that I was a fraud. And so since she's left the marriage where there was no biblical justification for leaving, she and Uncle Robert then went on this campaign mainly to tell our children that our marriage was really null and void. It was never a true marriage on the side of God because I lied. I wasn't a Christian. I wasn't saved. And there was a time where I kind of had believed this as well, that Uncle Robert had blinded me, which maybe I wasn't a Christian.

So then they were trying to tell our kids that I was never saved, never a Christian, thus a demonic fraud. And then they pivoted to severe parental alienation to where they tried to alienate or denigrate me with our five children. And so they started telling the children that I was a sperm donor in a bloodline and a devil, Satan, sorcerer, you name it. All with the intended goal of kind of kicking me out of the picture and having Uncle Robert really fulfill the role as father.

because another attribute of cult leaders is they blur the lines of the nuclear family. And in our little cult, my in-laws were about the same age as Robert, his name is Robert Booty. They would call him dad because they felt like he was their father in the Lord. And then we would call him Uncle Robert, my wife and I. My kids would call him Grandpa Bob. But in essence, we're all like little children, kneeling at the foot of our father, trying to get the crumbs of his approval. And... ⁓

Even though I was brainwashed at this time, ⁓ I remember getting emails about that where Paige and Uncle Robert were telling me to stop imprisoning the children in the biological prison of the DNA. Just because I provided the sperm to the DNA doesn't mean I was a father. I knew that was wicked. So I was devastated. ⁓ My marriage was falling apart. My family was breaking up. My kids literally thought the fifth commandment of the Bible didn't apply to me because their mother told them it didn't.

and only applied to fathers who loved their children. And they thought I didn't. And then finally the Lord ⁓ really helped me out of it and rescued me through my faith and my family and friends. So my family, my parents and my brothers and their wives were not a part of this. They lived on either coast. We were in Idaho and Montana. They kind of knew about Uncle Robert. But when I started to share with them what was going on, they were dumbstruck. They had no idea. know, casinos or churches and sit to pee and everything else for the last 20 years. They had no clue.

And then I started telling the people, you know, in my community, ⁓ what was going on. And they all rallied around me. And even though I was only brainwashed for about two years, it took a full year, David, to finally really say, wait a minute, it wasn't my fault. I wasn't crazy. And I was a believer, and I am. It was Robert. And it was this wicked manipulation, this undue mind control that went from him to my in-laws, to my wife, and then to my kids and me. So I always tell people that cults have two things in common.

They come in all different shapes and sizes. Some are abusive physically and sexually, some aren't, but they all have a cult leader and they all start with undue manipulative mind control or brainwashing. And then from there it goes out in many different directions and they control their members through isolation, paranoia and secrecy. So we would go to church and then Paige would get on the phone and on the cell phone and call Uncle Robert and tell him what the pastor said. And of course it was always wrong. So we would leave that church.

repeated that several times over our marriage. Do we finally stop going to church? We would just talk to him on the phone or go to the conferences where he would drive up from California and share these crazy stories and his crazy theology. And sometimes the theology started out as truth, which is an important point for the audience to understand, is that cult leaders don't start out sharing utter nonsense and lies. They will share the truth. Uncle Robert read us the Bible. He read from the Bible. He knew the Bible.

But just like if you miss hit a golf ball by this much, right? A hundred yards down the fairway, it's way off to the left, way off to the right. Nowhere near where you wanted it to go. Uncle Robert would give his perverse little twist to every single verse. So that five, 10, 15 years down the road, we were nowhere near the gospel. So it was a very slow, subtle process that took a long time. And it was incredibly painful. The cognitive dissonance of loving my wife and knowing that she revered this crazy guy. And, ⁓

So then when I got out and I was rescued, the Lord really opened my eyes and ears to it. And then the courts had to intervene because she did file for divorce. And again, I was devastated. I did not want a divorce. I tried my best to save the marriage. The courts intervened and saw the Prentile alienation and the cult experience, which the courts consider abusive mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So they helped rescue certainly my youngest three children.

And so now I've written a book and I go on podcasts like this to really share my story as a cautionary tale. And I know I've been speaking a long time, but if I could just add three points, the three really key points, there's a lot of lessons to be learned from ⁓ the destruction that happened in my life. But the three main ones are number one, strong Christian marriage needs Christ at the center. We had Uncle Robert, no wonder we got divorced. And no parent, no priest, no child, no anybody else should get in the middle. They can and should help from the outside. Christ needs to be in the middle.

Number two, if I cut off my thumb, my thumb's gonna die, I'm not gonna. When you become isolated as a believer from the larger body of Christ, you become vulnerable and ⁓ then susceptible to false teachers or cult leaders. So you gotta stay in connection and in communication and fellowship. And then number three,

Salvation comes before sanctification. You cannot switch the order. You are saved, you're born again, and then you learn and you grow, and that's the sanctification process. And whoever tries to switch the order is trying to act as a gatekeeper to God. Again, typical cult-like behavior. That's exactly what Uncle Robert did with me. The bar for me being saved in the eyes of him and Pais of my in-laws kept raising. I kept having to learn and do more things that he told me I had to do before I was ready to be saved.

And that's completely ⁓ unbiblical. there in what about 10 minutes is kind of the recap of what I went through.

Yeah, sure. So it's interesting, you mentioned it, but I just wanted to clarify, what did God use you to break free from this cult? What was the factor? Was it asking for a divorce and then you talked to your family and friends or what happened there? Yes.

Yeah, so maybe like what was the catalyst? ⁓

Well, remember at the time, you know, for a while there, I still believed Uncle Robert and that, you know, he told me I was incapable of receiving salvation and that I was, I was, I had a legion of demons occupying my body and spirit and just horrible stuff. And I'm hearing this all day long. And, I thought he was the solution that he would save my marriage. And so it was in between the time where she left me and when she filed for divorce, which is about 11 months separate.

It was during that time where it was a kind of a slow process where I would get the email from page and uncle Robert about how I was just a bloodline and sperm donor. And they use that as to denigrate me. like, wait a minute, two years ago, thought uncle Robert's DNA was precious. And then there were some other things that happened during that time. I'm like, you know what? That's a lie. That's not true. That is not biblical. I don't care how much my brain had been kind of screwed up at that moment. I knew.

And so it was a slow process, never just one road to Damascus moment, but it was a series of awakenings where the Lord really lifted the veil from my eyes. And that process took a good year.

It sounds like there was, yeah, you had comfortably gotten into it without knowing it. And it was that cutoff, where your wife just left you filing for divorce. That was almost like a shock to get you back into, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I always thought I was doing everything right, you know? But yes, that's very interesting that you probably never felt comfortable sharing all these ideas with your personal family, did you? Your brothers and sisters and your parents.

Correct. So again, you know, the isolation, the paranoia and the secrecy, you know, we weren't out on the street corners sharing, you know, the theology of Robert Booty. We kind of circled the wagons around him. And I'm sure in the back of my mind, I knew it was because the guy was crazy. But what we were all taught was, don't share your pearls before the swine. And in our minds, the rest of the world was swine. They didn't know the true gospel. Only we did because we had Uncle Robert.

So yeah, we kind of kept it all secret and we didn't share much. So my family knew nothing about this.

Yeah, know, thoughts go through my mind. I went to, I was part of a church for a little bit. It's not a cult, but it's separate, very separate, and believes a lot of interesting things, and I wanted to go into it. But yeah, it was, we were only there for a few years and really started having conflict based upon what they believed and I believed. It was like, see ya. So we ended up leaving. Yeah.

Well, David,

I can tell you the wheels that the gears are spinning too. And I think what you're alluding to is kind of the topic that comes up often. And the way I address it is there is a difference between a cult and dysfunctional unhealthy culture. We see a lot of unhealthy culture in every human institution because we're sinners, right? So, and that's in churches, in businesses and government, cetera. ⁓

But I think it's important to point out that there is a difference between a cult and unhealthy culture.

Looking back, do you see any red flags or warning signs that what you see today, looking back, that that should have been a warning to me that this wasn't right. One or two things of that you see.

Well, I saw several, but I'll just share the two. The one that happened, I'll go in reverse order. About a year after 9-11, know, we again, we would have these conferences where Robert would drive up to North Idaho and we would sit around and listen and talk for hours on end. And some of it was absolutely the craziest stuff you've ever heard. Some of it was really good. I remember he talked about how Roosevelt was a Jew and Truman was a Jew and it was all the Jews fall for 9-11. And I grew up in a melting pot in New Jersey where I had

Jewish friends, Italian friends, Catholic friends, you name it, ⁓ black friends. And we would all make fun of each other, right? I mean, that's what kids do, right? You know, I'm making fun of your religion and your ethnicity and at 10 or years old, what do we know, right? But when he is saying all this, it was really dark. I mean, really dark. And I remember telling Paige that night, I said, I don't think this guy is who you think he is. I think he's a danger and we'd have nothing to do with him. And I never followed up, she never did. I let it go, I let it slide.

And he twisted it and manipulated it in the mind of Paige to convince her she wasn't saved and that she needed to be saved by him. So he was able to make her doubt her faith and ⁓ become kind of further cemented underneath his thumb of authority. When in reality, the warning was, you know, this Uncle Robert guy is a danger to you. And I was the tall man that came into her life that should have helped her see this.

And he wrote this really long letter to Paige. was in between when we met, we're engaged. And it was a really crazy letter and I'll never forget it. And it was odd. And there were huge red flags from even before I met her. I had heard about Paige's family's weird family guru before I met Paige. And then even before I ever met uncle Robert, you know, from when we met, started dating till I met him at six months later, she would talk about him all the time in a way that was very unhealthy. And so we talked about it quite often.

And I did not ask her to marry me until I met him. It was at another wedding of her brothers. And I remember thinking, I'm sorry, I remember thinking, you know, he's an odd guy. He's kind of an odd duck, but not dangerous, right? Just kind of a weird guy. And I was wrong. So yeah, warning signs were there early on.

I find it interesting and it sounds like it happened to you that as you isolate yourself from truth and just focus in on all one side of the story is when you can really get sidetracked. that's, in reality, that's what happens with us if we never look at, peek into the Bible and read it. And we only look at what the world says. We need that Bible. The Bible doesn't change. Your understanding of it may change and grow as you grow and mature. It doesn't change. That's what I love about the Bible.

get to understand it. It's not like your science books and textbooks at school that every five, ten years are rewritten. The Bible stays the same. I love it for that. But yeah, that's why it's... Yeah, go ahead.

And what I love to, sorry, go ahead David.

That's why I like that and it's as we get to know that and what you also said as far as ⁓ the wider body of believers, if every church is bad, I've been to lots of churches, I really have. I've visited way too many churches. It's not that they're evil or bad, I didn't like the preaching. It just was mediocre. But they're not all evil, it's just not good.

And what I always like to remind people is that, and you have to remind myself at times, is that ⁓ the truth doesn't mind being questioned. The truth can handle any question, any objection. And as believers, we are convinced that the Bible is the truth. It is the Word of God. It's unassailable. So David, if you and I have a disagreement, whether it's friendly or unfriendly, no big deal. One of us is wrong. If we're arguing about the Bible, right? The Bible's not wrong. We know that. So, okay, well, one of us is just not seeing it clearly.

And that's okay. So I love asking questions. I love when people ask me questions because under Uncle Robert's who religion under his thumb, questions were not allowed. You had to take what he said on blind faith. So I'm in a church now where I love the preaching. I love the pastor. I don't see eye to eye with him on everything. There are certain issues theologically that would we disagree on, not the foundational issues. And he knows it and we talk about it. And there are other people in church, same thing. And that's okay.

That's kind of the idea of the iron sharpens iron. And so I go to one church, but I have enough people in other church, men that I really respect and admire. And we kind of get into it. We dig into these issues. And I love doing that now because it signifies to me a much more healthy approach to learning and growing versus just having that one voice. By the way, that one voice was wicked.

what you said reminds me of the church I'm at now which I really enjoy. Nobody's put it this way until I came here, but he calls them primary issues and secondary issues. You primary issues of faith. You are saved by grace through Jesus Christ. You don't work your way to heaven. That's a primary issue. The Bible is God's word. It's a primary issue. There's a trinity. That's a primary issue. We have to be in agreement with that. But secondary issues, prime example is what does your end time theology look like?

Are you predispensationalism? Are you covenant? you all mail, post mail, whatever? Those are considered secondary issues because it's not as clear and we don't need to separate companies between that. And so I love that different aspect of it in the church because we can fellowship with one another. Like you said, iron sharpens iron and we can pursue the truth together. Not hateful, but yes, being willing to question because you're right what you

that truth doesn't mind being questioned. When you're wrong, you hate to be questioned because you don't know how to convince other people of that. ⁓

Right.

And also too, when we have differences agreement or we're wrong, ⁓ it's part of the humbling process. And that's a good thing. The Lord often gets our attention and teaches us when we're wrong. And we think about it, if you're right all the time, are you ever learning anything new? Not really. It's when you're, when you find out you're wrong, you know what? Then you just learn something new. And that's a good thing.

Yeah. And I learned this way back in apologetics when I went to Bible school. He said, he had a name for it, but basically don't go at it just trying to prove the other person wrong. Just because I can prove you wrong doesn't make myself right. Because I could be wrong too. We could both be wrong. And that's something you need to realize. But yeah, all that's great. Getting back to ⁓ your story, hard times.

Right. Exactly.

Obviously you went through some hard times and you probably didn't know how to get out of it, but the things you've learned, what encouragement do you have today to help other people who might be going through some hard times just to encourage them to give back to God?

Yeah, great, great question. ⁓ I remember when I told everybody at my office, so I'm a writer, I, you real estate helps pay the bills and at the brokerage nine months after my wife had left me, you know, the kids are getting taught on the devil. I'm a wreck as I'm starting to recover. I then met with everybody at a staff meeting and told them what was going on. And I thought they all knew because, know, even though I hadn't told anybody, you know, I'd lost 30 pounds.

I could hardly sit still at my desk. I'd go walk around town just to walk the edge off the anxiety. And I'd have, you know, bags under my eyes, red puffy eyes every day. Cause I'm just sobbing. Not in the office, but you know, I try and clean myself up before I walked in. And I thought they all knew. No one knew David. I was stunned. No one had any idea. So I remember the lesson for me was, you know, the rude grocery clerk when you check out or the guy that cuts you off on the highway, you have no idea what that person is going through.

And everybody you come in contact with either is going through something really hard, will go through something really hard or already did. So instead of acting in kind, you know, get angry at the guy who cut you off. Be kind because you just don't know what that person is going through. The next book on my bookshelf to read is C.S. Lewis's, I think it's called The Problem of Pain. Now the Lord really gets our attention. As C.S. Lewis says, you know, with the megaphone of pain. And he does. And that's how we learn sometimes.

And I remember in my darkest moments, you I would read the Psalms at night because I couldn't sleep. I would cry out to the Lord and I knew he heard me. And I guess my encouragement is, you know, if you read my book and see really how far I fell and how how bad rock bottom was, the Lord is the God of miracles and he can do anything. And every testimony to me is a miracle because we can't save ourselves. And so my life's a miracle. So is yours. And there's so much comfort in that.

And so it's interesting as I'm mulling over your question, it's almost like if you had asked me that question David 20 years ago, I don't know if I really could have appreciated your question and answered it in such a way prior to going through what I did. Going through the hard times gave me such an incredible appreciation and strength to rely on the Lord.

I get it. I've been through a lot of hard times. But yeah, every time you go through, I know last time I'm like, I know I'm going through the tunnel. I'll see the light at end of the tunnel eventually. I hate it in the tunnel. I always like going back, but I just wanted to be good, be faithful to God while I'm in the tunnel. Because I knew I was in the middle of it. That happens.

Very good. there people going to listen to us and give me encouraged and they're going to go forward and then they're going to forget. They're going to forget all these things. But what do you know of any simple practical steps we can take to remember our our foundation in God that we need to trust God and follow him and not the theologies and philosophies of this world.

Sure. Well, guess I would answer that two ways that I can remember two things. The first one is you have to read the Word of God. You you eat three meals a day. You can't survive on one meal a week, right? So same thing spiritually. So you've got to read the Bible every day. And I do that every single morning, every day. That has to be the priority. You have to know the Word of God. And then I guess in conjunction with that is I'm a huge believer now in Christian fellowship, because again, cults really prey on the vulnerable.

and people who are isolated are vulnerable. Again, just think about your thumb, right? If you cut off that little top digit of your thumb, that little bugger's gonna die, but the body of Christ won't. You have got to be in fellowship and communication with other believers. That's probably really the key takeaway for me, because if we were in constant fellowship and we were in a strong church, other people could have said, hey, Peter, what did this guy say? And ⁓ then could have questioned Robert, and I just didn't have that.

Sure, would challenge them this way and I'll try and condense it down so it's not really verbose, but you never know you are in a cult. You only know you were in one. So if you have someone you know or love, whether at the office or a church or your family that you think might be headed down the road to either a really inappropriate relationship or a cult, they don't know, right? You see it, but they don't. So the encouragement would be...

For those that you love, those that you're related to, friends and family, you've got to reach out, you've got to ask the bold questions, be loving, be kind, but be bold. Because so often, right, if a friend is in trouble, how often do they come to you? It's usually someone that has to approach that person and ask the hard question that needs to be asked. So that would be the encouragement. Stay in close communication with your friends and family. And if there's a difficult conversation to be had, don't shy away from it.

All right, very good. Thank you, Peter, for your time, your encouragement today. And friends, if you're looking to go more deeper and learn more about Peter's work, there's gonna be some links in the show notes to get a hold of him and talk to him more. And remember, your business represents the great God you serve. So build a business worthy of God in a way that honors him. Bye for now.