In episode 70 of the “No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe” podcast, host Greg Ryan opens with a brief apology for a previous series wrap‑up and then introduces a new short series that will explore the four living creatures described in Revelation (man, lion, ox, eagle) as foundational aspects of the church. He grounds the discussion in Mark 4:21‑22, emphasizing Jesus’ teaching about hearing spiritually and receiving more measure. Ryan explains his theological framework: believers are baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, which makes each person the church itself, and distinguishes this from a later “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” He references Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church as the source of the four‑creature teaching, outlines his intent to unpack each creature’s meaning for the church in upcoming episodes, and ties the series back to his earlier “Armor of God” study. The episode ends with a call to listeners to stay tuned, reflect on the concepts, and continue the journey together.
Welcome to episode 70, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 70. If this is your first time with us, thank you for being a part of it. I want to encourage you to hit the subscribe button if you like what you hear, and I will continue to come on and visit with you. Now, if you've been here with me for the full journey, or the— at least the last, the Armor of God, I want to apologize for doing such a horrible job of concluding that. I, I I just kind of ran into one day with the Good Friday message. I just felt, I mean, for a good churchy word, I felt led to give the Good Friday message and then the gospel message. Every chance I get, I try to give the gospel message without just continually give the gospel message. It is never going to get old, but sometimes I just want to, I got to get it out of my body. I apologize if you had to listen to that and you cue the air rata. I can't imagine that you did. I just had to get that out, but what happened was it took one of my episodes that I was going to use to kind of summarize, and so that's why the summary was lacking at, at best. Well, I'm really not going to summarize. I'm going to encourage you to go back and listen to the 18 episodes or 18 parts. You can kind of listen to those if you haven't heard them, and kind of you can make your own summary. How's that? But what I want to do is I want to start a new series. This one's not going to be as long because I'm still just kind of milling around in my pea brain, but I, I wanted to give you a scripture where I believe this came from. And the scripture is in Mark 4, and it starts in 21. Also he said to them, is a lamp brought to be put under a basket or a bed? Is it not set on a lampstand? For nothing is hidden which will not be revealed; nor has anything been kept secret, but that it should come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Then he said to them, Take heed what you hear: with the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Well, that's a lot of, that's a lot of scripture, but you know, this is a Bible study kind of deal and we're going to have scripture. And the reason that I brought that specific— and it, it kind of probably has something to do with podcasting and all the hearing. If you heard he, Jesus, talking about be careful what you hear, for with the same measure— but it doesn't have anything— this one I don't think has anything to do with podcasting. It's a spiritual ears that Jesus is talking about. He's talking in, in Mark 4 about the seed and about planting the seed in the good soil. And we've talked about that on previous episodes. You're getting your heart right and be careful what you hear. And so Jesus is telling his people, hey, you know, whatever you hear, if you hear something in your spirit and it kind of comes alive, you know, you're going to get more. But until you act on the thing that you've— that God's given you I don't know that you're going to get a whole lot more. He's going to give you the stuff that he wants you to, quote, hear, and then you've got to kind of dig it around and you got to act on it. With all of that said, my pastor had started preaching, or it has already preached on the four foundations of the church, and he used the spiritual creatures, or the live— the four living creatures in Revelation, to use as the foundations of the church. And I just thought it was so wonderful that I just had to share it with you. And part of the thing, you know, my, my gifting, if you will, is teaching. And I believe that Robert Morris is probably 100 times better teacher than I am, but he proclaims the word of God. He is a preacher or pastor at Gateway Church. So his, his job at the church and on Sunday morning is to proclaim the good news or to proclaim the word of God. And the gift of the teacher, or the job of the teacher, is then to go back and explain.
I—
the reason that I'm milling around is probably this, this teaching is probably going to be a week or so because I haven't just taken a long, long time of digging it around, but I just wanted to share it with you. This is such a cool truth that I just thought you needed to have that because it just kind of It kind of jumped up inside of me, and I want you to be a part of it. And so I want to share with you kind of the things that are going on in my head and kind of what's, what's moving around. And I've shared it in a previous episode about, you know, the wheel in the middle of the wheel, and in far— as far as I think it was goal setting. And I, I was going to have a document or a diagram, and I still haven't got that I've got it on a piece of paper, but to get it from a piece of paper into the computer is a little bit different animal for me. And so I'm still working on trying to get it, but I've got a wheel in the middle of the wheel, and it's on goal setting. I think it's wonderful. Well, you may think, meh, it may— it's all right. But anyway, I'm still working on all that, and I'm putting all that together. There's 4 living creatures, 'But each creature has 4 faces. There's a face of a man, there's a face of a lion, there's a face of an eagle, and a face of an ox on each creature.' And each of these 4 living creatures has 4 faces. And in Ezekiel, they've got 2 wings and— or 4 wings. And in, uh, Revelation, they're, they're mentioned in both places. And then the Book of Revelation, they— I think it says they have 6 wings. I mean, I, I'm not going to get involved in all of that, but I think it's fascinating. And I think if you can start picturing that as you're driving or working out, we're going to be talking about each one of these faces and what each represent to the church. And I want to go back to telling you, you know, this is the foundation of the church. And I want to remind you that the church is not a building. If you have accepted Jesus Christ of your— as your Lord and Savior, You are the church. So by accepting Christ and, and becoming a child of the King, I, you know, I've told— I think I've mentioned this on a previous podcast, but I don't believe God— and I know this, it's not that I don't believe it— but God's not schizophrenic. And God has not placed you in his body and then, uh, I changed my mind. So wherever you were when you got saved, the picture that I've got— and I've got to picture this— but when you are saved Jesus— or actually, it's the Holy Spirit— grabs you and baptizes you in the body of Christ. That's how I gotta— I kind of got to get pictured is that, that the Holy Spirit is the baptizer, and he baptizes you into the body of Christ. And once you've been placed, God knows exactly who you are. God knows exactly why he made you. He puts you in his body, and he puts you there because that's where— why he made you. And that's where your best gifting and your best talents and all of that are going to be found, is when you figure out where you are in the body of Christ. All right, well, that was a long explanation of being in the body, but you are baptized in the body. And then there's another baptism, you know, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's a different and separate baptism. And I think that's Jesus grabbing you and then baptizing you in his Spirit. But that's down the road, that's for a different podcast. But that is being baptized in the— when people talk about being baptized in the Spirit, I've got Jesus grabbing you and baptizing you in his Spirit. And then when you're in the body, when you have salvation, you are, you are baptized into the body of Christ. All of that said, that has very little to do, but I had to, I had to set that up for the four creatures, because the four creatures— because you are the church. If you've been baptized into the body of Christ, you are now part of the church, or you are the church. We need to figure out this, these foundations. And you know, Jesus is the chief cornerstone, and he is the foundation that we build all of this on. Paul was very clear that, you know, if you build it up, if you build your life on any foundation other than Christ, it's not going to be good. And Jesus talked about the, the wise builder build on the stone or on the, on the rock, and the unwise built on the sand. So we're talking about the foundational truths and what you build on, but also in the body, we are in different parts of the same body. So in the next episode, I just kind of looked up at the clock And this is kind of going on, it's like— and I hope I'm not rambling, I hope you've gotten something out of this, but I'm trying to set the table for these, for these four creatures. And we're going to talk about each creature, and we're going to talk about how it relates to you and me. And it's— I think it's fascinating. And I think I really— this, when, when I heard this, I, I was like, yeah, that, that's exactly what I needed to hear. And, and if that's the way God works through me with teaching is when I, when I get fired up about something, it's probably because somebody out there that I'm going to teach is going to get fired up about it. So I hope you're fired up about it. I'm going to wait to explain a little more of the, the living creatures in the next episode, but I want to thank you for being a part of this. I want to thank you for making it through the Armor of God. We finally got it on. We'll circle back to the Armor of God, but I want to thank you, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
