40 Burst results for "Christian"
Breaking the Glass Slipper: Women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror
Community and isolation with Jennifer Thorne - burst 3
"And, you know, I mean, that's not to say that, like, I'm on the side of the villagers from the Wicker Man, because they were absolutely insane. And I'm not, like, advocating for people being burnt alive in a giant Wicker Man. I just want to make that clear. But I think that often folk horror does set up this paradigm of, group bad, tradition bad, especially pagan. So you have this kind of like pagan versus Christian. You have, like, the city person coming into the countryside. And it's like, you know, the people who are in touch with history and nature and who are sort of a less civilized element are the threat. Whereas, you know, like the sort of Christianized, civilized person coming in is the only sane person that can kind of rally against it. Which again, is kind of a right wing perspective in some ways, you know, like, you know, if people sort of follow the environment and sort of older traditions, that doesn't make them, you know, stupid or wrongheaded or backwards. It's just, you know, a choice.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Fresh update on "christian" discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"And as the war was going on between the north and the south in Sudan, when it was one country, the world didn't get too involved. They didn't get their hands too messy with any of that. But when they came to the conclusion that that war was going to last forever if we didn't step in, they created two different countries, Sudan and South Sudan, and they gave the Christians their liberty in South Sudan and said, you are free in northern Sudan. You get to be the Arab sinkhole that you are. And what they've done in the meantime is ignored. At the time, nearly 185,000 spoils of war by way of human slaves that had been taken. So if you saw that footage of those girls being taken hostage by Hamas, these are the people that had the same ideology, the same mentality in their mind when they took these young ladies from South Sudan. Now, that was at the end of the civil war in Sudan. What has happened since then is that Christian Solidarity International, working with specifically the Christian community here in America, we have seen the liberation of more than 135,000 of those original 185,000 slaves. And we are starting, this is exciting, Eric, for the first time to start also be able to retrieve some of their children that they had while in slavery and in captivity and get them released and freed as well. But it's a very simple process. You give a gift, it's $250. That $250 basically covers what they need to live their life going forward. So once the slave is liberated, they go to the border of South Sudan where a CSI kind of camp is at where they can receive medical care, psychological counseling, any types of nutritional boosting and stuff that they need. They get intensive recovery time in this camp. Then when they are able to travel, they are given what's called the bag of hope. And the bag of hope includes everything they need to start their life over again. And that's the bulk of what your gift is for $250. In that bag, you get food for a year. And it doesn't all fit in the bag, by the way. You get food for a year. You get seed for another year. You get tarps and utensils and things that you need to help make a life for yourself. And kind of the last thing they give you before you shove off to go back to your home area is they bring out a little kid goat on a rope. And you get to take a little kid goat with you that's going to grow up and give you milk and cheese. It will provide more goats that you can sell as a micro-enterprise business for yourself. And we've now seen that happen in more than 125,000 cases of those slaves being released. And due to, in large measure, the Eric Metaxas audience in recent years, even thousands more. Folks, I don't know how you wouldn't want to do something about this. This is just a heavenly, heavenly opportunity. MetaxasTalk.com is our radio website. At the top of the page, you'll see the banner. Whatever you give, do it now, folks. We'd appreciate that. MetaxasTalk.com. Kevin McCullough, thank you. Thank you, Eric. The United States Border Patrol has exciting and rewarding career opportunities with the nation's largest law enforcement organization. Border Patrol agents enjoy great pay, outstanding federal benefits, and up to $20,000 in recruitment incentives for newly appointed agents. If you are looking for a way to serve something greater than yourself, consider the United States Border Patrol. Learn more online at CBP.gov slash careers slash USBP. That's CBP.gov slash careers slash USBP.
Mark Levin
How Can Anyone Claim Pastor John Hagee Is "Praising Hitler"?
"You have their funding sources and their links in our own country. You have them undermining Israel at the time of war. And this is what they do. This is why you hate them and you should hate them. What is SCUFAR, Christians United for Israel? Here's their mission statement. It's the largest pro -Israel organization in the United States with over 10 million members Christians United for Israel is the foremost Christian organization educating and empowering millions of Americans to speak and act with one voice in defense of Israel and the Jewish people. CUFI's diversity across political, ethnic, generational and denominational lines maximizes our impact media, in communities, on campus and in the in our nation's capital. CUFI is committed to confronting a difference in combating anti semitism in all its forms wherever it may be found. That's very different than Hamas's mission statement which I don't believe has been read by any news operation from beginning to end. Number one it's quite long but number two it is self threatening. And here this group founded by Dan Abrams is trashing one of the foremost leaders in the Christian world. Defending the state of Israel. Trying to tie him to Hitler. This is really shocking. But I guess it's really not. Benjamin Netanyahu himself has been the Jewish leader of the Jewish state. By the radical left in his country and our country. Kufai was created in February 2006 as a grassroots movement designed to unify Christians across all denominations and cultural boundaries in support of Israel. was media founded? Why God knows why.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Fresh update on "christian" discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"He hates Trump and parentheses and America. We'll be right back, folks. Right now, in other parts of the world, people's lives are being threatened simply for believing in Jesus. People have been enslaved for their faith. So listeners to this show know that I'm passionate about the work of Christian International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted and enslaved for their Christian faith. I've got to thank you for your life changing generosity for years now. If you've given a CSI through this program, you have played a role in freeing literally thousands of captives. So as we near the end of this year, can I ask you to give once again your gift of just 250 dollars will free a woman in Sudan who has been enslaved for years. You can buy a believer's freedom and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life. Just 250 dollars. Maybe you can give more and free more people. Call 888-253-3522 888-253-3522 or go to MetaxasTalk.com. Please do it. MetaxasTalk.com. Legacy Precious Metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. In a few of these steps, you can open an account online, select your metals of choice and choose to have them stored in a vault or shipped to your door. You have access to a dashboard where you can track your portfolio growth in real time. Any time you'll see transparent pricing on each coin and bar. This puts you in complete control of your money. The platform is free to sign up for. Visit LegacyPMInvestments.com and open your account and see this new investing platform for yourself. Gold hedges against inflation and against the volatile stock market. A true diversified portfolio isn't just more stocks and bonds, but different asset classes. This new platform allows you to make investments in gold and silver no matter how small or large with a few clicks. Visit LegacyPMInvestments.com to get started. You're going to love this free new tool they've added. LegacyPMInvestments.com. LegacyPMInvestments.com. Check it out.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
A highlight from The Mike and Mark Davis Daily Chat - 11/14/23
"Lots of channels. Nothing to watch. Especially if you're searching for the truth. It's time to interrupt your regularly scheduled programs with something actually worth watching. Salem News Channel. Straightforward, unfiltered, with in -depth insight and analysis from the greatest collection of conservative minds. Like Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Sebastian Gorka, and more. Find truth. Watch 24 -7 on SNC .TV and on Local Now, Channel 525. 738 on this Tuesday, the 14th day of November. Lots of Texas political news. But I did get a chance to spend a moment there in the opening half hour saying that I grow weary of the moral fog. In fact, on Twitter just a couple of moments ago, in these fractured times, I'm glad to give a Democrat some credit. Democrat Senator Chris Coons, who is right on Israel, was confronted by this stooge pro -Hamas activist on a train who badgered him. Why not a ceasefire? Why not a ceasefire? Sometimes moral clarity is something that needs to be delivered in a certain fashion. I'd like to think I have it intellectually and conceptually. My buddy Mike Gallagher joins us, who had an experience yesterday that will bring that kind of clarity in the harshest but necessary terms. I just can't wait to see how this day went. It had to be amazing and I'm just so glad you're here and the floor is yours. And tell everybody what you got a chance to do yesterday. Well, it was something that no one would want to see. It was pretty brutal. It was worse than I thought it was going to be. Israel put together a 45 -minute sort of a collection of video and audio and still photographs. They were videos from the terrorists' GoPros and their cell phones. There were closed -circuit videos and there were audio intercepts. They got audio recordings of the terrorists calling their families. The IDF was able to tap into some of these calls where they were calling their parents excitedly, saying, I just killed 10 Jews with my bare hands, Mom. Your son is a hero. Your son is a hero, Aloha Akbar. And they're all joyful and ecstatic. A couple of takeaways. When you watch the brutality of the violence that they inflicted on these innocent men, women, children, elderly people, there are a couple of things that really stand out. Number one, the ecstasy and the joy that the Hamas terrorists experienced as they were killing people, including little babies in little onesies and little daisy outfits and cute little kids covered in blood, slaughtered brutally. And they were absolutely euphoric, Mark. That's the only word to use. It was ecstatic for them. They had such a joy. And I kept telling myself, there's no way they think that Jews are human. There's no way that they regard them as human beings. You couldn't do that to another human being and have that kind of satisfaction. I mean, let's face it. When you think about crime in America or crimes of passion or murders or robberies or whatever, what have you, normal people don't have euphoria when they cut somebody's head off. They don't get joyful and they don't call their moms and brag about it and say, look what I did. Look what I did. So number one, that's one of the big takeaways. And the other thing I kept thinking about, and it was a somber mood. It was at the Israeli embassy. There were a number of some media people there, some pastors. It was a gathering from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews who we worked with closely right after the terror attack of October the 7th. About 60 people in the room, maybe 70. It was very somber. It was very well done. But as you can imagine, there were tears. There was crying. There was weeping. One pastor in front of me, in fact, he happens to be a pastor from Sarasota, not far from where I'm at right now. When it was over, he kind of flung himself down onto the ground and laid across the stage and was laying on his belly just heaving, just crying and sobbing. I mean, you're looking right at the face of the devil. You're looking at evil with this. And I kept thinking, Mark, how I wish the people marching at Columbia and Harvard and in Austin, how I wish they could see this video. From the river to the sea, you proud now? You proud now? I mean, you know, the one pastor, I spent some time, I pulled double duty after the show and then I did the screening at this embassy. And then I was asked to do an afternoon show for WAVA, which is a huge Christian teaching and talk station. Over in Arlington, yeah. Yep, the Arlington. And so Don Crow has been out on a medical leave and they asked me to fill in for him. And I had with me Bishop Lanier, who is the chairman of the board of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, as a very profound speaker, very eloquent, very, you know, just a great orator and a great man of the cloth. And he said, look, I don't think we're going to change their minds. We need to change our minds. We need to change what we say from the pulpit. We've got to stop the equivocation. Well, it's two sides here. People are dying on both sides. That is both -sides -ism of the worst possible stripe. It really is, Mark. And I just want to reiterate that because I don't know that Israel, listen, if Israel was guilty of any of the stuff that I saw yesterday, that I experienced, and again, I'm not trying to be melodramatic. It's one of the most painful things I've ever, ever encountered. I mean, and I'll spare you gory details. You can imagine how bad it was. I mean, you already have seen some of it, you know, lining up on the streets and just shooting into cars of innocent passengers trying to drive down the street. But there was one scene in particular that got to me the most. I do want to share it with you. There was a father alone with his sons. The mother was gone, and it was in the kibbutz. They did a horrible massacre in this kibbutz, which is like a Jewish religious holy neighborhood, you know. But they're beautiful little homes. I mean, oh, their homes were so cute and decorated and, you know, plants on the porches and everything. And they were meticulously taken care of. So here's this father in the house, and it's all captured on the family's closed -circuit video. So they had like a ring system all throughout the house and outside, and it was all captured. So the father is with these two boys. I would guess the one little boy was about seven or eight. The other one was probably 11 or 12. And the little boys were in their underwear. And the shots ring out, and the father, they're all terrified, and the father desperately tries to protect his children. He scoops them both up, and they run into the backyard, and they go into a little shed that's in the backyard. It looked like a little gardening shed. And you see a Hamas terrorist come around the corner and casually pull the pit off of a grenade and throw the grenade in the shed. And it blows up, and the father immediately slumps out of the shed dead. You could tell he's instantly dead. But the two little boys are alive, and they come running out in their underwear. The one boy, you can see it looks like his eye is missing. He is terrified. The two little boys are crying, Daddy, Daddy, Mommy, Mommy. They go into the kitchen. Now the closed -circuit video picks them up in the kitchen where they're talking to each other. And they said to each other, and it's all translated, of course, and they said, Is this real? Is this real? I think we're going to die. Daddy died. Daddy died. Where's Mommy? Where's Mommy? And then the one little boy turns to his brother, his little brother, and says, Can you see out of that eye? He says, No, I can't. And he looks at him, and you can see that it looks like his whole side of his face was injured from the grenade. And he says, You can't? You can't? You can't see? He goes, No, I can't see anything out of my eye. And the little boys are crying, and they're calling for their Mommy. And then the closed -circuit shifts back to the backyard where a kibbutz security guard, actually two security guards, have escorted the mother to the property. She had been away. So they take her to the back of the shed where her dead husband is laying. She is now in anguish and screaming and collapsing and screaming, Where are my boys? Where are my boys? At the same time, the two boys, they run out of the house in the front, trying to escape. And Lord knows what fate they met. I don't have a whole lot of high hope that they made it. And I'd like to look into that. I'm going to follow up with my friends at the fellowship to see if those boys were reunited with their mother. But that's the human suffering that I wish people who seem to dehumanize Jews would see. It was eye -opening. I'm glad I did it. I'm honored that I did it. I'm glad you did, too. I'm so glad. But it was awful. And I wouldn't want anybody to see it. For people who – and sometimes you can hear people in your headphones and hear people driving around. And I want to give a voice to people saying we could show a horrible video of a Palestinian child to whom something terrible has happened, and that is undeniably true.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Fresh update on "christian" discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"In an unsettled world, knit yourself in truth as you gain the knowledge and skills to meet the challenges of what's to come. Regent University is a Christian community that seeks to honor God and serve people. Christian leadership begins here amongst your professors and alongside your classmates. Find your Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. investments dot com. That's legacy p.m. investments dot com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxas show. It's the show featuring Gogo the Chimp. Nothing like a chimp to liven up the radio show. Folks, welcome back. You've heard of Angel Studios and pretty much anything they put out. I'm going to be interested in, you know, about the sound of freedom, a blockbuster. You may know that they are producing the or that they're distributing the Bonhoeffer film that I'm so excited about coming out next year. They they put out a film called After Death. I know we're going to be talking to one of the producers about the film After Death soon, but right now I'm talking to somebody who is one of the producers on a film called The Shift. Ken Carpenter, welcome. Hello, Eric. How are you? OK, this Friday, The Shift is going to be in twenty four hundred theaters. That is a monumental opening for a film. Tell us about The Shift, which is being distributed by Angel Studios. I will. But can I make a confession? I saw the trailer to Bonhoeffer last night. It played in front of our red carpet premiere for The Shift. I wish we could take our time to have you tell me all about Bonhoeffer. It looks like you can read my short book on the subject. It's only six pages long. Yeah, right. Very, very excited that the Bonhoeffer film is coming out next year. It's not like officially based on my book or anything, but I I can personally vouch for the film. I am just so excited that that his story is going to be told and that Angel Studios is behind it. But I want to talk to you about your film because it is coming out in a couple of days all across the country, The Shift. What do we need to know about this film? Yeah, I think the most interesting thing, perhaps, Eric, is just that it's a it's such a unique and different path in to unpack big ideas in an environment where people want to tell stories and see stories that are additive to culture that sync up with angels. I'm sure you're well, you're in the right place to amplify light.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
A highlight from David Brooks on How To Know A Person
"Turbulent times call for clear -headed insight that's hard to come by these days, especially on TV. That's where we come in. Salem News Channel has the greatest collection of conservative minds all in one place. People you know and trust, like Dennis Prager, Eric Metaxas, Charlie Kirk, and more. Unfiltered, unapologetic truth. Find what you're searching for at snc .tv and on Local Now Channel 525. Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale at hillsdale .edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course, to listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues. All of them at hillsdale .com or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Inside the Beltway this morning, I'm so glad you joined me. I want to talk with you about this book. David Brooks's brand new How to Know a Person, The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. David joins me now. Hello, David. How are you? It's good to be with you again. It's good to talk to you. David, I'm used to getting books, and I got yours for free. They get sent to me. I want to tell you I'm going to buy six copies of How to Know a Person, three for my children and their spouses, and three for friends who are no longer friends that I want them to read. I wonder if you've had other people tell you that they're going to be buying your book to give to other people. Yeah, thank you for being generous on Twitter about the book. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, I've had people buy it for all their employees. I've had people buy it for the families. I haven't heard about buying it for ex -friends, but it's a good strategy. It is. We just live in these brutalizing times. It is. And my book is supposed to be a missile directed right at that. It's about the precise skills of how do you get to know someone, how do you make them feel respected, seen, heard. How do you make them feel respected, seen, and heard? I know why my friends are not my friends anymore. It's because of Donald Trump. They thought me insufficiently outraged about Donald Trump, and I can't bridge that gap, right? I can't be other than what I am, which is I voted for him twice, and if he's the nominee, I'll vote for him again. But they don't understand it, and I don't know that they're trying to understand. I don't understand them either, but I think How to Know a Person has assisted me. So, congratulations. Let me also tell you, I told our mutual friend Bob Barnett that I was telling people about your book in Miami as I prepared for the debate, because my wife and I talked about one statistic in particular, one paragraph actually, on page 98. Thirty -six percent of Americans reported they felt lonely frequently or almost all of the time, including 61 percent of young adults, 51 percent of young mothers. The percentage of Americans who said they have no close friends quadrupled between 1990 and 2020. 54 percent of Americans reported that no one knows them well. That is an extraordinary raft of terrible news, David. Yeah, and I found it's hard to build a healthy democracy on top of a rotting society, and so when this people are filled with loneliness and sadness, it turns into meanness, because if you feel yourself unseen, invisible, there's nothing crueler than feeling that people think you don't exist, and you get angry, and you lash out, and we have these school shootings. We have bitter politics. We've got the brutality of what's happening on college campuses right now, where Jewish students are being blockaded out of classrooms or have the recipients of genocidal how to build a friendship, how to make people feel that you're included, and these are basic social skills like the kind you could be taught at like learning carpentry or tennis or something like that. It's how do you listen well, how do you disagree well, how do you sit with someone who's got depression, how do you sit with someone who's contemplating suicide, how do you sit with someone who disagrees with you fundamentally on issues, and I just try to walk through the basic skills, and in my view, there in any group of people, there are two sorts. There's diminishers, the people who stereotype ignore, they don't ask you questions, they just don't care about you, and then there's another sort of person who are illuminators, and they are curious about you, they respect you, they want to know your life story, and they make you feel lit up and heard, and my goal in writing the book was partly social, because we need these skills to be a decent society, and partly personal. I just want to be better at being an illuminator. I think it comes through in the book. I listened to your interview with Katie Couric and her colleague, who I don't know, and they were trying to get at a question a couple of times, I'm gonna try and land that plane. Why did David Brooks write this book? Well, I'll give you the personal reason. You know, some people, if anybody watched Fiddler on the Roof, you know how warm and huggy Jewish families can be. I grew up in the other kind of Jewish family, and our culture was think Yiddish, act British, so we had love in the home. We just didn't express it. We were not a huggy family. We were all cerebral up here, and then when I was 18, the admissions officers at Columbia, Wesleyan, and Brown decided to actually go to the University of Chicago, which was also a super cerebral place. My favorite thing about Chicago, it's a Baptist school where atheist professors teach Jewish students St. Thomas Aquinas, and so I went into the world of journalism where we just Frederick Buechner once put it, if you cut yourself off from true connection with others, you may save yourself a little pain because you won't be betrayed, but you're cutting yourself off from the holy sources of life itself, and so I just wanted to be better at being intimate with other people. I've heard you now three times, read in your book, heard you tell it to Katie, and heard you tell it to me, the anecdote about the University of Chicago, the anecdote about Yiddish and British, but what is new is you brought up Buechner, and I've never read Buechner. I now know his backstory, which is so tragic. You include it in the book. I did not know he had a tragic backstory that illumines his character for me, and maybe I will go and read it, but you're in interview mode. How many different book interviews have you done? Uh, probably 20 or more. I don't know a lot. You're definitely, I know what that's like, where you want to get through an interview, and you want to make sure that people, you land the point, and I want to get a little bit deeper than that. I want to find out if you're with your self -examination. There's been a David Brooks self -examination underway for a long time, but you have not yet written your book about God. Are you going to go there? Yeah, well, at the end of The Second Mountain, I wrote a book about my spiritual journey, and how I grew up, my phrase was religiously bisexual, so I grew up in a Jewish home, but I went to a church school, and I went to a church camp, so I had the story of Jesus in my God. And then when I was 50 or so, reality seemed porous to me. It seemed like we're not just a bunch of physical molecules. You know, I once, I was in subway in New York City in God's ugliest spot on the face of the earth, and I look around the subway car, and I see all these people, and I decide all these people have souls. There's some piece of them that has no size, weight, color, or shape, but gives them infinite value and dignity, and their souls could be soaring, their souls could be hurting, but all of us have them. And once you have the concept of the soul in your head, it doesn't take long before the concept of God is in your head. And so I went off, especially about 10 years ago, and it's still going on a spiritual journey of just trying to figure out what do I believe? And I learned when you're on a journey like that, Christians give you books, and so I got like 700 books sent to me, only 350 of which were different copies of Christianity by C .S. Lewis. And so that was my journey. And it didn't, it was very slow and gradual. There were some dramatic moments, but not a lot. But I realized, oh, I'm not an atheist anymore, and my heart has opened up to something. And I think this book is the extension of that. When your heart opens up to God, and if every person you meet, you think this person was made in the image of God, I'm looking at somebody so important, Jesus was willing to die for that person, then I've got to show them the respect that God would show them. I've got to try to see them with the eyes that Jesus would see them with. And that's a super high standard that I'm not going to meet, but it's a goal. And Jesus says, even in brutal, tough times, He sees people, He sees the poor. And the main thing He does is Jesus is always asking questions. Somebody asks Him a question, He asks them a question back. And that act of questioning, what you do for a living, that's a show of respect. And that's the doorway to seeing someone. And so to me, I think questions are a moral act that we're phenomenal at when we're kids. And then we get a little worse at it. And I come sometimes leave a party and think that whole time nobody asked me a question. And I've come to think like only 30 % of the people in the world are question askers. And so part of the thing I do in the book is just try to say, here are some generous things to do to ask people questions. It is a, that is the key takeaway, how to ask questions. And this is a skill set. I sent a note this morning to my friend, Jan Janur, who has been running a Christian ministry for 30 years called The Wild Adventure. He wrote a book called Turning Small Talk into Big Talk. And I was reminded of it. Yours is a longer, more complicated examination of the art of asking questions and why you want to do so. It's also, it reminded me a lot of C .S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory. You have never met an ordinary human being. Everyone is an eternal horror, an everlasting splendor, and you believe that and you get to it. And I want to talk about how one gets there, but I want to begin, interestingly enough, with a comment Katie Couric made you. And I listened to that yesterday. I'd finished your book last week and I made my notes last night. And then I listened to Katie Couric interview. She spontaneously brought up her interview with Sarah Palin. Why do you think she did that, David? I like Katie a lot. And she's been a guest on my show. I loved her memoir, at least the first two thirds of it, which was about her younger life, which I thought was fascinating. Why do you think she brought up the Sarah Palin interview? I was also struck by that because I don't think she talks about it enough. I know Katie from various things and I don't think she talks about it all that much. I think it was a time when she was asking questions and somebody just wasn't answering. It was a time when she was having a miscommunication. I imagine that's why she wrote up. Do you have another theory? I do. I think it's because she's been misunderstood because of that question and that she wants people who only know Katie Couric because of that question to know that that's not Katie Couric. And that, to me, it was it made perfect sense she used to be known. And that's the central theme of this. People want to be seen. They want to be known. And if you are known for the wrong thing, in this case, the Katie Couric Sarah Palin interview, you want to you want to get that off your cargo ship, right? You want that unloaded. And I thought, wow, you really the book worked on her. Let me tell you also, on page 134, you talk about face experiments with infants. I want them outlawed. David, what did you think when you read it? I think those are cruel and awful. Tell people about them. Yeah, so babies come out of the womb wanting to be seen. Baby's eyes, they see everything 18 inches away in sharpness. Everything else is kind of blurry because they want to see mom's face. And these experiments that you referred to are called still face experiments. The babies send a bid for attention. And the moms are instructed, don't respond, just be still face. And in the beginning, the babies are uncomfortable. And then after a few seconds, they start writhing around. And five within seconds, they're in total agony, because nobody is seeing them. And I really don't think that's that much different as adults. I think when we're unseen, it is just total agony. We're rendered invisible. And that's what I encounter in my daily life as a reporter. I used to go to the Midwest. I live on the East Coast, but I spent a lot of time in the Midwest. And maybe 10, 15 years ago, once a day, somebody would say, you guys think we're flyover country. In the last five years, I hear that like 10 times a day. And so a lot of just people feel they're invisible. And frankly, that's a little on my profession, the media. When I started as a police reporter in Chicago, we had working class folks in the newsroom. Our reporters, they hadn't gone to college. They were just regular people from Chicago, and they covered crime alongside me. Now, if you go to newsrooms, especially in New York, DC, LA, San Francisco, it's not only everybody went to college, everyone went to the same like 15 elite colleges, and a lot of the same prep schools. So if you're not in this little group, and you look at the national media, and you don't see yourself, it's as if they're telling you your voice doesn't matter. You don't exist. And that's a form of dehumanization that we've allowed to fester in this country. And of course, people are going to lash out. Yeah, I just spent two weeks with really wonderful professionals at NBC preparing for this debate. And at one point, I asked one of my colleagues in this exercise, I don't work for NBC, how many people do you think in this room voted for Trump? And taken aback, they did not answer because the answer is obvious. Nobody. And if if your newsroom is full of 100 % people not only didn't vote for Trump, but actually loathe them, you can't cover the country. It's impossible because you're not seeing the other 50%. And what your book is, I hope the newsroom is distributed as well. We are all about seeing people who have long been marginalized, and that is important. But if you don't see people who are supporting Donald Trump, for whatever reason, you can't cover the news. Let me ask you about this Philip Lewis fellow. I love him, because he finally gave me the courage to teach the do the Dormant Commerce Clause in the 11th Amendment with the confidence that even though my students are terribly bored, they have to know this. Where did you meet Philip Lewis? Because he's talking to teachers. Teachers need to read this book too, if only to be comforted in the fact that every teacher has this experience.
Mark Levin
Fresh update on "christian" discussed on Mark Levin
"Should be doing everything possible to combat i support the right of Palestinians to resist occupation including through hamas the armed wing of the unified palestinian resistance as an arab asking with this context to condemn hamas is very anti -arab racist the notion that this was a massacre of jews is a fabricated narrative many of those killed on october seventh including children were killed by the idf an amendment condemning hamas is bald propaganda meant to thank you your time is up to hear them complain about hamas violence is like listening to a wife beater complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back question did anyone else notice that those who oppose this resolution are old white supremacists there's been a lot of atrocity propaganda raging from headed babies to masquerade hamas is not a paris organization just because the u .s and all i mean that though hamas is a resistance organization that is fighting for the liberation of palestinian people in their land you hear that now hamas is a is a their freedom fighter this is the democrat party every single one of those people that spoke to that city council meeting they're all lefty coops every single one of them this is the democrat party so chuck schumer spare us with the speeches pal those speeches given by those people say everything this is the mark rich in for mark we're coming right back radio seventy seven paid for by christian care three so right now maybe the perfect time for you to rethink how you pay for health care and here's why not only is it open enrollment for a lot of people it's also a time you can join meta share and save even more than usual for many families switching to meta share saves about five hundred dollars a month which is a game changer for a lot of people but what's more they like it meta share has double the member satisfaction rate compared to health insurance double meta shares a proven thing to for over thirty years it's christian a community of more than four hundred thousand members and here's the thing too if you join before november and you mention the promo code share you get another hundred and fifty dollars savings so I'll give you the number here in second a but just call you get a price within two minutes and again the deadlines november thirtieth so call now and you'll save even more here's the number eight four four fifty three bible that's eight four four fifty three bible eight four four fifty three bible how's your car working these days folks? the following is a paid commercial announcement this is an urgent news alert from the international fellowship of Christians and Jews the people of Israel are at war president and CEO of the fellowship Yael Alexstein I'm coming to you today to say we need your help now we need emergency supplies on the ground in Israel now Bishop Paul Lanier chairman of the US board
Evangelism On Fire
A highlight from No More Sitting On The Sidelines
"Welcome to Evangelism on Fire podcast. My name is Mark Thomas, an ordained pastor, a teacher of the best selling book of all time, your host, and most importantly, your evangelism coach. Every episode, I bring you an inspiring message to help you live the most exciting life God has created you to live by actively sharing your faith in Jesus with others. I believe in the power of the gospel and the potential of all Christians to live out the mission of the great commission. I believe the best way for Christians to grow is to go. It's time for a revolution in every Christian's life around the world so that every person everywhere around the world can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ from a friend or family member through one on one evangelism. I'm so thankful for our time together today. I absolutely love spending time with you evangelism on fire nation. I believe this podcast will truly inspire you and I believe it will inspire so many people that you know, and if you're inspired and feeling moved to share this, then please message some friends, post this on social media, and let people know about this episode so we can get this message out there more. I appreciate you and everyone listening right now and a quick reminder, I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast to rate it, to review it, spread the word on social media, and spread the message of evangelism on fire forward. Many people are looking for hope these days, especially young people. They want to be part of something bigger. And here at evangelism on fire ministry, we have big plans to reach them in 2023. Here's where you will not find hope. You won't find hope in the culture. You won't find hope in technology. You won't find hope even in many ways in politics. Now all of these things have their place, but true hope can only be found in God. The message that we want to share is that God wants to give hope to the young generation and all generations, that there is hope for them through a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And we want to offer this hope to as many people as possible in 2023 through our outreach ministries, which of course includes our EOF podcast ministry. I'm asking you to join us at EOF ministry and become a partner. A partner is just a friend that makes a regular commitment to us each and every month. They stand by us. That enables us to respond to the opportunities that are coming our way. In many ways, we live in a hopeless world, but through Christ, we have hope. Life without God is a hopeless end. Life with him is an endless hope. Join us right now and become a part of our team and let's reach the world with the most important message that exists, the gospel message. Join us for the plans we have for ministry in 2023 by becoming an Evangelism on Fire ministry partner. Are you ready? Well, this is your next step. Go to today's show notes and click on the giving link to become a monthly partner by setting up a monthly donation or go to our website evangelismonfire .com. Click on the donate button to give a monthly reoccurring donation or a one -time gift. Thank you for joining us to give hope to the world. Welcome to episode 163. This is your host Mark Thomas. Thanks for joining me for another weekly pod episode. Truth bomb of the day. The gospel is the only hope for a dying world. I have two scriptures for you today. The first one is Luke 21 28. When these things begin to take place stand up and lift your heads because your redemption is drawing near. The second verse I have for you today of Scripture is Matthew 16 18 and I tell you you are Peter and upon this rock. I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So you're watching the current events unfold in the world today. You're seeing Revelation on the world stage on your newsfeed. Should you freak out with what's happening and how it will impact you and your loved ones? Listen, no way. You should not freak out. We should be looking up because our redemption is drawing near. That's what we need to be doing. Looking up praying for the peace of Jerusalem and sharing the gospel message with the hyper focus. Jesus advocated while he was on Earth. Again Luke 21 28 when these things begin to take place stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near and remember there's no more sitting on the sidelines Church in today's world. We must make a choice to be hot or cold. Luke warm is not an option as a true follower of Jesus When you know the truth, you will not walk in fear. You will walk in faith in freedom. It's time to share the gospel message with the lost and hurting people in the world with a white hot faith as I begin today's pod episode. I want to say that there will be some people listening who will be offended by the words that I'll be speaking but the words I'm going to speak are important and you'll see why in a moment if you continue to listen, there is no place for sidelines as a follower of Christ in today's world. Listen, there will be no one left in the stands in this game. Good versus evil. Now is the time to choose to be hot or cold. There is absolutely no room as a true follower of Jesus to be lukewarm as mentioned by Jesus himself in Revelation 3 16. So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot. I will vomit you out of my mouth. So if you are a true follower of Jesus Christ, you are called to be on the field to carry out the mission of God on this earth whether you like it or not. Remember God has saved redeemed and commissioned you to serve him in such a time as this. So if you or someone you love think they can avoid making a choice to serve him during the time we're living in listen, I'm here to remind you that that's incorrect. Thinking we are God's children and now we exist to serve and glorify him. This is the time to get off the sidelines and get into the game God has saved us and commissioned us to take part in the game of engaging in the mission of the Great Commission remind yourself of that and remind your fellow Christian brothers and sisters as for me and my family as for me and my evangelism on fire podcast and reach our VAE team. I know who we serve and why we serve if you're listening to this podcast, you're most likely the same much of this pod episode is not for you. It is in the hopes that there will be even just one that will stumble across it hear the truth and realize what decision needs to be made as a true Jesus follower that needs to be made today today. I'm making a stand and I think you will join me I could be wrong, but I don't think I am every once in a while. We will see evil manifest itself in a physical form and that's what we're seeing present day in our world. I am asking you evangelism on fire nation all the listeners of this podcast to join me in obeying the mission of the Great Commission that Jesus has mandated to everyone who calls themselves Christ followers. Look man, I'm not asking you just to listen to this podcast for entertainment purposes. I am asking you to make a commitment to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ as you follow Jesus Christ. I'm asking you to commit to the instructions of the last thing Jesus told us to do while he was on this earth to share the good news of his salvation to the world and listen the world starts with your context and hear this the last thing Jesus told us to do should be the main thing we should be doing as Jesus followers. We need to obey the vision of sharing the good news in the first step of obeying the vision is to always remember this the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are an announcement of the arrival of God's kingdom in Jesus last words to his disciples starting in Mark 16 15 build upon his first announcements. They call Jesus left us with was continue telling others the Gospels good news. This good news is that Jesus has brought the arrival of the kingdom of God to Earth in that through his death and resurrection. He has made a way for all people to have a new life in him the task of evangelism telling others about Jesus was the first thing that Jesus asked his followers to do as he left Earth telling others about what Jesus has done for them is one of the most important things that we can do with our time. We have been given the greatest gift of all eternal life with God, but that gift is also freely available to the rest of the world. So take some time to examine yourself today and ask yourself will you choose to be hot as you follow Jesus or will you be like the rest of the 95 % of those who claim to be Christians that will go their entire life without leading at least one person to Jesus as their Savior. It's time to get off the sidelines and into the game. If you truly want to serve God in the capacity. He's created you to serve him or remain cold or lukewarm. My hope is that you will choose this day whom you will serve knowing while you will serve him and to obey the vision Jesus has given to you directly when we are born again. We all have visions if we are spiritual at all of what Jesus wants us to be in the great thing is to learn not to be disobedient to the vision not to say that it cannot be attained if the Holy Spirit has given you a vision in your private Bible study or during a meeting or maybe listening to this pod episode which made your heart glow in your mind expand in your will stir itself to grasp. You will have to pay the last farthing in concentration along that line until all you see is the vision made actual the healthiest exercise for the mind of a Christian is to learn to apprehend the truth granted to it in vision every Christian with any experience at all has had a vision of some fundamental truth either about the atonement or the Holy Spirit sin or engaging in the mission of the Great Commission and it is at the Pearl of their souls that they lose not that vision by prayer and determination. We have to form the habit of keeping ourselves soaked in the vision God has given the difficulty with the majority of us is that we will not seek to apprehend the vision we get a glimpse of it and then leave it alone truth bomb of the day when we obey the vision Jesus has given to everyone who follow him we participate in the highest calling of sharing the eternal word of the Living God to men and women who are desperately in need of his free gift of eternal salvation choose today who you will serve and why you will serve choose to dedicate yourself to the hyper focus on evangelism that Jesus advocated in Luke 1910 boom God bless you and have the best week of your life. Make sure to join me for next week's episode. Thanks so much for your time with me today. It's been an amazing time and thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey of sharing your faith in Jesus with others. Make sure to check out today's podcast show notes for a description of today's show along with other super important details and also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple podcast as well. I really appreciate your feedback evangelism on fire nation. So share a review on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most and hey if no one has told you lately God loves you. I love you you matter and you have divine purpose now. It's time to go out there and share the boom the gospel message with others. Make sure to join me for our next episode. Thank you.
Morning News with Manda Factor and Gregg Hersholt
Fresh update on "christian" discussed on Morning News with Manda Factor and Gregg Hersholt
"Is going to be canceled. There's nothing I can do. Canceling Christmas is a popular trope in holiday movies, but for the real little town of Bethlehem and Israel's West Bank, it's the reality brought on by the Israel -Hamas war. Reporting on this in The Washington Post is Eshaan Tharoor, who joins us now on Northwest News Radio. Eshaan, Bethlehem is so critically tied to the Christmas story. What is the Palestinian Christian community saying about their decision to cancel public quick to watch. Be sure and, of course, is the place, the origin of our Christmas story and every every year, usually in Manger Square. The various ecclesiastical authorities there of various denominations participate in all sorts of celebrations. It's a very festive story on Christmas. But, of course, given the gravity of what's happening in Israel and in the West Bank and, of course, in Gaza, the coalition of churches, these all the churches in Bethlehem have announced that Christmas is effectively canceled. They will not be there will not be very many festivities. And this is a statement that they've tried to deliver to the White House, a grouping, a delegation of Palestinian Christian priests are in Washington this week. met And I with them and they have delivered a letter to the White House and to representatives on the Hill, urging support for a full ceasefire in the conflict. And this is a show of solidarity more than a safety issue. And so often, in Israeli issues, it's couched as a conflict between Jews and Muslims. But what kind of influence have Christians in Israel and the West Bank had on the narrative around this war? Well, around the war, it's a different matter, but Palestinian Christians do not represent a particularly high percentage of the population currently in the West Bank, in Gaza, among the Palestinians. wouldn't They know more than two or 3%. But they are a community that is far packs that a much heavier punch than its size. It's a very influential community, prominent in the business sector, prominent in intellectual spaces. Historically, many of figures the leading in the Palestinian liberation movement were Christian. The Palestinian Christians do not see themselves particularly different from the Muslims in their midst. Of course, these priests that I spoke to have no tolerance for Hamas, which is an Islamist movement, but they see Hamas as a neighbor, as part of a broader Palestinian -specific and political space. As you put it, the Christian community in the Gaza Strip could physically be facing an extinction event. How small is that community there? Yes, it's a very small community. Roughly, at this point, out of a population of more than two million people in Gaza, there are only 200 ,000 Christians left. But of course, they have huge connections to that, to the diaspora. We saw a former Michigan congressman, Justin Amash. He had extended family who were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and they're a Palestinian Christian, a major fifth century pretty historic church in Gaza, was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. And from what I have been told, some 100 household units, apartments or what have you, belonging to Christians, have either been destroyed or damaged. That's effectively all the residences of the Christian population in Gaza, potentially. So what one church told leader me is that all the Christians of Gaza are at this point homeless, fifth a good to a sixth of them. These are people who had additional that passports allowed them to leave Gaza, have left Gaza, and the rest are also been now out trying to leave. So when the dust settled, we could look at a territory that had a a historic, ancient community where that community will no longer exist after this conflict. And will the message from the Palestinian Christians resonate equally among American Christian politicians, evangelical, conservative, or otherwise? You can find out much more online at Washington Post from Ishan Tharoor. Northwest News Time 1220. Ishan, thank you. Time now for our StockCharts dot com. Money update. We do that at 20 and 50 past each hour. And the markets today have been generally positive, but there's little been a bit of a switch in the last 30 minutes or so. The S &P is now down by two points. The Nasdaq down 17 Still positive for the Dow up by 36 points right now. That's about a tenth of one percent. Your next money update on the way at 1250. Know what others don't. Check back three, four or five times a day for the news, latest traffic and weather. Stay connected. Stay informed with news radio 1000 FM 97
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Glass Half Empty & Half Full - The Perspicuity of Scripture
"Do you struggle with understanding the scriptures? Do you frequently hit roadblocks in your Bible reading? Do you struggle from even having a basic sense of satisfaction in your scripture reading? in your scripture reading? Sana, sana, colita, derana. If you're a Spanish speaker here today, you would know what I just said. Sana, sana, colita, derana. Lalo, could you translate those words as literal as possible for me in English? Yeah, as literal as possible in English. Or he'll heal frog bottom, is that another one? Yeah, he'll heal frog bottom. Now, if you weren't a Spanish speaker, you wouldn't know that what I just said is objectively clear in context. He'll heal frog bottom, literally translated in English, means nothing to a person who doesn't know Spanish. Even if they could translate Spanish to English. So, in reality, this is a phrase that we would often, or Spanish speakers would often tell children when they've, say, fallen on the floor and gotten injured, right? It's almost like as if it's a call to courage, like, you'll be okay. Another example in the English language is a stitch in time saves nine. I don't know if you guys have ever heard that. Have you guys ever heard that, a stitch in time saves nine? Okay, so no one before the 1980s, or sorry, no one after the 1980s. A stitch in time saves nine is an expression that basically means if I don't fix this stitch right now, the nine ones later are gonna fall apart, right? So, it's really a call to prudence and saying, well, I need to do this right now so that things don't get worse down the line. What I said in Spanish earlier, once again, is utterly and objectively clear. Utterly and objectively clear. It's a phrase with a particular meaning, and yet, as I said before, only a native Spanish speaker would understand. To everyone else, what I said was absolutely obscure. we're So, several weeks now into our doctrine of the Scriptures in our confession, and having recently just covered the sufficiency of Scripture, we now arrive at the question of perspicuity, perspicuity, perspicuity. We can say everything we want about the sufficiency of the Scriptures, the sufficiency of Scripture for faith and godliness, but if Scriptures don't have what we will go into later as perspicuity or a degree of transparency or clarity, we couldn't access its sacred truth. Or we would at least need to depend upon someone else to access its sacred truth, and that'll come a bit later. If you do have a copy of the Confession of Faith, feel free to turn there, and that will be in chapter one, paragraph seven. Chapter one, paragraph seven. But if you don't, just feel free to follow along as I read. All things in the Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all. Yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or another that not only the learned, but the unlearned in a due use of ordinary means may attain to a sufficient understanding of them. Now this doctrine here in our Confession deals with how clear the Scriptures are to the people of God. And that whole doctrine is called perspicuity. If you are paying close attention to this paragraph, and as I mentioned, this whole doctrine, not just part of it, but the whole, has to do with perspicuity, then you would realize that perspicuity or transparency or clarity takes into account two things. One, clarity, and two, obscurity. One, clarity, and two, obscurity. So if you've never heard of the word obscure or obscurity, it just means less clear or not as clear. So just as if you have a glass that's half filled with water, half it's simultaneously filled and half empty. So that old adage, are you a glass half full or half empty person? You can just go down the drain, right? A glass halfway filled is both half filled and half empty. Likewise, with the Scriptures and the clarity of the Scriptures, insofar as parts of it are extremely clear and parts of it are not as clear, the perspicuity of the Scriptures actually encompasses two things. Both clarity and obscurity. Very clear and also some parts not as clear. I have a few observations from our tradition, from Peter van Maastricht, I can never pronounce his name correctly, van Maastricht, Francis Turretin, and William Whittaker. But before I get there, just know that this doctrine of perspicuity is a major battle in the Reformation. 16th century Rome so emphasized the obscurity or lack of ease of understanding of the Scriptures that they argue that if you don't have the pope and the magisterium, you can't interpret the Scriptures because if you did, you're not skilled enough to do so and you would most likely fall into various forms of heresy. Now, understand that there is a sense in which that is not false. It is very easy for people who just pick up the Bible on their own and refuse any kind of accountability to a church or Christian doctrine or any kind of wisdom from the past to easily err on the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Christ. It's so easy to do that. And I'm sure many of you may not have been previously accountable to a confession of faith before or a creed, and how often may you have discovered later on, oh, I said this in a certain way about God that was very wrong. It's very easy to do that. Okay, so let's come back to van Maastricht, Turretin, and Whittaker. Whittaker says this, perspicuity or obscurity, notice Whittaker didn't just assume that perspicuity is the same as clarity. He also thought of it in terms of hard to understand, obscurity. Perspicuity or obscurity is either internal or external. By internal, Whittaker means the heart of the interpreter. By external, he means the objective clarity of the scriptures. So if we go back to sana sana colita derana, right, sana sana colita derana is objectively clear. It's an objectively clear expression which calls someone to courage after having encountered a mini tragedy. But it may not be clear to everyone interpreting that because they may not know Spanish, or even if they knew how to translate words of Spanish to English, they still may not know how that particular idiom or expression or saying translates in English. More would have to be taught to them in order for them to understand that. So, in the same sense, the scriptures, the clarity of the scriptures are objectively and externally clear. But at the same time, it requires work and effort on the part of the one interpreting the scriptures to be able to assent or come to that clarity. What's very interesting is that this chapter in our confession doesn't even talk about the obscurity of the scriptures to non -believers. A small aside, it's very easy for us to communicate the gospel one time to a non -believer, send them off with a Bible and expect them to just read things on their own. In reality, we really should be thinking about evangelism more so in the context of the local church, bringing them to church to hear the ministry of the word of God in the presence of Christ. Why? Turton quotes 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 3. He says this. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God should shine on them. The scriptures were not meant to be clear to those who are perishing or even those necessarily yet who will be saved one day. It is nothing short of the ministry of the Holy Spirit that is a requirement for someone to receive the message of the gospel, commit it to their souls, and assent or believe outwardly the doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes as far as to say that ordinarily the ministry of the church, sermons, and commentaries are necessary. And despite all of this, he still wants the Christian to have the comfort of reading the scriptures. The Reformers understood just like with Roman Catholicism does. That there are difficulties in the scriptures, yet they came to a different conclusion. The conclusion that they came to was though there are difficulties and though a Christian should be interpreting the scriptures in the context of the local church, not to be expectant that the minister teaches them how to interpret the Bible in the sermon and they're supposed to do everything on their own afterwards. This is a conjoined effort. The doctrine or the expectations of interpreting the scriptures to our souls is very much a joint effort. You have the responsibility of hearing the word of Christ from the minister of the gospel to interpret and apply it to your conscience. He has the responsibility of aiding you and lifting you on Jacob's ladder. Our confession points to various scripture passages on this point. I'll just read to you two examples. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple and also the entrance of your words gives light. It gives understanding to the simple. Meaning, the scriptures have in themselves a light to be given to the Christian. We are expected to come to the scriptures as if they are a light to us, a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. I've stated this before and I will state it once again. It is entirely possible for something to be written with sufficient clarity and yet, because the reader may lack the ability, he may not be able to fully understand it. And likewise, when speaking of the clarity of the scriptures, not everything is as equally clear. Not everything is as equally clear. I hope you're seeing where this lesson is going. Partly, it's a call to encouragement to receive the basic truths of the Christian faith from the scriptures with a willing and submissive attitude. But on the other part, it's a call to humility and to have very reasonable expectations of what you can accomplish apart from your local church. That is where things get very interesting for us. Roman Catholics have often, at least in the past, accused the Protestants on their doctrine of perspicuity, trying to portray the Protestants as those who believe that every part of the scriptures is so easy to understand that even a farmer can read every single part and understand it as in the same way that a trained and spiritual theologian can. This is not the view of the Reformers. It is not the view of the Reformers that without the ordinary means, which was referred to in our confession, that one may easily attain to the highest of the heights of the mysteries of sacred scripture. That is not the belief of the Reformers. For that matter, even our scriptures have something to say about that. Our confession alludes, let me go back a little bit, to 2 Peter 3 .16. Feel free to turn there if you like. 2 Peter 3 .16. I'm going to read from verse 14. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless. And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction as they do the rest of the scriptures. Some things in Paul are hard to understand for Peter. Now, this would be very interesting if Peter was, in fact, the first pope, and had very difficulty understanding the apostle Paul, and would proclaim the ability to be the vicar of Christ to the church, and to not have the ability to understand parts of Paul would be very problematic, to say the least. That being said, we cannot escape the reality that some parts of the scripture are hard to understand for people by design. By design. And we will get to that, as to why I say by design, in a little bit. Whitaker emphasizes a very balanced approach to understanding the degree to which we can understand the scriptures. He says this, the unlearned can have some fruit and utility in reading the scriptures. At the same time, he'll say this, not even one jot or tittle is clear without the internal light of the Holy Spirit. And in the interest of humility, he closes with this. A man must be impudent, who would say that he understood even any one book thoroughly, and the same hath ever been said of the opinion of all of us. Do you understand what he's saying there? It would be the height of arrogance for Whitaker for someone to say, I even fully understand one book of the Bible. The height of arrogance. And despite that, despite that strong language, Turton and Whitaker often appeal to the church fathers about the ways in which scripture can be understood, the scope of their understanding. I'll read this quote from Francis Turton. The fathers frequently acknowledge it, although they do not deny that the scriptures have their depths, which ought to excite the studious believers. Chrysostom says the scriptures are so proportioned that even the most ignorant can understand them if only they read them studiously. All necessary things are plain and straight and clear. Augustine says, in the clear declarations, the scriptures are to be found, all things pertaining to faith and practice. Irenaeus says the prophetic and evangelical scriptures are plain and unambiguous. Gregory, a pope, says the scriptures have in public nourishment for children as they serve in secret to strike the loftiest minds with wonder. Indeed, they are like a full and deep river in which the lamb may walk and the elephant may swim. I just find that fascinating. How Rome can simultaneously confess full continuity with the church fathers and not say that, at least in the essentials of the Christian faith, that a lay Christian cannot read and understand the script, I just find that so difficult to just wrestle with. Like, how can you say that you have a sense of continuity with the church fathers when the church fathers themselves say that, at least in the elemental and primary doctrines of the Christian faith, they are clearly propounded in the scriptures? You know what's interesting? The major debater in the Roman Catholic world during the Reformation was Cardinal Bellarmine. You've probably heard his name in the past, maybe even last week.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from John Di Domenico (Encore)
"Lots of channels. Nothing to watch. Especially if you're searching for the truth. It's time to interrupt your regularly scheduled programs with something actually worth watching. Salem News Channel. Straightforward, unfiltered, with in -depth insight and analysis from the greatest collection of conservative minds. Like Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Sebastian Gorka, and more. Find truth. Watch 24 -7 on SNC .TV and on Local Now, Channel 525. Folks, welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit LegacyPMInvestments .com. That's LegacyPMInvestments .com. Welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show. Did you ever see the movie The Blob starring Steve McQueen? The blood curdling threat of The Blob. Well, way back when, Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his seed because The Blob was supposed to eat him. But he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric Metaxas! Hey there, folks. In case you were not aware, Albin Sadar has written a book and the title is Obvious. No, really, it's obvious. Albin, could you back me up on this? The title is Obvious. Yeah, I'm holding a copy of the book right here, and it says Obvious, so it must be Obvious. Obviously, the title is literally Obvious. Yeah. If you read the book, if you see the cover of the book, the title is Obvious. Who's on first? Literally, who? His name is who? Okay, so in the book, every chapter is super short, and you say these things that are Obvious, but that need to be restated. By the way, you've got blurbs from everybody. You have a forward by the great author, Eric Metaxas. I don't know how you got him. I don't even know. Is he still living? I always confuse him with James Michener. I'm sorry. But anyway, on the back of the book, you have a quote from George Orwell, and it says, We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act. So this book is filled with truth. Every chapter is the statement of some obvious truth, which needs restating. So what which one should we focus on? How about the one the title? What is it? Who made you boss? Yeah. Who died? Who died and made you boss. And by the way, that George Orwell quote, he says, It's obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. I couldn't find any in my sphere of influence, so I just wrote it myself. So there you go. I hear you. I hear you. But the chapter. Yeah, I did want to focus on is is the one called Who Died and Made You Boss. I got to explain that actually the title is supposed to be in quotes, but it's not. The editor left it out, but it's in quote. It would be in quotes is because when we were children in the playground, if you're playing a game, a tag or something, then suddenly somebody changed the rules so that they could win the game. Somebody in our group would always say, Who died and made you boss? And of course, people. Yeah. Yeah. Who did? But we're living in a world nowadays that people say you can't call that woman a woman. She's could be a this or that or they and and and we have to stand there and say, wait a minute, who died and made you boss? Who are you? Who comes up with these things? Why do we have to listen to you? I'm going to listen to, you know, the almighty, because I believe in him. And he said male, female. He didn't say they, them, theirs, whoever. So who died and made you boss? I explain all that and talk about some fun stuff with some fun cartoons. Some of this stuff. What I find funny about it is it is like it's stunningly obvious. And yet we don't see it. I mean, the idea that we would go along when somebody says you can't say this, you can't say that's good. And we go, OK, or oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Simply saying, excuse me, no, no, you don't get to decide five minutes ago that there are 37 genders. I don't know who you think you are, but you don't get to decide that this simple little pushback of that, of stating the obvious that you don't you don't have authority over me. I answer to God and sorry, but I don't I don't need to listen to you. That's a simple truth, but we need to restate it. And obviously you restate it in the book titled Obvious. What do you want to say more about that? Well, I want to mention other things that that are obvious. What I begin with the chapters called Basically God Exists. And I talk about how to me it's obvious that God exists. I get one of my favorite little examples is in there and I end with the stolen election because to me that was so obvious. I'm sitting there saying, doesn't anybody else see this? What I love is that I got a I got a meme in here or a graphic in here from the Babylon Bee. They gave me permission to use it. And the title is it's one of their articles says White House announces all conspiracy theories are true, except for the one about the Biden stealing the 2020 election. And I thought, say, great. They nailed it because I had a couple I had a cartoon that said basically the same thing. But then when I saw it in the Babylon Bee, I said, I think they're going to say it better than I do. Now, I have a bunch of little cartoon characters in there and a lot of the artwork is my own. I must admit. And if you think the cartoon is of me, it's actually not. It's of Simon de Hundert, who is my alter ego that I write with at American Thinker sometimes because I've written an American thing. This stream looks a lot like you, Alvin. I'm just I'm just here to I'm just being honest. I'm just stating the obvious that Simon de Hundert, because there are these cute little cartoons that you have done in here. And it looks like it could be you. I'm just saying it could be. I'm not saying it is. Look, I'm not going to go out on a limb. I'm not going to swear in a Bible or take a polygraph. I'm just saying that's my opinion. It could be you. Yeah. Or not. Too much. Yes. Too much hair. I don't want to offend anybody. And only four fingers. There's a lot of funny stuff in the book. For example, there's a little cartoon here. I want to make sure I read this one because this is I like this one particularly. But it's a little cute, cute. It's it's it's your little drawing of the guy who could be you. But the quote says if Hitler were alive today with the left, call him Trump 2 .0. That's very clever and loaded, loaded with gems like that. It's also loaded with a lot of serious stuff. Oh, oh, my goodness. Yeah. One of my favorite things and one of my favorite chapters is and this is like a little parable. I tell is, is I draw a picture of a guy stealing a television set and the little parables about the stolen TV. A guy comes home. He goes into his living room. Somebody stolen his TV. So he runs next door to his neighbor and he says, hey, did you see anything? Somebody stole my TV. But while he's running over to his neighbor's house, he looks through his neighbor's window and he sees his TV on his neighbor's wall. So he grabs the beat cop. There's a policeman coming down the street. He says to the policeman, look, we have to go in this. My neighbor stole my TV. And the policeman knocks on the door. Did you steal his TV? And the guy says, no, I didn't steal his TV. And I said, policeman, let's go in and look. I'll show it to you. It's right there on the wall. The guy says, no, I'm not going to let you in here because I'm telling you right now, I did not steal that guy's TV. And the policeman looks at the other guy who accused the neighbor and he says to him like, well, that's good enough for me. If he says he didn't do it, then he didn't do it. So when the left tells you they didn't steal the 2020 election, that should be good enough for all of us. They didn't spend four years looking into Trump. You and I know, I mean, this is a horrible thing when you know something is true and people say, oh, no, no, no, no, it's not true. Or even worse when they say, well, you can't even talk about that. When you tell me I can't talk about something, that's when I get mad because patriots have died. Patriots have died so that we could be free and we could speak our minds in this country. You don't even have to be right. So it's one thing to say, oh, you're wrong. It's nothing to say, oh, you can't talk about that. We need to be just to speak the truth, to state the obvious, which you do in every chapter of this book is to be doing spiritual warfare. This is how we fight back by stating the obvious. And the fact that the election was stolen, not only is that true, but it should make everyone in America furious because what could be more despicable than people stealing an election from the American people, not from Donald Trump, from the American people? And so you have the guts in this book to talk about that. It does the crazy thing out. And again, this is the whole point of the book is like, you don't need to be some kind of a genius to figure out that it was stolen like it is obvious. That's why the title of the book is obvious, because everything you talk about is obvious. You're not making some arcane argument that maybe no, you know, for quacks like a duck. I'm sorry, but it's probably a duck. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That example after the book had come out, I said, oh, I wish I would have used the example of the duck, you know, walks like a duck, waddles like a duck, has feathers like the duck, goes to the bathroom like the duck, hangs out with other ducks. It's most likely a duck. Okay. And when the election was stolen, it was the New York Times that had to declare Biden the winner after like three days of a how come all this stuff coming in. Okay. I came up with probably that day. I came up with a dozen things that said this proves it. It was stolen. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, the book is obvious. The title of the book is obvious by Albin Saydar. Get a copy. Obvious by Albin Saydar. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only, trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I'm proud to partner with them. 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Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from Who Are the Wise Virgins? Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff Discerning Hearts Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com presents Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. Monsignor Essif is a priest of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has served as a retreat director and confessor to Saint Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Monsignor Essif encountered Saint Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical Missions, a Catholic organization established by Pope Saint John Paul II, to bring the good news to the world, especially to the poor. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters, seminarians and other religious leaders. Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. What's on your heart today, Monsignor? Today I was thinking very much about the end of the Church here, and God is going to present through the Church the final judgment, the end times. What does that mean? You know, in the epistle Paul, he wants to know, he wants to give them comfort as he teaches the Christians. What is going to happen on Judgment Day, on the final thing, not only for those here on earth who are going to remain, but for all those who came before, and all those who have died, that Jesus has come for the salvation of all mankind. But today, I really believe the Gospel was very much meant, yes, it is for the judgment of all mankind, but I would really think that today it was meant especially for leaders in the Church, for Charismatics, for those who are called to be leaders in the Church, especially for religious. And it addresses them in this way with regard to the final judgment. It's a magnificent teaching in the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel. This is before the teaching of the last judgment by Jesus in saying, I was hungry and he gave me to eat, I was thirsty and he gave me to drink, I was naked and sick and in prison. When did we do this for you, Lord? Whenever you did it to the least of these, you did it for me, emphasizing charity. But here he is talking about our relationship with God, which is much more important than what we do. And in the 25th chapter, in the first 13 verses, Jesus told his disciples this parable, The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when they were taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight there was a cry, Behold, the bridegroom is here, come out to meet him. So all of us in all of mankind are being awakened, and this is the time when it is time to meet the Lord at the end of time. Then those virgins got up, trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise ones replied, No, for there may not be enough for us and for you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves. While they went out to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in to the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked. Afterwards the other virgins came and said, Lord, Lord, open the door for us. But he said in reply, this is very important words for each one of us to hear today, Amen. Then I say to you, I do not know you. Therefore stay awake, for you know not the day nor the hour. What is this about? Is this kind of a lack of charity on the part of this storytelling of the five whys? Why couldn't they have given their oil to the other five? Because it is the relationship with the bridegroom. What did the five have? What was the oil in the lamp? They had the relationship with the bridegroom. They knew the bridegroom and the bridegroom knew them. What about the five foolish? They didn't know him. The key to this is Matthew's same Gospel in the seventh chapter, beginning with the 21st verse. Not who everyone says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. The same words that they were saying, Lord, Lord, open the door, unlock it. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom. But only those who do the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, this is so important, Lord, did we not do great miracles in your name? Did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do great and mighty deeds in your name? Then I will declare to them solemnly, I never knew you. Depart from me, you evil doers. It's not what we do. It's the relationship with the bridegroom.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
A highlight from The Debate Recap Part One
"Good morning, Gloria America. Bonjour, hi, Canada. I'm Hugh Hewitt, back inside the Beltway, live inside my studio. I'm so glad to be back with you. I want to thank Morgan Ortegas, who filled in for me four out of the seven days I was off the air. Jenna Lisimo, of course, Dwayne Patterson, two days, and Ed Morrissey, one day. All superb professionals, and I just greatly appreciate their allowing me to dive deep into the debate prep that went on in New York, in Washington, and of course in Miami. My thanks to my NBC colleagues at the table, Lester Holt and Christian Welker, who co -moderated with me in the debate. I have some preliminary thoughts on it, and I will get back to those, but I do not want to hazard guesses about what it was like or what it seemed like, because from inside a debate, it's not really what other people see. I got home last night. The fetching Mrs. Hewitt tells me that TikTok was running ads during the debate, even as I was asking the candidates about TikTok. Some memorable things, and I will sort it out, and by Tuesday, I'll be talking to you about it. Today is the day we celebrate Veterans Day. I'm live inside the studio, but most of the next 90 minutes, beginning at the bottom of the hour and into the next hour, will be interviews with recovering wounded veterans of the long wars, as I annually salute the Semper Fi Fund and America's Fund and ask you to consider contributing to it, to help in the recovery and rehabilitation of people who are wounded defending this country, and I will not depart from that tradition, but we're going to break it into portions today and portions on Monday, because Veterans Day is tomorrow, and some people are celebrating today and thanking veterans around them today, and some are doing that on Monday. So, I'm going to do it on both days, but first, let me give you the news overnight. The advance of Israel deep into Gaza is approaching the outskirts of the Shifa Hospital. That hospital, as well as the Rantisi Hospital, are allegedly over the command and control headquarters of Hamas, and so the going is going to be very tough. It's going to be very, very brutal. I remind you as well that there are 240 Israelis and other nationalities being held throughout Gaza, by the kidnappers of 10 -7, and those monsters are releasing photos to terrorize the people of Israel as their troops move forward, the IDF moving very slowly, very methodically. Last night, former, excuse me, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on Fox with Brett Baer. This is what he had to say, cut number one. I think the Israeli army is performing exceptionally well. It's fighting the terrorists, both above ground and below ground, doing everything in our power to reduce civilian casualties. We've managed safe zones and safe corridors so civilians can heed our call to leave, even though Hamas is trying to keep them in. And I think the war is proceeding well. We're going to continue until we eradicate Hamas. Nothing will stop that. We're absolutely committed to victory, which is not only our victory, but it's the victory of the entire civilized world against barbarism.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Heroes
"If you have your Bibles today would you turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1 26 through the end of the chapter and I was thinking today on heroes in honor of our Remembrance Day there are blessings to any country that will make the God of the Bible their God and abide by his truths as laid out in the Scriptures. These truths though initially sated by David towards Israel can apply to us as Gentiles as if we're obedient to them and Psalm 33 12 blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom we have chosen for his own inheritance and the truth is there are great blessings in being a child of God. I understand this if you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior we are entered into the promises and blessings of Abraham and we will enter into that lineage so that's a blessing there. I was thinking of a hero, a hero is a man or a woman of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger or fortitude in suffering a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event hence a great or illustrious person. A little further on this a pastor and author recently wrote that our society has lost the meaning of the word hero he said that we think that if an athlete can put a ball through a hoop they're a hero. If a musician can play eight chords on a guitar they're considered a hero and if an actor can pretend to be something they are not they're considered a hero in Hollywood. This pastor wrote I remember watching a well -known journalist interview an actor about his recent movie which featured a politically troubled region of the world. The journalist asked the celebrity what he thought should be done about the political situation there the actor responded who cares what I think and went on to point out that he was an actor. This pastor said real heroes are people who actually do something sacrificial or courageous he points out that God does not seek out heroes to accomplish his purposes God isn't looking for a strong man or woman per se rather he's looking for someone whom he can be strong on behalf of. Amen end quotes there and that came by Jim Sandel but I think about some other heroes of the past. One of the heroes that rates highly in my mind is John Wycliffe. He continued his reforming attempts and particularly began the very significant step of translating and writing out the New Testament in English a radical step as it brought the Gospels close to the ordinary person who could not understand Latin and remove the church which would be the Catholic Church at that time as the interpreter having God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man English would have meant disaster to that church no longer would they control access to the scriptures if people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue the church's income and power would crumble they could not possibly continue to get away with self indulgences which is the forgiveness of sins or selling the release of loved ones from a church manufactured purgatory people would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves the contradictions between what God's Word said and what the priests taught would open the public's eye and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held salvation through faith not works or donations would be understood the need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers the veneration of church canonized saints and Mary would be called into question the availability of scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked church neither side would give up without a fight end quotes John Jeffcoat English Bible history as he recounts the history of the Bible through the centuries now when we really consider the idea of a hero or a person to whom we characterize as a hero whether secular or sacred we think of men and women who've denied themselves for a greater cause this cause they saw worth fighting for much to their own detriment much to their own adversity and they may have thought with or without weapons those who go to war for the country do so out of duty and the heroes are not just those who died but those who have stood tall in the face of evil the Christian hero is the person who does not stand out in front of and herald their greatness or absorb the plazas of men rather it is the person who's faithful to Christ irrespective of the dangers they were called to encounter behind all of these feats these harrowing feats and these determinative there actions lies a person an ordinary person like you and I whose love for Christ I'm speaking of Christians as heroes particular Christians to whom Christ was preeminent in their life now may we not seek to be heroes may we just seek to be faithful until the day we breathe our last it is an attitude that has gained much applause respect of others of the heroes of the faith Hebrews chapter 11 we'll deal with that passage tonight here in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 26 for you see your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world and things which are despised that God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to not things that are why does he do this the no flesh and glory in his presence but of him are you in Christ Jesus who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteous and sanctification and redemption that according as it is written he that gloria let him glory in the Lord you think about the ones to whom Jesus decided to use as apostles tax fishermen collectors everyday citizens these were not of your upper elites now I understand there was Luke who wrote the book of Luke and he was a very intelligent man it was a doctor Paul an apostle was also very intelligent but overall God would use some fisherman with sometimes some very sour attitudes cranky attitudes he would use a tax collector who was hate noted as being a scoundrel in communities God would use these men to turn the world upside down they weren't some theological pinnacle of excellence the only pinnacle of excellence in their lives would be obedience to Christ but yet while Christ lived they forsook Christ at the moment he most needed them it's not about us it's about Christ you think about Revelation chapter 2 verse 10 as he tells the Church of Smyrna be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life first Peter chapter 5 verse 6 humble yourselves therefore into the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time and we still talk about those 12 apostles today Judas we obviously don't talk about in a positive light but we talk about the Apostles in a positive light men who hazard of their life for Jesus Christ and turn the world upside down and you and I might think I could never do anything great for God because it's not about you it's about the God that we worship I want to look at three qualities today of a true biblical hero it's an interesting study may we seek to be devoted not promoted and there are so often times in Christian up does in Christianity pandering a to elevate an individual it's not about elevating an individual it's about elevating Jesus Christ heroes who are heroes those on the battlefield are everyday men and women who answer the call to go to war they go to war they learn all that they need to they go to war and they perish sometimes but they're like every one of us same flesh and blood I trust today that we would seek as verse 31 says he that glory let him glory no Lord let's pray dear only father Lord I love you Lord Jesus I yield the state of thee God I pray that you'd work in my lips my thoughts to preach your word faithfully I pray that we would be found worthy more than pleasing to thee would help us to be an example to others behind us of faithful Christianity it doesn't matter how we started our life doesn't matter all the turmoil of what we've done in our lives but God may we be faithful found faithful into death Lord Jesus I yield this time to thee I thank you for being our gracious Savior in your name I pray amen.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from I Will Seek the Salvation of the Unconverted
"Good morning. I counted a privilege to be here today in front of you and pray this would be an encouragement and very practical for us all. If you wanna turn, open in your Bibles to Ephesians 6, familiar passage, Ephesians 6. For most of us, our greatest focus in all the world is ourselves. If we're honest, particularly in the Western world, we spend most of our time and most of our money on earth striving to be healthy and wealthy and increasing our collection of things that help us to become more comfortable here on earth. Our sin nature drives us not to serve others but to serve ourselves first. If I was to ask you this, what does your calendar show and what does your bank statement show is most important to you? God has put us on this earth for a specific purpose. It's to live for Him and to point others to Him. As Pastor Nate said, we're gonna be preaching through our church covenant if you've got one of these. We're on number four and five here. We encourage you to grab one off the table if you get a chance even after the service. Our covenant sets before us the biblical commitments I will bring up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord such as may be under my care and I will seek the salvation of the unconverted. God wants us to bring up our children in the gospel and also share the gospel with the lost. So in Ephesians six where you are, starting in verse one, familiar passage. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So we'll continue with the same template that Pastor Nate's been using. First, we wanna make sure that we realize that our church covenant, and if you're not familiar with this is, this is a covenant that members of Omaha Baptist covenant together to uphold as long as you're a member here but it's not just a man -made document that we picked out of the sky. We wanna show that it's biblical and it's root. So the biblical commitment that God wants to keep the gospel first at your home. In the passage here in Ephesians six, we see that raising children is broken down to a couple categories, discipline and instruction. If I was to ask you which one of you desires to be disciplined, who here has ever said, yay, I get to be disciplined today? I'm going to assume no one. My younger brother was the only one who was never disciplined in our home. Because he's sinless is what he would say, that's not the case. The desire not to be disciplined is nothing new though. We see this all the way back to the garden. It's rooted in our very sin nature. If this wasn't the case when Adam and Eve fell in sin and Adam was confronted, he wouldn't have immediately turned to blame his wife Eve and he certainly wouldn't have deflected to blame God for making Eve. So knowing that discipline is not generally enjoyable and it's not something we desire to have, is it negative and should be avoided at all costs? In Hebrews, in Hebrews 12, verse 11, we read a verse that would clear that up for us. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. So we see the negative. But, as we continue, but later it yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So what does proper discipline yield? It yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness. Take notice as well the link between discipline and training. Right living is something that's trained into a person through the process of discipline. It's not something that they just organically have when they come into this world. They have quite the opposite. So here we can see how by continually pointing our children to Christ, and when we bring them under the authority of God's word, we're training them in a life through the lens of the gospel. If you look at Ephesians 6 again, we see that it addresses both parties at the home, both the children and the parents. For the sake of time, we won't tackle the children's side of things, but it does start with children. And children, I would just say this, that by honoring your parents, whether you see them as honor worthy or not, you are honoring the Lord who put them in that position of authority. Though it speaks to both children and parents, fathers specifically are pointed out in verse four. It says, fathers do not provoke your children to anger. Fathers are held responsible for leading the charge in the home, just as Adam was specifically addressed in Genesis 3. Though Eve was the first one to sin, God said, Adam, where are you? Fathers are called to discipline their children, but not in a way that causes anger and resentment. The purpose of discipline, and when God disciplines us, it needs to be restorative in nature and never done in anger. It's been said, and this stuck with me when I heard this, I thought, is this not true? It's been said that in a home, if you have all rules with no relationship, you end up with rebellion. But if you have a home that has all relationship with no rules, you end up creating resentment. A father's discipline needs to be carried out in the context of a loving relationship where you have a relationship, but also the clear expectation of what God's word calls us to do. If you find yourself disciplining your child as a hypocrite, doing something that, asking them to do something that you wouldn't do or not modeling it before them, you will provoke your children to anger. But it's not just discipline, and there's also, it speaks to us in Ephesians about the instruction also in home, so gospel instruction we wanna bring in home. I realize that many of you here don't have children, or maybe your children are now out of the home. It's important to think of this call in our covenant not limited only to the child -parent relationship. The exhortation is much broader than that. I think the word it uses here is such may be under my care. It could refer to our relationship for Christ with virtually any relationship that we have. Other people looking to us, whether to raise them physically or even in the spiritual sense. If you wanna turn with me to 2 Timothy 1 .5, I think we see a really interesting illustration of this, how it's played out in scripture. So 2 Timothy 1 .5, this is Paul speaking to Timothy, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother Eunice, and I'm sure dwells in you as well. Timothy's father's not even in the picture, we're not sure, we're not told why, we don't know what happened to him, but his mother, pardon me, his grandmother, Lois, stepped into the gap and is played a part in Timothy being brought up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. The apostle Paul also played a huge part in training Timothy without a father in the picture. Both the books, 1 and 2 Timothy, are letters from Paul to this young pastor, training him in the way he should go, just as a parent would train a child. Paul shows his heart towards Timothy by referring to him as his true child in the faith. So whether you've got biological children or not, we're all called to provide gospel instruction to those that may be under our care. There is, however, special onus on parents bringing the gospel into their own home. You'll notice when we read Ephesians 6 that it's not, it's parent -child language used, it's not Sunday school teacher child used, or pastor child, or government child. It's parent -child. God's design is for a father and a mother to raise their own children and pointing them to the Lord as their primary responsibility, not a responsibility they pass off to somebody else. So if I was to ask these questions, are you modeling the gospel at home before your children? Actions speak louder than words. If I was to ask your children what they see in your home, what would they tell me? Do your children know the gospel? Ask them to explain the gospel to you and then check. Is it on point or is there things they're confused about? This is a great question to expose whether we understand what that gospel actually is. It's quite possible that you can be here thinking you know it and don't, or believing some kind of version of a false gospel. That's skewed. When somebody's sinned against in the home, does the gospel that saved you shape how you respond to that? Do our kids, when they sin against each other, does the gospel speak into that relationship? Does it speak into how we correct that behavior? Does the gospel come up regularly in your conversation at home? If the gospel is the lens that we wanna give our children to see the world, then it should be commonplace in our conversations. Let's meditate on those questions as we move on. God doesn't just want us to keep the gospel first at home. He wants us to keep the gospel first in all of our relationships. You can flip over to Matthew 28, very familiar passage, the Great Commission, Matthew 28, verse 16 is where we'll start. Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when he saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So here God clearly calls us to go make disciples. If you're a follower of Christ here today, I'm assuming that you agree that making disciples is a clear teaching of scripture and you agree that we should be doing it. The million dollar question is, are we doing it? We'll get to some of the reasons why we don't do it and the reasons that threaten us in a minute, but let's look at first what a disciple is. The Greek term for disciple in the New Testament is mathiteus, I'm no Greek scholar, but we're going with that, which basically means student or learner, but a disciple is also a follower, someone who adheres completely to the teaching of another, making them his rule of life and conduct. So if you're a disciple of Christ or if you're to make disciples of Christ, a Christ follower is someone who adheres completely to the teachings of Christ, making Christ his rule of life and conduct. So how do we make disciples? Well, in verse 19, we read that we're commanded to go. We're not told that potential disciples will come and find us and seek us out. No, the disciples were charged with the command to go. Don't just sit around and wait for this to happen. And if you're familiar with the start of the church in the book of Acts, this wasn't something that they were super keen on doing until they were more or less forced to do that through persecution. I was thinking of an illustration of this, and I was meeting with a young man once who was of the age that he'd finished school and was in the workforce now, and he explained to me that he was desiring to find a godly woman, which was a noble desire, so I said, well, how's that going? And it wasn't going well, so I said, well, what are you doing to make this happen? Nothing, just crickets. So I said, well, you realize the chances of a godly woman coming to your house, breaking in, coming into the basement, interrupting your video games, tapping you on the shoulder and introducing yourself, it's not real high. So maybe it would be smart if you went, go, and did something, took some initiative to find a godly woman, and it's the same with evangelism. There is times where the Lord and his providence will literally draw people in our lap, but generally speaking, it has to be something that we're willing to do, to go, a desire that's gotta come from within. Second, we don't need to go, we need to make sure that we're pointing people to Christ and not to ourselves. It seems obvious that this is the case, but it's something that we often miss the mark on. We might feel the pressure of closing the deal, so to speak, as if you're a salesman on a sales call and you gotta close the deal and make that sale. But if we're to make disciples of Christ, we just need to show them Christ. So how do we do that? If you wanna turn, Romans 10, we'll be going through this a little bit here, 10, 17, where's where we'll start, and then we'll step back a bit. Romans 10, 17 says, so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So if somebody's to come to saving faith, they need to first hear the word. Not my words, not the words of Greg and whatever clever thing I can say, but God's word. So that's 10, 17, but if we were to back up a few verses, let's look at the context of what Paul's saying here. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, you notice the Great Commission language here, that going to all nations, both Jew and Greek, everybody. There's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How will they call on him and who they have not believed, and how are they to believe in him and who they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So we need to point them to the only thing that can pierce their heart, the heart of any sinner, it's God's word, and the only thing that pierces that is the sword of the spirit, and this verse has already come up in previous messages, but Hebrews 4 .12, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any tumbled sword, piercing through the division of soul and spirit and joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Give the people the word of God and let God's word do the work. But God doesn't just say, go make disciples, he says to teach the disciples. So if the Lord in his mercy does open the eyes of somebody that we're evangelizing, even if that's our own children or somebody outside of the home, in so many ways the work is just getting started. This idea of teaching is an ongoing interaction, right? In verse 20 it reads, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. This is only possible through ongoing fellowship, doing life together. Remember I said, if it's not like the salesman who's closing the deal and then onto the next deal, if that's not what it is, think of it more like a journeyman -apprenticeship relationship, a relationship where you're bringing somebody along, somebody new in the faith, to come and do life together. You're modeling before them what it is to live for Christ and the way that they should go. If you're doing this properly, you should be able to do as Paul did, or that's what Paul was doing with Timothy, and should be able to say, be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. So it's a biblical commitment, but if we move on, it's also a very threatened commitment. So we see this commitment threatened in our own home as far as raising our children in the Lord. We can all be very guilty of just assuming that our children will just organically come to Christ sort of by living with us, maybe coming to church, maybe you generally just hang around most of the time with Christian people, and you might figure that that's good enough. If you want to turn with me to the Old Testament, passage you're probably less familiar with, judges, judges two, we'll see a sobering account here of why this isn't the case. So the Jewish people have, God's people have just come into the land, and the land that he miraculously gave them, the promised land, and a generation, the first generation is coming to an end. We pick up in verse seven. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had sent all the great work the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at age 110. Now if we jump down to verse 10, we read these sobering words. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. So we see in one generation, the people of God, God's chosen people, went from following the Lord, and seeing him work in unbelievably miraculous ways, and bringing them into the promised land, to not even knowing the Lord, or even recognizing the work that he had done. I know when I read that, I was thinking, how is that even possible? There's probably lots of reasons why this is possible, and this speaks to our own home. There's probably lots of reasons why our kids can be in the same place that God's people were there. Let's just look at a couple of them. First off, I thought, in my own life, what are the things, it's just, first thing I thought of, it's just easier not to. Parenting is hard work. Life is busy, and parenting is hard. Being intentional in your parenting, and takes discipline of yourself. None of us like to discipline ourselves. It's sometimes easier to discipline somebody else. If you're like me, and you've worked all day, and you come home, the last thing you probably feel like doing is having intentional gospel conversations with your wife and kids. That's probably at war with your own sloth. It's just easier maybe to turn your brain off, and turn the TV on. I think we can feel like, maybe like the Israelites did when they got into the land finally, that the worst is behind us. God's been good, let's get comfortable, and mail it in. But when we do that, we fail to notice that if we're not intentionally teaching our kids, don't be deceived, somebody else is. Somebody else is gonna fill that gap. Joshua obviously felt, that generation obviously assumed that their children would just learn through osmosis, being around them, that they would learn what it was to follow God. And they did learn through osmosis, the scripture tells us that, but they didn't learn from mom and dad, they learned from the pagans around them. They learned to worship Baal instead of the living God. I think another threat we have to this, and again I'm speaking to myself in this, is we're just too distracted. We live in a world that's never had more distractions. This smartphone alone has the ability to take our complete attention at any time. Funny cat videos, need I say anymore? My wife and I often talk about just how different it is as we're looking to raise kids now when we grew up. And I know there's people here with grayer hair than me. But we had no TV or TV with three channels that were all fuzzy. No stores were open on Sunday. The stores that were open closed at five o 'clock. And I could go on and now my smartphone alone allows me to watch more videos than I could watch in an entire lifetime even if I wanted to. I can buy whatever I want from all over the globe and have it delivered to my door in a day or less. The battle for our focus on being intentional in anything in the Lord, especially parenting, is real and it's not going away. And the next generation is gonna face it in a way even more difficult than ours. So I think it's also important though too that some of the distractions that we have as far as being intentional in parenting, and keep in mind when I'm talking parenting, again, this could be discipling somebody that's not your own child. That some of the stuff that's at war with us can be good things. We can be distracted doing all kinds of good things for or people even pouring into other people at the very neglect of our own children and our wives. I think the log spec principle in Matthew 7 where we're to make sure to get the giant two by four out of our eyes before we remove the speck out of our brother's eyes to make sure that we're pouring into our family at home. If you're a father in particular, that's your primary goal to be pouring in at home and not busy fixing everybody else's problem and neglecting your own children. I think you see this, unfortunately, in a lot of pastors' kids who resent the church, I think because dad was never around, busy helping everybody. So it's something that's real, not just for pastors. Another thing that causes real war in this area is parents not being on the same page. And this is a particularly hard one and I'm gonna be sensitive here because I know there's lots of people here that have unsafe spouses. But you can have, we can even be both safe parents at home and we can be just biblically unaware or maybe unconvinced that the scripture has much direction in this area. If this is you and you're not certain what the scripture says about parenting, there's more than just Ephesians that are brought up here. We're actually currently in table time, so after the service, we're doing a parenting class and this is our third time through it. It's not our own class that I dreamt up, don't worry. It's a paltra parenting class, but it's speaking specifically about the heart of the situation. So the heart of the child, which is desperately lost, can only be saved through the gospel. And it's a 10 -week video series and it's been fantastic in growing my own understanding of what it is to be a parent. And my wife and I talk about how it would have been great to have watched this 17 years ago. But I would encourage you to do that. If you're a saved couple here, put the time in and grow in your understanding of this. The Bible's not silent in the errand of parenting, so treat it as such and pour some time into it. But it's possible too that there's friction at home because your spouse isn't a believer and I know that's a lot of people here. And maybe you deeply wanna raise your kids in the gospel, but your spouse is pushing against that. And there's obviously no quick fix, easy answer here. Your first priority is to pray for the salvation of your lost spouse. That's the heart of the issue right there now. And I know there's many of you that have been doing that for years. So continue to do that, but I think what can be more difficult even than praying for a lost person for years is particularly in a home is living in a way that points them to Christ on a daily basis. So to model that devotion to Christ in a kind way before them, 1 Peter 3, this is speaking of wives, but 1 Peter 3, 1, calls on believing wives to live in a godly fashion so that their lost husbands might be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Paul's Testimony of Jesus
"Acts chapter 21, beginning at verse 37. As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, may I say something to you? And he said, do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4 ,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? Paul replied, I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people. And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying, brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you. And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said, I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, according to the strict manner of the law of your fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison, both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them, I received letters to the brothers and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. As I was on my way and drew near Damascus, about noon, a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. Now those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, rise and go into Damascus and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do. And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man, according to the law, well -spoken of by all the Jews who lived there came to me and standing by me, said to me, brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very hour, I received my sight and saw him. And he said, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one and to hear a voice from his mouth, for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. When I had returned to Jerusalem, I was praying in the temple and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed on my, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him. And he said to me, go for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. We can all recognize, I think, the weighty significance of the fruitful labors of those high profile missionaries who were and still are used so mightily of God in the hardest of places in the advance of the gospel, while at the same time, perhaps failing to appreciate the same weight and significance of the witness borne by those persecuted and imprisoned saints who are no less used of God to testify of the reality of the gospel through their patient endurance of suffering in chains for Christ's sake. Well, it is the case actually that in the life and ministry of the apostle Paul, we find both of these dynamics as the remainder of Luke's account is now given over to Paul's time in chains. And in light of that, it is good to recognize the amount of space that the inspired writer gives to Paul's years in the custody of the Roman authorities and to the several defenses that Paul makes as he is dragged from one jurisdiction to another. In doing so, Luke is in no way detracting from the importance and significance of Paul's three missionary journeys that came before. However, at the same time, Luke is highlighting for us, I think, the importance and the power of faithful gospel witness in the midst of patient endurance of suffering for Christ's sake. And oh, what an example we have in the apostle Paul, in the imprisoned Paul, in the way that he has peacefully placed himself under the mighty sovereign hand of his God and consciously is constrained by the love of Christ for him. In order to fulfill this call that is now upon the apostle Paul to suffer in chains and to preach Christ, to bear witness to Jesus, no matter the cost to himself. And before us this morning then is the apostles very first defense, a defense I would submit to you that is not a defense of himself in the end, but rather a defense of the Christian faith, a defense of the way. For reasons that if Paul's chief concern here was simply to make a defense of himself to the Roman Tribune that now held him captive, surely he would not have addressed the crowd here in Aramaic but rather would have continued in Greek that his Roman captor might actually appreciate his defense, understanding what he was saying. However, Paul's chief concern here, even while in chains and even after almost being killed by the very Jews before which he is now speaking, Paul's main concern here is not his freedom but rather the salvation of his kinsmen in the flesh. And so Paul speaks directly to the crowd here, directly to the Jews and in that Paul labors to offer no unnecessary offense to them, addressing them as brothers and fathers, chapter 22 verse one and addressing them as well in their native tongue, not the speech of the Gentile nations. And I would have us analyze Paul's defense of the way under four headings this morning. Number one, Christianity is no direct threat to Rome. Christianity is no direct threat to the state. Number two, Christianity as a direct threat, however, to all other religions. And number three, Christianity as a religion of conversion. And lastly, Christianity as a religion of hope for any. Christianity as no direct threat to the state, Christianity as a direct threat to all other religions, Christianity as a religion of conversion and Christianity as a religion of hope for any. First, Christianity is no direct threat to the state or in the words of our Lord Jesus to Pilate from John 18, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world. While it might not have been initially on Paul's front burner at this point to make a defense of the Christian movement as not a direct threat to Rome, it is fair to assume, I think, that it is in the scope of Luke's apologetic in writing this account. For it is actually the Roman Tribune that forces the issue here and Luke is careful to record the details. Verse 37, as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the Tribune, may I say something to you? And he said, do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian then who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4 ,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? The Jewish historian Josephus tells of this Egyptian Jewish rebel that the Tribune is referencing here. This man was basically a false Messiah who only a few years before this had gathered quite a following to himself. And he did so with his claim that he would stand upon the Mount of Olives and bring down the walls of Jerusalem in Jericho fashion and then march on the city and overtake the Roman guard within the city. And he indeed gathered thousands to himself and gathered them to the Mount of Olives but was quickly overrun by the Romans. Hundreds of his followers killed, many imprisoned, he himself fleeing and escaping. Now, Greek was widely spoken in Egypt and so as Paul addresses the Tribune in Greek, the Tribune concludes that Paul must be this same Egyptian rebel. Return now to Jerusalem and the Jews having found him out are for good reason enraged by his returning to them. And so in response, Paul will make it clear to the Tribune that he is no threat to Rome. And the point here is that Christianity as a religious movement is not like those many political religious movements of the day. Christianity is different. As the leader of the way, Jesus Christ is not like those many false messiahs. Rather in Jesus Christ is the true Messiah come to deliver his people from their own sins. Christianity is in no way a threat to Rome, not a direct threat, not then in Paul's day nor should it be in our day. The church is not called up to take arms as the sword belongs not to the church but to the state and does so according to the will of God, the sovereign decree of our God. Our God in whose sovereignty we Christians patiently endure whatever suffering he would ordain. The same Jesus who on his way to the cross stated, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting but my kingdom is not from this world is the same Jesus whom we now follow after. Brethren, to our cross, the followers of Jesus do not kill. Rather we are killed. All the day long we are killed. All the day long we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Introduction to Philippians
"Brothers and sisters, I would encourage you to open up your Bibles this evening to Philippians. We're going to be taking a look at Philippians chapter 1 and verses 1 and 2. We are beginning the book of Philippians. Today will be more of an introduction to that particular book than anything else. I will attempt to talk about the author, the themes, the aim of the epistle, the things that we can learn from it without spoiling too much of the content so that later on as we preach on individual portions, it becomes anticlimax after anticlimax. I don't want to give away the entire book, but I do want you to have an idea of where it came from, why it is so very important to us today, what we can learn from it, and to see the similarities that exist between this book and indeed our own time. As I'll be discussing in the sermon, Philippi was actually a military colony, and you may have noticed we live in a military colony for the most part. So the resemblances between us and the Philippians, apart from the fact that we have microwaves and cell phones and things like that, and they did not, are very strong. They are still the same kind of people who deal with the same kind of difficulties. They too had a state which was sometimes nice to them and sometimes which oppressed them very badly. They also dealt with the problems of relationships and all of the things that the fall has brought in. So as we look at Philippians and we hear Paul writing to this beloved congregation of his, let us seek to apply it to our own time, but before we come to the word of God, let go us to the God who has given us this word and let's ask him to bless it. Please join me. Oh sovereign Lord, we do pray now that you would be the illuminator of our minds, that you would help us to understand your word. I pray that you would help me to divide it to write, that you would give me liberty and power and unction as I do so, that oh Lord, I would not say anything that goes against your word. I know I am a man with feet of clay. I am capable of interpreting the word or wrong, but I pray Lord that you would prevent me from doing so. I do pray also Lord that you would give me the sustaining power to go through this book, a right, and to apply it to your people. May you give us ears to hear and hearts to receive all that you have to tell us. We pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen and amen. Philippians chapter one and I'll be reading verses one and two. It says the word of the Lord. Paul and Timothy bond servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. I wonder if say 10 or 11 years from now, if I was in jail in Washington for my preaching of the gospel and possibly facing the federal death penalty and this congregation had sent me a gift in jail to help me along and I was writing a letter in reply to your generous gift. What would that letter sound like? What would I say? How would I come across in writing to you? Would it be complaining about the government and my situation? Would I be going on and on about the unfairness of it all? And speaking about how my liberties had been infringed or would I be writing to you to know a little about how I was doing and then spend the vast majority, not talking about myself and my own situation as dire as it was, but to spend the vast majority of my letter attempting to stir you up to joy and in the Lord to encourage you to be full of peace and grace and joy even in the midst of adversity. Would I think so little of myself that my letter would seek to lovingly correct problems of disunity that I knew about in the congregation? Would I push back against those who perhaps were on the fringes or in the congregation itself who were teaching bad doctrine in the community? And above all, would I urge you to keep the person and power of the Lord Jesus Christ at the center of everything you did? I hope that I would. I hope I would not send you a letter merely of whining or a simple thank you note that said very little. In my case, though, we're going to have to find out. But in the case of Paul and the Philippian Christians, we already know how he spoke in the midst of those circumstances because that is the letter that we have in front of us. Paul is in the midst of serious adversity, serious difficulty. He is struggling, we know, with loneliness, with persecution, and he writes a letter to his much beloved Philippines that is full of joy and encouragement in spite of all of those difficulties that stood against him in the world. So much so this letter is so full of joy that it has been often called the epistle of joy. Paul writing from jail, remember, and a Roman jail was not like the jails today. We speak today of jails as being three hots and a cot. You have TV, recreation yards, things like that. In Paul's day, that was not the case. You either had to pay for a place to stay if the charges weren't that serious yourself or if you were thrown into a Roman dungeon, you could often die of exposure. You went in with the clothes on your back, and if your friends and your family did not provide you with the things that you needed, including food in jail, you could die very, very easily while awaiting your trial. But Paul, writing from that kind of jail, he uses the Greek words for joy and rejoice, imploring the Philippian saints to rejoice. He uses those words kara and kairo more than a dozen times, and this is just a four -chapter letter, remember. So joy is one of the most prominent themes in what he is writing. He is, as I said, in a Roman jail. This is possibly the second time. I think it's probably the first time that he was there. He is waiting a trial on a capital charge of treason, and the people who will judge him are members of Emperor Nero's brutal and corrupt administration. And as we know, Paul was not somebody who was going to give them a bribe, so there's no way out of his imprisonment that way. And yet, as we shall see, Paul is able to look well beyond the circumstances that surround him, and he's able to actually see Christ in heaven and the work that Christ is doing in the world and indeed in Philippi and throughout the church and to know that God throughout is in control and that all of God's promises are coming to pass. Let me just stop and ask that question right now of you. Do you know those things as well? Do you have that solid trust no matter what your circumstances are in the Lord Jesus Christ, that no matter what afflictions, adversities, difficulties, diseases you're dealing with today, yet still you know that the Lord is in control and that his will is coming to pass and that none of his promises will ever fail. I pray that that is the case, and if not, I pray that you will take encouragement from Paul. He was writing to encourage the Philippians, but we remember that he wasn't writing just to the Philippian congregation. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he was writing to us as well. And so I pray that he would be encouraging you in whatever situation you are in. But we see him trusting absolutely in God, trusting in the Christ whom he knew and that therefore there was this inner principle of joy in his heart, an inner principle that no one could take away and that he still wants to share with others. He wants that joy inexpressible that we heard about this morning to overflow to others. The Romans might take his life. They could do that, but they cannot take away his joy or his peace. That is one of the great promises that is given to the Christian. Nobody can take away the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. Nobody can take away your salvation, and nobody can steal your joy and your peace in those things. But let's take a moment now to discuss how all of this came to pass, how he came to be writing this letter from jail. Where is Philippi? What was it like? Who were the Philippians, and how did Paul come to know them? Incidentally, this is a picture of the Philippian ruins that you will find in Macedonia. I am told they are amazing. It is a UNESCO historic site. Maybe one day as I got to see Ephesus, I will also have a chance to see Philippi. But in the meantime, let's talk about the city. Philippi was originally founded as a colony in northeastern Macedonia by colonists from the island of Thanos. They were called Thacians in 359 BC. But it was captured by Alexander the Great's father, Philip, and renamed Philippi three years later. So it didn't have much of a long run of independence. But in saying that, I have told you very little about Philippi itself. Because the Philippi that Paul knew came along much later on. It is like me telling you that Fayetteville was settled by colonists from Scotland. Because almost 400 years had passed between the founding of Philippi and the time that Paul was writing. Just as almost 400 years have passed between the time of the founding of Fayetteville in our own time. So the Philippi that Paul first visited in around 51 or 52 AD was a very different place. The Romans had captured it from the Macedonians in 168 BC. And in 42 BC during the Roman Civil War that brought an end to the Roman Republic. It was the scene of the final defeat of the forces of Brutus and Cassius by the forces of Anthony and Octavian. Who later of course became Augustus Caesar. And that final battle occurred just outside of this city. This was critical because after the city Octavian turned Philippi into a Roman colony and a military outpost. They released some of their veteran soldiers. The war to defeat the men who had stabbed Caesar had finished as far as they were concerned. And they released some of their legionaries from Legion 28 to colonize the city. Which was founded and I apologize for my terrible Latin here. Colonia Victrix Philippensium meaning the colony of the victory of Philippi. From that point onwards it was a place where Italian veterans from the Roman army were given land. And it sat upon an important Roman road called the Via Ignatia. Which was a road that was constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Incidentally I learned while we were on our trip that the Greeks joke particularly in Cyprus. That the only roads in Greece that last were built by the Romans. The modern ones all fall apart. It crossed through Illyricum, Macedonia, Thracia and runs into the territory that is now part of Albania. North Macedonia, Greece and European Turkey. Why is that important? Well it's important because it meant that Philippi was a center not only of trade. And they had mines we'll talk about in a little while where they mined gold and silver. But it was a place where it was possible to go from Philippi to other areas of Macedonia. Or to turn south and to go into Greece. They had their own route 95 so to speak running right through the city. That allowed them to have concourse with all the people in Greece and up in Macedonia and into the Roman Empire. This meant that the Lord in founding his church there. Put it in a place where the inhabitants could as they did their daily trade. Carry not only letters to Rome but they could also carry the gospel to the surrounding areas. Now the citizens of this colony were regarded as citizens of Rome. And they were given a number of special privileges that ordinary inhabitants of the empire didn't have. It was in many senses a miniature Rome. Literally because they were under the municipal law of Rome. It was as though they were a colony that was in Italy actually attached to Rome. That was the way the law functioned. And they were governed by two military officers the Duumviri who were appointed directly from Rome. And the colony itself although it was relatively small. It was only about 10 ,000 people when Paul reached it. It was very wealthy as a general rule. They had gold and silver mines just outside the city. And those mines were still productive in Paul's day. It was as I said a little Rome in the midst of Macedonia. And not just in the government. It was laid out like a Roman city. And so to this day you can see that they have a Roman forum in addition to a Greek Agora. But how did Paul get to this city? How did he get there? Well let's read a little from Acts 16 which actually tells us. So if you would turn in your Bible to Acts chapter 16. And I want to begin with verse one which will tell us that Paul was actually when this all started. He was in Asia Minor. He was over in modern day Turkey on his second missionary journey. We read then he came to Derby in Lystra and behold a certain disciple was there named Timothy. The son of a certain Jewish woman who believed but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted to have him go with him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region. For they all knew that his father was Greek. And as they went through the cities they delivered to them the decrees to keep which were determined by the apostles and elders of Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily. Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia they tried to go into Bithynia but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia they came down to Troas and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him saying come over to Macedonia and help us. Now many people have speculated just as an aside that this is Luke who was speaking to Paul in a vision. Now after he had seen the vision immediately we sought to go to Macedonia concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them. Therefore sailing from Troas we ran a straight course to Samothrace and the next day came to Neapolis and from there to Philippi which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days and on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul and when she and her household were baptized she begged us saying if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord come to my house and stay so she persuaded us. And we know that Paul and Timothy stayed with Lydia for some days. They had some other encounters. I'm not going to read the rest of chapter 16 but I would encourage you to actually read all of chapter 16 tonight. It won't take you that long but you will read about the exorcism of the demon possessed slave girl which unfortunately got them into trouble because the demon allowed her unfortunately to know about things that men didn't know about. And so her owners used to get money from her that way. We'll also tell you about Paul and Silas's unjust imprisonment and then the household baptism of the Philippian jailer which is marvelous and of course one of those household baptisms that shows us that we are to be baptizing not just parents on their confession of faith but also their children. This was the first church established in Europe. Note that. And that at the explicit direction of the Holy Spirit who made it very clear that Paul was to turn the direction of his labors from Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey to Europe. He goes through Macedonia and then after that he goes into Greece and brings the gospel into Europe. Now the bond as you will read through the Philippi you can't help but notice the friendship, the love that exists between Paul and this congregation. It was peculiarly close though others had abandoned him in his imprisonment as we shall see these Philippians had not. They continued to pray for him and they continued to provide for his needs in this world. They sent him a gift. As I said I don't want to give away too many spoilers but they had sent a man by the name of Epaphroditus with a gift for him in jail and then he had sent Epaphroditus back to them with this letter. That's how he got it. And as I mentioned this letter was written from Rome during his imprisonment. The beginning of that is related in Acts 28. The reference to Caesar's household which you will read in Philippians 4 22 and the palace in Philippians 1 13. In the Greek it's Praetorium. It was probably the barrack of the Praetorium guard attached to the palace of Nero and that confirms this. So I tend to think it was during his first imprisonment at Rome. That would tend to sit with the mention of the Praetorium and that he was in the custody of the Praetorium prefect and his situation agrees with the situation in the first two years of his imprisonment that you can read about in Acts. In Acts 28 30 and 31. It's not that important whether it was the first or the second imprisonment. The fact is he's in prison. He's in prison for his faith. He's in prison for his preaching. But he does not allow that to destroy him or even to to drive him down or to change the nature of his ministry. Many people might have switched over perhaps to a martyr's ministry at this point in time and yet he does not. He continues to encourage the people to go about their their business preaching the gospel and being members of the church no matter what the circumstances are. Now the tone of this letter as we go through it you'll notice this. It's unlike most of his other letters. It contains no long doctrinal discussions. It contains no rebukes of evils that were festering in the particular church. But it is an outpouring rather of happy love and also confidence in these brothers and sisters. He loves them. He is confident in them and he wants them to be confident not in themselves. He wants them to be confident in Christ and in his promises. Like all of Paul's epistles, as you saw, it starts with a salutation. Our letters, of course, and with the identification of the person who's sending it. But the letters back there started with who this letter was from. And like most of his letters, it also starts with a prayer for the people that he is writing to. He isn't just in intending to give them information. He wants to bless them, to bless them with his letter and to bless them with his prayer. And one commentator calls the entire letter a long gush of love towards the Philippians. And it is. There's nothing wrong with that. Verses 1 and 2 that we read there, they contain an apostolic greeting. The senders are identified there. Timothy is associated with Paul. Timothy was with Paul, therefore, in his imprisonment. We remember from 2 Timothy in his second imprisonment that Paul noted that only Timothy had stayed with him. Or rather that he wanted Timothy to come to him in his imprisonment to bring things to him. Timothy remained loyal to Paul no matter what. Timothy also, you remember, was going to become very important to Paul in the Ephesian church and building them up and so on. Timothy was a genuine, he was more than just an amanuensis or a secretary for Paul. He was a helper to Paul. He was a brother in Christ, somebody who would stand with him in thick or thin. Now, Paul mentions him and he often does that. He brings the friends who are about him into prominence. That also indicates that the people in Philippi knew of him and would be interested to hear how he was doing. Timothy is in Rome with Paul when the letter is being dictated. And although Timothy is not the one who is inspired to write the letter, Paul is using him as his secretary to take it down. It's very possible that Paul had an eye disease, which made it very difficult for him to write. He calls Timothy and himself, he addresses himself as a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Now, that's a nice little word, bondservant. It conjures up the idea of indentured bondage, the idea that we're just working off a debt. But when he says bondservant, he's actually using the Greek word doulos. Doulos means literally slave. He is a slave of Christ. Some prefer the translation bondservant to kind of neaten it up. We don't like the idea of Paul calling himself a slave of Christ because of the bad connotations of that. But we remember that most of the Roman Empire, in fact, 20 % of the city there, and this would have had, as a Roman colony, a military colony, Philippi would have had a lower than normal slave population, more free men than slaves. But they still speculate that at least 20 % of those 10 ,000 people within the colony were slaves. And here is Paul saying, I too am a slave. But who is he a slave of? He's a slave of Jesus Christ. He and Timothy are slaves, and they aren't complaining about that. They understood that they were bought with a price by the Lord Jesus Christ in his sacrifice for their sake, and therefore they were owned by their master. They are completely dependent upon him, and they give him their undivided allegiance. They love this master of theirs, the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Paul clearly, he views it as the highest honor that we can attain to serve Christ, to have his light yoke upon us instead of the heavy chains of sin which he takes away. And he is bound to absolute submission to this Lord who is all worthy and who gave everything for his sake. Paul, note in all of his letters, never forgot what Christ had done for him, never forgot where he was when Christ found him, how he was an enemy of the church, a persecutor of the church. Somebody whom Christ, you remember, addressed on the road to Damascus saying, Paul, Paul, or rather at that time, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Jesus associates himself so keenly with his people that to persecute them is to persecute him. I was thinking about that as we were hearing about how the Pakistanis are wretchedly persecuted. What their persecutors in Pakistan, the Muslims, do not recognize or realize is that in persecuting them, they are persecuting God the Son. And it will not go well for them to be counted amongst the persecutors on the last day. But he had once been a persecutor. Now he is no longer. He is a slave, a willing servant of the Lord Jesus Christ who loves him with all of his heart. Now note also at the beginning, he doesn't mention that he's an apostle. And so there's a great contrast here between letters like Galatians where he asserts his apostolic authority when he's teaching them. This is a very friendly letter. He doesn't actually need to. He knows they know that he's an apostle of the Lord. Jesus greets all of the saints in Christ. Jesus, who are in Philippi, and he abused them. He calls them saints. And what is he talking about there when he calls them saints? Haggai, literally holy ones. These are people who he considers as they are in Christ. Have you ever thought about this? We may think of ourselves as wretches. We may think of ourselves as people in whom there is nothing worthy of praise. And yet the way that the Lord looks at us is his holy ones, his ones who are set apart. His chosen ones who are even now being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. If you are in Christ, that is who you are. You are one of his special people. In the Old Testament, the word was segula, his special treasure. Brothers and sisters, the devil wants us to think of ourselves as only what we can accomplish by our meager efforts. And let's face it, that's not much. Isaiah, at the end of his long, his long prophetic letter in Isaiah 66, he talks about righteousness, the righteousness that a holy man like himself might be able to accomplish by himself. And he says these things, our righteousnesses are but filthy rags. But Christ, what does he do? He endows us with robes of righteousness. He enrobes us, as Luther put it so very well, so that when we stand before God on the last day, the saints are seen as they are in Christ. That is who Paul sees them as. They are people who are called to be holy and who are being made holy. We have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we are also, and this will come out from this letter, we are also being conformed to the image of Christ. It is as that example that was given to us a little while ago of the, as we were going through the Bible study of the princess who had been made, or rather the commoner who had been made into the queen. She was given the title, but then gradually she was taught the courtly graces and made into somebody who everybody understood and saw was the wife of the king. They are the people of God. They are the saints of Christ and that because of their union with the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the saints together in their communal sense are being addressed by Paul. This letter would have been probably read just as we read it in the midst of worship and so on, and then copied and passed on to the other congregations, the other saints throughout the world.
Mark Levin
The Character Assassination of Benjamin Netanyahu
"The last year or so after netanyahu was re -elected and he put together this coalition they've been character assassinating netyahoo and this coalition the most right -wing government ever used to say that about menachem begum too by the now israel right -wing would be rhino in the united states rhino in the united states it's not right -wing what they're what they're really doing is smearing people of faith very religious people orthodox jews because the secularist jews there hate the orthodox very much like in our own country you don't have many orthodox jews orthodox practicing jews with the yarmulkes and the rest in the media mr producer i don't see any but you'll see a lot of secularists and by the way secular christians secular this but you'll see a lot of secular jews too and so they come in a world view from very different perspectives i'm just telling you the truth very different perspectives and so what's happened in israel just like in the united states sort of their marxist left their secularist left their self -hating left just as we have leftists in america who hate america well believe it or not there's leftists in israel who hate israel and they hate democracy they want an all -powerful court system which they have there more powerful than any other western country where the supreme court calls the shots on everything you don't even have to have standing they can pick and choose whatever they want to hear they issue a ruling overrule they regularly the Knesset their parliament our congress they don't have any authority to do it they just do it so netanyahu says you we know have to address this in a modest way but these justices they appoint each other do you know they we themselves effectively have elections but they don't seem to matter we out fight it we fight over the coalitions you've seen them do it and then we have three or four these justices they just decide they even make decisions about how they're going to fight wars so just like in our country with the propagandists they paint netanyahu as a dictator because netanyahu wants more democracy and it's not so sexual democracy the guy who wants to take a little bite out of the judicial oligarchy he's the fascist you see but this is typical with
The Charlie Kirk Show
A highlight from Tucker Carlson for Vice President?
"We get it. You're busy. You don't have time to waste on the mainstream media. That's why Salem News Channel is here. We have hosts worth watching, actually discussing the topics that matter. Andrew Wilkow, Dinesh D 'Souza, Brandon Tatum, and more. Open debate and free speech you won't find anywhere else. We're not like the other guys. We're Salem News Channel. Watch any time on any screen for free 24 -7 at snc .tv and on local now channel 525. Hey everybody to end the Charlie Kirk show. Benny Johnson joins the program to talk about the behind the scenes debate prep with Vivek Ramaswamy then Sean Davis as we talk about Israel divine and democrat party and the failure of the RNC. Email us as always freedom at charliekirk .com. Subscribe to our podcast. Open up podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk show. Get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa .com. That is tpusa .com. Start a high school or college chapter today at tpusa .com. Buckle up everybody. Here we go. Charlie what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created. Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Brought to you by the loan experts I trust Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandtodd .com. Joining us now is Sean Davis CEO and co -founder of The Federalist. Sean I'm tired of losing. I'm sick of losing. I'm a big football fan. It's my weakness. I know I get a lot of hate mail for it. Oh it's woke. I don't care and one of the things about football is if you lose you get fired. At the RNC though if you lose you remain. Explain this to me Sean. I don't know it seems like that's almost a fact of politics anymore. Is it the watching these debates for example. Why on earth are people who hate us and hate people who read us and follow us and hate what we believe. Why are we letting them run these debates and attack our people. It would almost be like giving the Yankees front office the ability to interview anyone who's going to go and play for the Red Sox or like letting the Redskins and I still call them the Redskins and I always will. Letting the Redskins coach like pick who's going to play for the Cowboys. It's so dumb and yet we seem to do it debate after debate and year after year and I simply don't understand it at all. Yeah and so I want to play a piece of tape here. So Ronna McRomney was asked about her involvement in Virginia and it's always deflection. It's blaming other side and Larry O 'Connor who's a total superstar. I really like Larry. He's been in the movement for quite some time. He's so calmly and beautifully asked this question was like hey why wasn't the RNC more involved. His reaction afterwards is just epic. So let's play this piece of tape here. It's always somebody else's fault. It's never the national party's fault. Play cut 155. You don't let people lie about you and let it not let it go unanswered. Let it go unanswered and our candidates have got to do this. You can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can go and say this is where I stand. The Democrats are lying and now let's talk about crime, schools, border, fentanyl, and national security. I just want to clarify one quick thing though. The RNC had no involvement in these elections in Virginia per Governor Youngkin's request. We not well we were told in the summer they didn't need us that they had all the money and they were good. So now we've learned that the Virginia GOP chair Rich Anderson says that he asked the RNC to match the Democrats with one million dollars of a late cash infusion into the state. The RNC the only excuse they have is they can't raise money but that was supposed to be an thing. honest She said well we have no money but you're not raising any money because donors don't trust you the grassroots don't trust you. Sean help me understand. Yeah you've got two jobs as a as a party leader. You raise money and you set up state -by -state infrastructure so that the party can succeed which means by the way getting out to vote and setting up get out to vote infrastructure. So your your job is to supposed to raise a truckload of money and you're supposed to set up everything so that we can match the other side match the Democrats and how they get out the vote how they do ballot chase and all that. I've seen like I don't pay attention all that much to the fundraising so I won't I won't comment on that but it's been almost four years since a completely absurd election in 2020 when the Democrats just ran circles around us in in their absentee ballot chase their mail -in chase. I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence and that in states where we really need to win like Arizona and Georgia that either the state party or the national party is doing much of anything to make sure the Dems don't run in 2024 the exact same playbook they ran against us in 2020. So I'm I'm honestly kind of befuddled I feel like I'm watching office space watching the Bob's interview the employees and thinking what would you say you do here because I can't figure it out. So moving forward here Sean let's emphasize on the NBC news thing so we're after a very disappointing night and then Lester Holt and Welker are cross -examining our candidates just I want just the most objective way you could look at it what candidate do you think separated themselves from the other and who do you think missed an opportunity at that debate? Oh I thought Hveke was awesome I love how he came right out of the gate and trashed the moderators and basically said you're a whole bunch of Russian collusion hoaxers like who do you think you are that's how you handle these moderators and and I think Newt Gingrich was the one who who provided a perfect model for this he did it in during the 2012 primary where every time he got a question in one of these debates from a total left -wing hack masquerading as a journalist he just took him to town so you know your premise is garbage you're full of crap I think you're liars and here's what I'm going to talk about instead of the uh was fantastic um it's hard for me to say who the loser was in these because they kind of feel like loser debates to me and in the first place it's like watching the kids table so um I think the whole debate thing in it in and of itself we need to have a discussion about um but but I thought Hveke and the way he handled the moderators was great and I wish every single Republican from now until forever would treat these hack propagandists the exact same way. So I totally agree and I'll just say this you know Ron DeSantis received the first question and he gave his kind of typical and by the way he's the best governor in America I want everyone to be very clear I get hate mail when I say that Ron DeSantis remains the best governor in America he's not a good presidential candidate he's running a poor campaign it's the brutal honest truth and it's hard to watch he gives this fine answer you know I'm Ron DeSantis and people can't pay for gas and bah bah bye feel your pain yeah whatever Ron how awesome you were just you it was like a t -ball you could have went right after NBC news you could have just used them as the villain and the vague kind of picked up you know the trillion dollar bill that was laying right there and he called for Rana's resignation on top of it it was Rana's resignation the RNC is a bunch of losers we have a culture of losing and NBC news you guys are the complete worst and he got the headlines honestly he got the headlines across the head you know across the board and people really appreciate it because they want a fighter so let me ask you uh kind of shifting gears here Sean Joe Manchin not running for the senate the significance of this and how should we think about a potential no labels candidacy that is bubbling up with Millard Willard Mitt Romney and Mr. Manchin yeah so I got a kick out of Manchin's press release that he put out and said you know I've accomplished what I want to do in my career and I'm very proud of what I've done and and I have hopes of doing other things buddy you're retiring and not running again because you were going to get your butt kicked because you were Joe Biden's little laugh dog when you were supposed to be representing uh West Virginia voters so I think we need to be honest about why he's not going to be a senator again and it's because no one in his own state likes him the people who know him best don't want him as their senator anymore and and that's why he's not going to be running again so you bring up Mitt Romney uh man they are they are birds of a feather in that thing Mitt Romney's only the only consistent thing he has done his entire career in politics is run he gets in once and then he does such a poor job that everyone in the state hates him so he can't run again so he just finds like a new state to run you know he was a one -term governor in Massachusetts he got smoked in the presidential so he decided to move to Utah and run for senate there and no one likes him there anymore because he's a jerk uh and so what does he have left to do the only thing that Joe Manchin has left to do which is avoid any actual real job and just stay in politics and find a bunch of left -leaning voters who pretend they're independent but you can bilk and make a living off of so that's what's happening with Joe Manchin and I can't take this no label stuff seriously at all it's just a grift for a bunch of idiots who are hated by the left and hated by the right don't want to get a real job and have no home to go to go back to by the way Federalist you guys do great work it's really amazing just 30 seconds rip on the Federalist how are things going there you guys are one of the most important outlets in the conservative movement well you're very kind to say that thank you um the Federalist is uh it's an online media publication we do a lot of fantastic commentary original reporting our editor -in -chief is Molly Hemingway who literally wrote the book on on the rigged election of 2020 we unmasked the Russia collusion hoax we unmasked the Kavanaugh rape hoax and unlike a lot of many other publications that pretend to be on the right we actually love conservatives and we we love our readers and we love our voters and we want to be their voice and make them as loud as possible so people in Washington can hear them and not vice versa Sean uh stay right there we'll get right back and everyone check out federalist .com is the federalist .com correct the federalist .com yes sir hey everybody Mike Lindell has a passion to help you get the best sleep of your life he didn't stop at the pillow Mike Lindell has created the Giza dream bed sheets these sheets look and feel great which means an even better night's sleep which is crucial for your overall health Mike found the world's best cotton called Giza it's ultra soft and breathable but extremely durable Mike's Giza sheets come with a 60 -day money -back guarantee and a 10 -year warranty Mike's latest incredible deal is the sale of the year for a limited time you'll receive 50 % off the Giza dream sheets marking prices down as low as $29 .98 depending on the size go to mypillow .com promo code kirk that is mypillow .com promo code kirk including the my pillow 2 .0 mattress topper my pillow kitchen towel sets and so much more call 800 -875 -0425 or go to my pillow .com use promo code kirk my pillow .com promo code kirk Sean let me read this headline for you and we have a video to accompany it in a second will John Fetterman cost Joe Biden the election divisions among democrats over Israeli -Palestinian conflict have highlighted the fault with lines in the party John Fetterman's actions are unlikely to sway the presidential election Pennsylvania however it does show that there are fault lines in the democrat party first of all I'm not a fan of John Fetterman but the guy is a master class troll every republican could take a class in how to troll like John Fetterman is basically if reddit became a U .S. senator I don't know if you saw this video but it's just you know you have this guy that looks like cyclops walking you know in a hoodie with the Israeli flag walking did you see this video on the funniest thing I've ever seen and all these people are getting arrested honestly I respect that level of game and this his base he's trolling so Sean you know let's broaden this a little bit outside of just Fetterman doing the trolling is this which is um the fault lines the democrat party over Israel the Palestine issue I don't want to overplay this I think this is the most divided I've seen the democrats in recent memory am I right on saying that Sean I think you are and I think it explains why the institutional left why Joe Biden and the party leadership uh walk on eggshells on this issue which really shouldn't be a difficult issue um you know people shouldn't be rolling into Israel and murdering babies and raping people and filming it and bragging about it that's bad I feel like anyone who has a soul understands that's bad but unfortunately there's a significant segment of the left the far left um it hates Israel hates Jews and when they see party leadership uh like Joe Biden and anyone else uh say common sense things uh about Israel they lose their minds and that that explains everything about why the democrats are handling this as poorly as they are is it Joe Biden is terrified that he's going to lose the presidential election because he's going to lose Michigan because he's going to lose Dearborn Michigan that's that big thing explained everything it's everything that's going on it has nothing to do with principle they're just scared about what their loony left is going to do to them if they don't kowtow to Hamas yeah and it's just but also beyond that Sean there are radicalized white liberals that care about the Gaza issue as well it's not just the Muslim vote right this could impact on their college campus enthusiasm and you play that in with some Jill Stein Cornell West I mean there are serious fault lines in this forced democrat coalition oh absolutely the the hardcore uh white left uh is is every bit as anti -semitic as the uh the bread by the way in in left wing run universities who view the entire world through this oppressor oppressed colonialist victim uh perspective and so yeah your your most rabid anti -semites often on college campuses are these hardcore left -wing white radicals it's totally bizarre but if you watch the media you watch the media the only anti -semites on earth are on the right which is absurd if you have eyes and ears and a brain because it's clearly concentrated on the left final question Sean your just gut reaction Tucker Carlson vice president for Donald Trump I love it I love Tucker uh I think it'd be great it'd be great for America um he's one of the only people who who says all the things that we all think but aren't allowed to say he actually comes out and says it and uh I love him I think it'd be awesome I think we would win especially in a multi -candidate race we're gonna keep on building it out Sean thanks so much appreciate it thank you sir nobody Tucker is better in front of the camera than Tucker you're not gonna outwit him could you just imagine Tucker in a debate Tucker versus Cami Kamala Harris versus Tucker Tucker is ridiculously alert he's been harassed constantly and in an internet age as Joe Rogan famously said Tucker Carlson was built for the internet no personal scandals his laugh alone we know this at Turning Point USA you can you could fill up a room if you just announced Tucker so let's pretend Trump has to go to Fulton County and Jack Smith and he's tied up in all this court stuff wouldn't it make sense to have a vice president who could draw big crowds and draw media attention especially in a multi -candidate race everybody you want to win younger voters especially younger men Tucker Carlson you would win early 30 -somethings you would win the Rogan bros you would win the Andrew Tate people and honestly I think you'd win a lot of suburban women a lot of moms like Tucker they really do Tucker's smart he's well before I'll use it again the more he's attacked the stronger he gets they've tried to take Tucker out every possible way the government spied on him illegally Tucker doesn't care he's in a political moment that we're in doesn't that make sense I want to tell you about the Herzog Foundation we are partnering with them on some exciting stuff for years I've been talking about our nation's public schools and how they've been captured by progressive ideologues teaching things that directly contradict the values of American families especially true if you're family for those of you worried about the best educational path I want you guys to check out the Herzog Foundation they are the trusted source on American K -12 public education with a remarkable suite of resources for parents and grandparents thinking about making the switch from public schools to a Christian education check out their online their online deal the lion online publication to their podcast making the leap the Herzog Foundation offers a wide range of advice and information for Christian parents to make the best education decisions for your kids to learn more about how your family faith and community can flourish through a quality Christian education go to HerzogFoundation .com that's HerzogFoundation .com Joining us now is the legend Benny Johnson Benny is best known by hosting a legend you are a legend no no no I don't just I just don't throw praise unless it's earned okay I got to tell the whole story here and we'll get through it and Benny of course hosts the Benny show he's amazing we've done some really fun stuff at Turning Point USA and continue to and so but he's best he will be best when known the history books are written for being a debate coach so here I am about to take the stage at Freedom Night our Turning Point USA event and my phone is lighting up Vivek goes after the RNC Vivek goes I say what is going on because here I kind of put in the back of my mind I was like whatever you know you and Vivek were like doing somersaults off of jet skis or something you're like we're debate prepping running through the woods or I was like all right okay whatever and then as soon as I saw Vivek go after NBC News I said Benny it's Benny tell us the story Benny okay so what do I do professionally well like this has been something that I've had a tough time a question I've had a tough time answering my entire life I do pattern recognition and energy energy right like where is the base what is our energy what are the what are the patterns of the things that we hate the very most well we we hate an RNC that doesn't listen to us we hate a Republican party that won't build the wall that won't deliver for the base that delivers election wins for the RNC it is not the RNC that wins elections it is us who gets out and votes but we also hate the corporate press and so why don't we bundle both those two things into criticism of an RNC that is siding with NBC News to host a debate and ask the questions why are these debate hosts allowed to one rig another debate against Republicans why is the RNC celebrating NBC News as a debate partner when they went with Hunter Biden's laptop disinformation Russia disinformation against President Trump kneecap President Trump's why would we allow that like how like how cucked are we and how embarrassing is it for all of us that that we have to say this is our Republican party and why doesn't Rana just resign do us all a favor and simply resign and so I all I did all I did was bring those concerns to the person who I was making a documentary with that day the vague and um you know compliments to the vague he sort of so let's absorb them and and let's show the clip here so what with it because because it really was the shot heard around the world it was one of the most viral debate moments in the history of debates because Vivek said what we were all thinking Rana has a 99 disapproval rating every base every every base member all the donors I talked to they want her gone it is it transcends economic lines state lines nobody likes her unless they're on the payroll right and yet Vivek is the only one that and then NBC News on top of it this is behind the cut one fifty four because these snooty the snooty like uh persnippity moderators to be compared to Greg Gutfeld and then it'll throw off it'll throw them off their game so bad because you'll be like you you you people are clowns to us right like our base doesn't like you and it's nothing personal it's just you've earned it right you've lied to them that's right yeah yes so why are we yep be such a broken system now I want to brag on the vague because we're going to play some more here how many times Benny how many times have you and I texted or you know said good ideas to congressmen and senators they said yeah yeah they don't listen to us credit to Vivek for also being open -minded right that's a big deal that's exactly right and also Vivek who's certainly not short of podcast bookings said why isn't Elon Musk and Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson hosting debate why isn't Charlie Kirk hosting a debate Charlie why aren't you have you been asked by the RNC to host a debate no I have been attacked by the RNC in the last couple weeks definitely not asked to host the debate but I I'm I'm thankful to even be included in that list that's that's very sweet but no what but what would like why not I mean that's in the little that's in the documentary that we put up we put up a 30 -minute documentary about that debate preparation which really was just us having a conversation right like energy absorption like like where's the base right now what do they want to hear because as much as we want to talk about the number of naval ships and Hugh Hewitt know how many ships do we got like people are really concerned about other issues and specifically inside of the party like you shouldn't get rewarded for lying to us and that's what the Republican party just said they rewarded Kristen Welker and NBC News who lied to us for three years and kneecapped President Trump who we put in office in spite of them trying to rig the 2016 election we put President Trump in office and they destroyed arguably his first term based on a lie and they have never apologized they have never said they were wrong they they then get rewarded by our own RNC and it allows me to ask the question again and again how cucked are we if we can't say you get no debates until you apologize to our base for lying to us about the Russian collusion hoax then we really don't have a party and so it was refreshing to see somebody actually say that from the stage and then to call for Rana to resign which by the way you want to talk about moving the Overton window because I you know you know me Benny I I pick fights all the time and I've been kind of like beating the drum you know why is Rana Mcromany still in there you know in our little corner here and you know we're having fun and next thing you know boom Vivek goes on stage it's like yeah why are you in charge exactly and who are you and it was I mean now it's mainstream completely mainstream here's cut 166 Benny did a documentary with Vivek before the debate here is the conversation behind the scenes of Vivek deciding he will call for Rana to resign play cut 166.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from St. Leo the Great The Doctors of the Church: The Charism of Wisdom with Dr. Matthew Bunson Discerning Hearts Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com presents The Doctors of the Church, the terrorism of wisdom with Dr. Matthew Bunsen. For over 20 years, Dr. Bunsen has been active in the area of Catholic social communications and education, including writing, editing, and teaching on a variety of topics related to church history, the papacy, the saints, and Catholic culture. He is the Center for Biblical Theology and the author or co -author of over 50 books, including the Encyclopedia of Catholic History and the bestselling biographies of St. Damien of Malachi and St. Kateri Tekakawitha. He also serves as a senior editor for the National Catholic Register and is a senior contributor to EWTN News. The Doctors of the Church, the terrorism of the Church. Welcome Matthew. It's great to be with you again, Chris. Today we explore the life and teachings of Pope St. Leo the Great. He was born in the year 400, correct? Yes, he was of Tuscan descent. So in other words, he was very much an Italian. He was of the Italian nobility and his family, unfortunately, is not really that well known. We know that by the time he was in his 30s, he was serving as a deacon, but that does little by way of expressing the immense respect with which he was held by not just the Romans, but by Christians literally all over the church. Think for example of the fact that one of the other doctors of the church that we talked about, and that's Cyril of Alexandria, asked for his help in a dispute with the juvenile of Jerusalem over the jurisdiction of that patriarchate in the Holy Land. We have as well a treatise that John Cassian dedicated to him. It was written against heresy. And then we have in Leo somebody who was trusted by the secular rulers of the time, and that was he was chosen by the imperial government to travel to Gaul to settle a dispute between two of the Roman officials. So this is somebody who in terms of the papal administration was much trusted, but who was also a very deeply respected intellect, mediator, and person of great integrity. It is for that reason that he was elected in 440 in September of that year to succeed Pope Sixtus III, and he was in fact elected while he was away on that mission to Gaul. Can you give us some perspective on the state of the church during this era, but also the state of Rome and its holdings throughout the world? The era in which Leo lived was one of immense upheaval, both in terms of the church, but also and especially in terms of the Roman Empire. In the church, we had been dealing with, and you and I in talking about different doctrines of the church, we've discussed many times the heresies that plagued the church, especially from the start of the fourth century when the church was finally freed from persecutions and then had to grapple with these different heretical ideas that emerged. The most prevalent, of course, was Arianism that called into question the divinity of Christ.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Relational Evangelism
"Welcome to the Sunday evening service at Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia, where the Bible is opened and explained, Christians are encouraged, and Christ is lifted up. Thank you for joining us, and may your hearts be blessed as God's Word is taught. And now, enjoy this message from Bible Baptist Church. Dear Lord, thank you for your Word. Thank you for an opportunity to open it tonight with these people. Lord, I know many of them, and Lord, I know their heart for your Word and for your people, Lord. Thank you for the encouragement they've been to me, and thank you for their desire to know the Word, and more importantly, even to know the God of the Word, Lord. As we do that tonight, Lord, as we open your Word, give us grace. Lord, I think of Psalm 50 and Asaph and his message to those that are sinners. And he says, what right have you to open my statutes and declare my commands? And yet, that's sometimes how I feel, Lord, when I stand before a group of people. Lord, I have no right to open my mouth and try to share anything of my own wisdom, Lord. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. Lord, tonight, thank you for salvation. Thank you that you are the friend of sinners, and that you have made it possible for us to be made right with you. Lord, give us yours to hear tonight as we open your Word. Lord, give me the words to say, to communicate your heart for sinners, Lord, in your name, amen.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Evangelism & The Sovereignty of God
"Acts chapter 13 we're gonna start in verse 46 Acts 13 46 someone's excited hear now the word of the living and the true God and Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying it was necessary that the Word of God be spoken first to you since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life behold we are turning to the Gentiles for so the Lord has commanded us saying I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth and when the Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word let's pray together as God's people God this is your word it's a gift to us Lord in ourselves we do not deserve this amazing gift your revelation you condescending to speak to us Lord we've learned so much about you and your word about your sovereignty about your rule about your reign and your control over all things there are no accidents with you you have a purpose you have a will you declare the end from the beginning God you truly are the sovereign we come before you and your holy word today and we ask that you would empower us encourage us renew our minds remove from our hearts unbelief especially in a time like we're living in now in our current circumstances removed from us worry and anxieties and fear about the future removed from us doubt regarding your promises about what you are going to do in the world to glorify your name blessed today and I pray that this message and your promises in your word would empower this church body to preach your gospel boldly to the world and to trust you as a sovereign God who wins history all enemies under the feet of Jesus it's in your name we acts pray amen 38 powerful moments again we've been in the series on the book of Proverbs God's wisdom from above we spent time over the last couple of weeks talking about the comprehensive sovereignty of God that is to say that the Bible gives us a portrait of God he gives us revelation about God that is very different oftentimes than you might get in much of what is called evangelical today it's not very popular today to see God as the true sovereign as the one who rules and reigns over every event in human history and I've been making the argument that of course we as fallen and rebellious creatures would revolt against the idea that God is sovereign because that's the very idea that we've been revolting against from the beginning God is the sovereign he rules he reigns he has ultimate authority he's in control of all things we of course rebel against that idea of God's sovereignty but the scriptures teach it plainly from all the New Testament down to the smallest details the minutia the macro events the micro events God is truly sovereign there is no meaningless no purposeless event in human history yes even in a fallen world where there is violence and there is evil and there is sin God is sovereign even over that and scripture tells us as God's people that God causes what things all things to work together for good for those who love God and those who are the called according to his purpose God has a purpose all things work together for good but that's the sovereign God presented to us in the holy scriptures that's what God teaches and so we've been in this book of divine wisdom we look through Proverbs we talked about what the book of Proverbs says about the sovereignty of God over all things down to the detail and I love this part about the casting of lots we think there are some things that are just chance occurrences these are accidents maybe even happy accidents but they are just casting the lot and scripture teaches that even over those things God is fully sovereign he's the determiner of those things scripture teaches us the comprehensive sovereignty of God we didn't talked about how is this now relating to me individually as a person or even the church how does the sovereignty of God relate to me and we spent time talking about the sovereignty of God over salvation that God is the one who predestines God is the one who foreknows God is the one who chooses a people in Jesus Christ Ephesians 1 before the foundation of the world that our names are written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world that Jesus is a lamb slain before the foundation of the world this is part of the decree and the plan of God to bring about his glory and the redemption of unworthy people we talked about that beautiful passage in John chapter 6 and that passage in John chapter 10 that illustrate that point in this discourse that the father gives the people to Jesus Christ and he says that it's the will of the father that Jesus loses none of them he loses none of all that the father has given to him and he says I will raise them up on the last day there's my hope that's your hope as a child of God this is something that God does God is the one who saves God is the one with the grace God is the one with the mercy God is the one with the purpose and the plan and the will and the power to save and so we're still in Proverbs we're on that theme of the comprehensive sovereignty of God and so we did God and what is he sovereign over we did the salvation of God's people and today I wanted to end that portion of study on the sovereignty of God talking about evangelism in the sovereignty of God because this is critical especially as I noted especially right now especially right now now there's no question or confusion about the fact that you go to a church that are that is teaching from the pulpit hardcore pipe hitting post -millennialism no question yeah that's right yes praise the Lord for that it's no question about that but it's interesting because oftentimes many people who argue against post -millennialism and all we say when we're post -millennial is that we believe those about passages what God is gonna do in the world through the kingdom and the Messiah we believe those passages as a real passages it's gonna happen in history those are promises we believe that but oftentimes people who argue against post -millennialism and against these promises will say well wait a minute you're saying that Christ is gonna put all enemies under his feet and then finally after that is death and that the world is gonna just be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea you're saying you really believe that's gonna happen I'm saying well that's what the scriptures say of course I believe that and they'll look in the world out there and they'll say okay what about Putin I said pew pew okay what about Putin what about China what about thank you okay sorry what about Gog and Magog that's a popular thing right now actually I'm thinking pastor James I need to do a message and Gog and Magog we're gonna need that more and more in the days to come people using a prophecy that's already been fulfilled as something that's supposed to happen in our day in our future my people today are watching the news and look let me just go ahead and grant it at the outset things are tough right now things are bad right now there are things shaping up right now in the Middle East that are not looking good and we don't know the outcome things could fall apart and get awful in a moment or things could just sort of smooth out I mean we've lived many of us have lived especially this guy lived through a lot yeah so we've learned we all have lived through a lot in terms of some of you guys were raised in the 80s you were raised during the time of the Cold War how many times do you think nukes were gonna be launched in the 80s right we've we've been there before we've always thought like the the buttons about to be pressed and it's all just gonna go to hell and in a moment we've we've been there and admittedly things are not looking good at the moment and people have used that to argue against the specific sections of Scripture that talk about the victory of God and his Messiah within human history they say well wait a second if you're saying that the world is gonna look like this and be totally transformed and what it looks like things are just getting worse right now and I would say it's just a matter of perspective because you're saying things are getting worse right now during a time where we have more Christians professing Christians alive in the world today in than in history the gospel has gone to more places now than in human history and it's amazing to me when people will talk about how the world's is getting terrible and there people are going it's it's amazing the world is getting so terrible right now and you know it's all everything's falling apart and that's how the world's gonna be and it's terrible and they're literally on a device preaching Christ live around the world and people say it's just getting so terrible and so awful while we're getting the Word of God into more places than we ever have before and there are more professing Christians alive than ever we ever had before I'm not saying that there aren't broken things there are broken things but here's the point that's that is a terrible way to argue against what the Bible says is the course of human history that things look really bad right now because here's my here's my position God says he is going to do this he says he's going to do it God cannot lie and that's my hope that's my hope for evangelism that's my hope for gospel eing the world and telling the world about Jesus is it doesn't matter what the current circumstances are and how much things look like they're falling apart it didn't look good the day of the cross either and it was the cross of Jesus Christ was a very event that horrendous brutal event was the very event that God used to bring about the redemption of the world and so oftentimes what we see in front of us looks like it is time to despair it looks like all hope is lost but God is sovereign and if we want to live with divine wisdom we've got to get that part right God keeps his promises and God is sovereign so no matter what happens over the coming weeks or months my answer is scripture says all enemies under the feet of Jesus and then death will finally be defeated that's the promise of God and God cannot lie with me there's our hope and so when we talk today briefly about the sovereignty of God in salvation we started with this amazing section where now the gospel is going to the Gentiles that's big deal that by the way is the fulfillment of the promises of the Messiah's Kingdom understand that that this promise of Messiah's Kingdom was not simply that this Messiah was coming for the Jewish people but it was that the knowledge of God will cover the earth like the waters cover the what and it's asked by my friend I love how he asked it the best way to ask the question if that's the promise the knowledge of God will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea it's a good way to put it how wet is the Pacific Ocean it's all wet and so how much of the earth is getting covered with the knowledge of God all of it like the sea it's all getting wet with the knowledge of God that is the promise of God and the promise was that God was going to draw all the nations to God people from every tribe tongue the languages all the peoples were now going to be drawn up to God's mountain and this Messiah would bring his salvation to the very ends of the earth all the families of God will return to worship Yahweh Psalm 22 and now here you have in the book of Acts you have the gospel goes out the gospel goes out it's going first to the Jews and now this moment this beautiful moment where the gospel now is being brought to those Gentiles here in Acts 13 and look what it says in terms of the sovereignty of God over this moment it was promised by God that's the point made by Luke here it was promised by God this is the fulfillment of prophecy the Gentiles are coming now but notice what it says in verse 48 and when the Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed as many as were appointed to eternal life believes do you see it fulfillment of God's promises he keeps his promises and that day those who were appointed to eternal life believed I made the argument last week on the very tail end of the message we talked about the sovereignty of God and our salvation the Father draws and Christ will raise them up I made the point that every time we go out and do evangelism it is 100 % success rates it is a hundred percent success rates even if you get beaten even if you get flogged even if you see outright rejection yelling spitting people try to hit you with their car as this happens to us doing abortion mill evangelism people pulling guns on you people throwing food at you hundred percent success because it is those who are appointed to eternal life that ultimately believe God is sovereign over all of this he keeps his promises and he has a people Jesus said other sheep I have which are not of this fold them I must also bring and here you see it in Acts 13 exactly that not just Jews but Gentiles also why because the sovereign God decreed it because the sovereign God declared the end from the beginning and here's what's gonna take place and so what do we see we see that God the true God declares the end from the beginning and so we need to consider one more point that the principles and promises of the book of Proverbs teach what about the righteous and wicked we have direct promises from God here's what the shape of the world is gonna be here is how human history is gonna go here's how I'm gonna win the world but God also in the book of Proverbs we've been studying he has actual principles and promises regarding the righteous and the wicked what does this say about the wicked will they prosper the wicked will not prosper they are ultimately going to be crushed will the righteous prosper that's the principle and promise of Scripture the book of Proverbs is the righteous who flourish it's the righteous who prosper Scripture teaches that it is actually the meek who shall inherit the what the meek shall inherit the earth not the wicked not the evil they're cast off they're uprooted the promise of God is about the shape of history and the principles we've been learning about is that the righteous are the ones who ultimately inherits the world the meek shall inherit the earth the promise Paul says in Romans chapter 4 was that Abraham's descendants would inherit the world where did we ever get this idea that it's the the unbelievers or the wicked who inherit the world the promise the literal promise of God is that the a that Abraham's descendants inherit world the do you believe in Christ do you believe in Christ then you are heirs according to the promise you are children of Abraham it's not outwardly that you're Jewish but inwardly you're a child of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ and Scripture says that Abraham's descendants inherit the world it is the wicked who are uprooted and so God tells us the shape of human history here's what I'm gonna do in human history here are the promises here are the principles but I wanted to make this point today is this very short message as we have Chile waiting in there for us and everyone's chomping at the bit I want to make the point today that it is the promises of God that give us hope in our evangelism and our whole and our perspective of the future just get that and you'll get the main point of what I wanted to communicate to you as your brother and pastor today it is the promises of God that are the anchor for our hope about the future now I know that walking in here every one of us would have affirmed that statements you know what he would have denied that it seems simple enough right the promises of God are the anchor they're the the foundation of our hope for the future but I want to make the specific point about evangelism and ultimately the outcome of our evangelism to the world that the world is won by Jesus he has victory over the world and no matter what we see in the days to come no matter how bad things are we know that God is sovereign and he's made promises now watch very important it doesn't mean and this is key this is key it doesn't mean that God doesn't have historical judgments in history scripture makes plain clear threats from God of nations that would violate his law nations that would disobey God they will be uprooted the wicked will be uprooted so it is possible none of us are promised the nation that we're in is ultimately gonna be the one that flourishes and grows there are historical judgments there's no promise that there isn't gonna be judgment and let me just say this plainly our nation is already under judgments clearly with the things that we love the things that we preach the things that we accept we are clearly already under the judgment of God our nation has clearly been turned over it was John Calvin right that said when God wants to judge a nation he gives them wicked rulers that's what we're at that's what we're at so there's no question judgments is here and there's no promise that this nation will ultimately make it through I pray for our nation and I pray for repentance and revival and reformation I pray for that I know that God is sovereign enough to accomplish it he can bring light where there is darkness he can raise the dead amen yes but there's nothing nothing coming from us that demands of God you come down from your throne and you do the bidding of our nation we may be judged as a nation but even if we are it doesn't mean that Christ is no longer on his throne or that God isn't gonna keep his promises amen he will keep his promises and what are some of those promises what are there's no way to do this in a comprehensive way today but some of those promises and I wanted to have anchor ones for us this is the future of the world here is what hope we have for evangelism as we gospel the world we tell the world God's gospel God's good news something you all know Genesis 22 17 Abraham's descendants would be as numerous as the what stars and the what that's a lot that's a lot the stars and the that's sands the descendants where did we ever get the idea that God's people are the minority in human history I'd say the stars and the sand of the seashore speaks of a very different story brothers and sisters we have a sovereign God who can absolutely accomplish it it did not look remember this it did not look the day of Jesus ascension like he was really the one with all authority it did not look like he was the king of Kings and Lord of Lords it did not mean he's raised from the dead so that was a big deal but in terms of in terms of the gathering in front of Jesus at the ascension of Jesus that should have been a global event right that everybody sees and like my goodness here is this amazing thing that was promised by God the ascension of Messiah seated on his throne to bring the redemption of his salvation all that to the ends of the earth but it's such a small crowd gathered before Jesus and Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me therefore go make disciples of all the nations baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you it didn't look like he was the king of the world right where's the huge audience I mean there's there's there's Roman guards that like have more people with them than you've got it's your feet Jesus and you're the king of the entire world it didn't look like it but he was and he is king of kings and Lord of Lords he's God in human flesh crucified and raised and ascended and on his throne didn't matter if it looked like it he has all authority in heaven and on earth and the promise is stars and sands stars and sands that's a lot again that promise is made in Genesis 26 verse 4 and then Genesis 49 10 there's this amazing promise some translations use the word Shiloh Shiloh is coming and it says this to him shall be the obedience of the nations to him the Messiah should be the obedience of the nations now quick question did the apostles believe that that the obedience of the nations were going to be Christ just read the book of Romans just read it in Romans chapter 1 and 16 the book ends of that book Paul gives us this very promise and says that the purpose of all of it is to bring about the obedience of faith or the obedience that comes from faith among all the nations for the sake of his name that was the promise Genesis 49 10 the nations are coming to God they will obey Jesus and by the way that's what Jesus said to go get there's the Great Commission there's what Jesus said to go get rights all authority is mine heaven earth go make disciples all nations baptize them and teach them to obey me that's where history is going stars and sand and obedience of nations then of course you have the promise in Psalm 2 where the Father says to the Son ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance the very ends of the earth for possession your brothers and sisters make no mistake about it that's total the ends of the earth for your possession and of course this isn't mine dr. Greg Bahnson used to say this author we talked about that tax and it is powerful the Father says to the Son ask of me I'll give you nations for your inheritance the very ends of the earth for your possession dr.
Deeper Christian Podcast
"christian" Discussed on Deeper Christian Podcast
"That my brother had a willful ignorance. He knew what he was doing. Do you realize the world does that all the time? The word says that God is written truth upon our hearts. So you are without an excuse. So if you're going to go out and you're going to just live in this myriad of sin, you can't be like, well, I never knew. Because it's in the word. God has written this thing in your heart. So how's the world living? Well, they're living in this foolish mindset. They're living in this dark and understanding. They're putting their hands over their faces and they're just walking and they're doing whatever they want to do out of this willful ignorance, which is caused an alienation from the very spirit of the lord. And then look at this. He says in verse 19, not only all that, but they have become callous that their hearts have been blinded. The word in the Greek where it was written actually means that their heart has become petrified. Do you realize that you can live in sin for so long that you don't feel guilty about it anymore? You can participate in since so long that you've ignored the Holy Spirit and suddenly there's just a callousness and you're just like, I don't care anymore. Folks, that's the world. And then not only that, he goes on and says, they have verse 19. They have given themselves over, oh, sorry, that was the university 18. 19, they had become callous, which is this idea they've gone past the point of even caring. It is kind of the emphasis in the passage. But then he says verse 19 that they had given themselves over to something. Here's the idea. I have a piece of chocolate cake. And I really like chocolate cake. But out of my love for you, I'm going to hand it over. Do you know what we've done with our lives? When we were living like the world, we have taken our lives. We put a noose around our own neck and we had ourselves over to sin and just do what you ever do what you want with me. Just leave me wherever you go. Wherever you want me to go. And it's like, you know how you lead a bull? I've never had farm animals. So some of you may correct me. But I've been told that if you have a bowl, you put a ring in the bowl's nose. And if you put a ring in the bowls nose, you can put a little rope through that ring, and you can leave that bowl wherever you want it to go. That's what we've done to sin. We have put the ring in our nose and said, sin, to do what do with me, whatever you want to do. I don't care anymore. I've gone past the sense of feeling. My heart has grown hard. My mind is growing dark. I'm already an alienated from God. So hey, Sid, will you just leave me wherever you want me to go? And I will just say yes. And we have given ourselves over to sin. In fact, Paul's very specific, not just any kind of sin, we have given ourselves over to sensuality. Which is not just the sexual perversion stuff. It is that, but it's any form of twisted Ness. In fact, we've just given ourselves over to impurity and twisted Ness in every arena of our life, and then he says, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness, so not only have I given myself over to sin, not only I just say, oh, do what you want with me. I have been greedy and sin. I said, oh, I want more. Oh, that didn't satisfy. I want more. Oh, that really didn't satisfy. Oh, I want more. And I become greedy, greedy, greedy, for more sin. Paul says, that describes all of us. And at some point in all of our lives, we have wanted what we want when we want how we want rather than him. That we have lived in a self focused, selfishness, which typically is called sin. That the gaze of our soul has been upon me rather than upon him. That's called sin. That I'm doing things for myself and I'm doing things out of myself and I'm doing things for me and I'm doing yeah I may say that I'm a Christian and yeah I may attend church and yeah I may do these things and I'll get my head not over to him but hey, I'm going to let my life from me. Folks, that's called sin. And Paul says, that's not who you're supposed to be. That may have been who you once were, but that should not be the present reality of your life. He says it was 20 by you did not learn Christ this way. I think one of the greatest words in all of scripture. Has to be the word but isn't it? So oftentimes, Paul says, this was your life, but God. Prince a lord for the buck gods, in scripture. Hey, my life was full of sin. My life is full of selfishness. But my life was just wrapped up in me. But God stepped in and changed something. Please continue your excitement. Thank you. Does that make any sense? If you didn't have the butt God, I'd be so wrapped up in all this stuff. I was still a chain to my addictions in my habits and my thought processes and my impurity and all my stuff. But God, while I was yet a sinner while I was shaking my fist in his face, hey, while I was living for myself and I could give a rip about what he wanted, God stepped into my life and did something, that's phenomenal. Stay seated. And so here's Paul saying, hey, I'm not describing who you are. I'm describing who you were. I'm reminding you what you came out of. It's the whole second Corinthians 5 17 passage. And second Corinthians 5 17, Paul says, behold, which is a great word saying attention. Well, what am I supposed to pay attention to? All things that passed away, folks. Hey, a new things have come. I am a brand new creature. I'm a brand new creation in Christ Jesus. What I was over there, yeah, I mean, look the same. Yeah, I'm a smell the same, but I am not the same. Because a line has been drawn in the sand and I've crossed over that line and who I am now is not who I once was. But God. Isn't that amazing? And if you've not experienced the butt got in your life, you need a buck God in your life. That's awkward. But you know what I'm saying?
Deeper Christian Podcast
"christian" Discussed on Deeper Christian Podcast
"Put our ties in and we go out and we go live our life. See, that's not Christianity. That's a social club. And this is not a social club, folks. This is the body of Christ. And we have gathered together. Why? So that the reality of Christ could be formed within it so that we can encourage and edify one another and press one another unto Jesus Christ. All right, I'm excited. So what I like to do is I want to read this is a fusion chapter four. I want to read verse 17 down through verse 24. Just a little section and I want to look at this morning about the reality of what does it mean to live in Christ practically in your life. And this is what Paul says. He says, I say, in a firm together in the lord, that you walk or live no longer as the gentiles also walk. In the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart. And they haven't become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness versus 20, but you did not learn Christ in this way. If indeed, you've heard him and have been taught in him just as the truth is in Jesus. That in reference to your former manner of life that you lay aside that old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the loss of deceit. And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God and created it in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Now that is an incredible passage. Do you know what Paul's talking about? Paul says that all of us, all of us, and the students taught me this weekend that the Greek word for all means so all of us without exception, all of us have had a serious problem. Every single one of us doesn't matter if you grew up in the church or didn't grow up in the church every single one of us has had a serious problem. What's my problem? You're just like the world. You're marked with sin. Paul and Roman says that we have all said and fallen short of the glory of God. I've shaken, I've shook my fist in his face. I've demanded my way and I have lived in rebellion. Well, I grew up in church. I know, but you did this. And Paul says, but do you realize that God has done something radically different in your life? Now, I just want to walk through this really quick. But in verses 1718 and 19, Paul begins to discuss the reality of the mindset and the lifestyle that we have all lived, which he says it was an accordance with the world. So look at this. In verse 17, he says that you are to no longer walk or no longer live just as the gentiles walk. Do you know who those gentiles are? Those people out there, but actually we're all gentiles just for clarity's sake. Unless you're a full blooded Jew, you're a gentile. But how did the gentiles live? How does that world out there live? You don't even have to turn on the news. You know how the world is living? The world is full of just garlic goop. That's the spiritual scientific term. I mean, the world is just the world of so self focused. The world is so twisted, the world, what used to be right is now considered wrong. What used to be considered wrong is now considered right. I mean, you could do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want. I want to be a giraffe. You can be a giraffe as the world. Folks, that's stupid. And Paul says, look at her 17, Paul says that you are not to walk, you are not to live in the futility of that mindset. I love it. I love it one translation says, he says, do not win in the stupid, foolish, stupidity of the culture. A men. And it's really easy to sit in terms of be like, that's right. But we all do it. Is it interesting how the world defines success is how we tend to find success? How the world defines comfort is how we tend to find comfort with the world says that we should enjoy, we tend to enjoy, and pulse says, this is how you used to live. This should not be the current reality you used to live in that foolish mindset of the world. Not only that, but as you come to verse 18, he says that you have been darkened in your understanding or your mind has grown dark. Why? Because you've been excluded. Because of how you've lived, you've been excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Now, ignorance here is not like I never knew. This is like a willful blindness. Do you want to talk about? My brother, my brother was one of those kids that loved to get into trouble. Well, I don't know if he loved to get into trouble, but he just seemed to be always in trouble, so it seemed like he liked it a lot. And my mother tells a story where she was going to let my brother play out in the front yard and we lived on a little street in the back neighborhood and so she took my brother. He's probably, I don't know, 5, 6 years old, takes him over to our little front yard and says, you see this fence? You do not cross that fence. And then she runs over this side. You see this fence? You
Deeper Christian Podcast
"christian" Discussed on Deeper Christian Podcast
"I'm Nathan Johnson and in today's episode, I want to talk about taking off the old and putting on the new. Let's dive in. I recently returned from speaking at a couple different events over the last several weeks. While I was in Ohio, they asked me while I was speaking at this youth conference to speak at the Sunday morning service. And so the theme of the conference was refined, this idea of what does it mean to walk and holiness and righteousness and purity and truth specifically in the days in which we live. Well, for that Sunday morning service, I thought it'd be fun to walk through ephesians chapter four, looking at this idea of what does it mean when Paul says that we are to take off or to remove our former way of living, that life of sin and that propensity toward evil and darkness. And rather we are to put on the lord Jesus Christ. Well, I decided to be fun to take that message and play it for you here on the podcast. So this episode is a little bit longer than normal, but I think the content and just the concept of what does it mean to put off and to put on is so important in the modern church in these days in which we live. And increasing burden that I've been having for the modern church is that we've been so lost in the culture losses in the garbage cook of the darkness of our times that we've lost the centrality of Christ and we lost what it means to feel and walk in the conviction of the lord and actually walk impurity holiness righteousness and truth. While this message was deeply stern and convicting to my own life and I pray it will be the same for you. So if you have your bibles I'd love for you to turn to ephesians chapter four, we're going to be looking at versus 17 down to verse 24, but here's a message that I preach just a couple of weeks ago on putting off and putting on. Carson mentioned this, but we've been working through this idea of refinement and what does it look like to actually mold and shape after the image of God? Isn't it interesting that so oftentimes when we come, we come to the lord experience a radical reality of faith and for a lot of us it's like we just like I made it. I'm good to go. Got my ticket to heaven. And it's like, we just begin to coast. Do you realize that biblically there is no coasting in Christianity? Because I'm either progressing in the reality of holiness. I'm either progressing onto Jesus and his likeness or I'm actually drifting away and becoming more and more like the world. It's interesting as you come to a fusion chapter four, Paul is setting up in a very extreme contrast. He's been talking about the reality of the Christian life down in the realities of your life. I in chapters one through three, he's talking about that your position is in Jesus. And I don't know if you know that, but that is so essential to the faith that I am not just I'm living my life for Christ. Whoo, is that he lucky. See, that's not Christianity. See, Christianity is not a list of do's and don'ts. Because I can do that all the do's and don'ts, die and still go to hell. See, this is not about this is not about, this is all about relationship. This is all about intimacy. And God's big agenda in his word, as he says over and over and over again in the New Testament is that he desires ponder this. He desires that you would be conformed to the image of Christ. So it's not, oh, I came to Jesus and I'm done. Praise the lord, I'm just waiting to heaven. This is whoo, I came to Christ, and now he has a lot of work to do on me. Because I've got a lot of selfishness and I've got a lot of pride and I have a lot of me and I have a lot of the world mixed into my thought process and my heart attitude and my motives and so what has got to want to do in my life. Oh, he wants to take me and with his overwhelming sufficiency and his overwhelming holiness, he wants to invade my utter helplessness and my inability to be wholly and he wants to do something in his threw me that I ended up myself can not do. Because folks, we can not live the Christian life. By ourselves. You'll never be good enough. You'll never be smart enough. You'll never be good-looking enough. You don't have it within you. Well, how am I going to live the Christian life? Wouldn't it be amazing if Jesus, who is life itself, actually came and infused his life inside of you and began to change radically your life so that you begin to look like him. Now, if you started to live like that, do you know what we have to call you? We probably had to call you a Christian. Wouldn't we? Don't you want to be one? Now, Paul, and Fiji chapter four, again, chapters one through three. He's talked about this reality that you are in Christ. In fact, the twofold reality of Christianity is that Christ is in me and I am in him. And now in chapter four, he says, oh, let's talk about what that means down on your street. Let's talk about what does that mean in your marriage? Let's talk about what that means down at your workplace. Well, let's talk about what does it mean for you to be a Christian and for your life to be in Christ every moment of every single day. Because Christianity is not, it's a Sunday thing. Yes, we gather together and we sing in some songs and we hear some preacher yell at us. We
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"So much for listening today to see the resources mentioned in this episode head over to the often media dot com ford slash. Jason relatively christian is a product of the often. You can find out. More at the media dot com. This show is hosted by brandon hollingsworth andrea. Sandifer bill brooks and lynn babe. Our logo is by bill brooks are music is bhai bill brooks and andrea sandefur and remember. If you enjoy this podcast be sure to rate review in share wherever you listen to podcasts. Have a blessed death and keep on creating for our.
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"Well there's another verse talks. About the gifts and callings god are irrevocable and so. That's kind of that. I that i hung the series on is he. Gets you know you're born as a charismatic leader than that's not going to change but are you going to give that to god. Are you going to submit that to him. And the hit him us that we can use for your own purposes and your richmond So yeah. I think that god does give gifts. They're not as maybe dramatic as super speed or controlling. Light is a couple of my superhero characters. Do but i you know we still have gifts to give and we have those choices what to do with them. Excellent so Let's see let's talk about the realm makers consortio. What is their mission. Yeah the row. Makers mission overall is to equip encourage christian creatives to do excellent work and the consortium is just the facebook group for that. They've also got their own dedicated. Social media called around sphere Which is just a group that you can join. And so if you know any of these social media companies decide to do whatever they do. They've got their own space. But yeah we try to connect christian creatives together to say you're not alone and we've had over two thousand people in our group and we're always willing for christian creatives in the speculative fiction. Especially i mean like you said your historical fiction friend. They're welcome to join. I'm sure they'll get things out of it but we talk about geeky. Stop will will Geek out about again. The numeral stuff and people excited about the wheel of time series. That's been announced on amazon and You know all these different things properties that are out there. We're just such a great time for these type of things to come out so we're just trying to build people up This year we're doing a series on writing wednesday. I've collected a bunch of our established authors. People that have published several books and have had experience in the publishing world to share posts on wednesdays to kind of give their behind the scenes expertise than to interact with people But each day there's posts about what the writing crafts writing craft business writing all these different things so it's an active group. When we have fun you know. Sometimes we discuss hard topics in russell with one. Another iron sharpens iron and fun. Things like that..
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"Aspects of this time in my book. Is this book series. That i'm currently doing my third books about to release. It's unabashedly christian. I mean the premise is that god gives supernatural buildings to teens to fight a growing evil But in one of my good read reviews is like hey enjoying this book but started talking about faith a lot. So i looked on the back is it has said christian fantasy superhero gets put into fantasy. They don't know what to do. Superhero better you know. So that kind of dampened the enjoyment. They finished book. I don't know. I don't know if they You know it's funny. How they they liked the writing. They said the characters are strong. The plot was good. Faith element They couldn't wrestle with that. So you do see it out there and you know you just. I've just realized. Hey that's going to be something that you come across. And i'm not every player of reader and that's going to be okay. Droop can't please everybody. So you do some public speaking events as well with ho schoolers out are are those audiences. I'm just getting started out with that. So i've done some home. School writers groups online especially in the last year with cova by dad. I also spoke at the greater homeschool convention in dallas fort worth couple years ago when promoting my first book. It was people. Were set an interesting interested in it because they know that this superheroes are big thing and lots of kids are into it and you know if you get christian. Homeschool families They there's a whole spectrum of people that are really conservative and kind of really cautious about what they expose their kiss which is great you know but they have certain limits on what they do and others for more. Hey you know it's we're going to be discerning kind of like what you talked about. Let's talk about stories and and see what's good in them in that see wetter problems with what you're seeing but it was it was. It was good. A lot of people were interested. And i think a lot of people were excited to see that there are some books and i have some other friends right in the christian superhero genre ms small bits scrolling but people are excited. See that's an option. And i mean i'm i enjoy the marvel movies as much as you say i mean. We couldn't wait to get to shonky week ago..
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"So yes i do. Believe that can be used as a vehicle as well so how does faith phantom in fiction intersect. yeah so i came up with that Kind of threesome. The alliteration there. Because i'm the admin for a facebook group called the real makers consortium and rome makers is a conference for christian creatives people who make enjoy speculative fiction stories whether they're making up for the christian market or the general market and it started as a conference. I was founded by beckie. Scott minor Couple with a lot of vision and they just started in a One little lecture room in a college and now we had our seventh or eighth. I think it was eight conference in saint louis in july and we have three hundred fifty. People have hotel with the nice conference center filling the room and guest speaker. Frank pretty anyway I am admin for facebook groups for that and we just you know we try to keep things narrowed down to you know. Hey we're talking about face You know we're talking about our our relationship. With jesus and how that intersects with our fiction because most of us are fiction writers comic book creators and video of people People trying to push a tv and that type of market but most of us are writers. And so you know has our faith interf- inform fiction are writing and what we're doing our storytelling whether we're specifically telling christian stories or whether or more alluding to hunt themes and and whatnot and then phantom were fans of all the geeky funds stephanie. Lord of the rings and potter star trek star. Wars marvel dc all these kind things and so those are kind of our mantra for what we do in the facebook group but for christian creatives who enjoy spec in the i think there's a lot of interplay. Thank you can do a lot with supernatural type stories. You know i'm not opposed to you know Romance novels and things. I mean i've i've read some could not a good book as a good book but i think there's some certain themes you can wrestle with when you're dealing with supernatural issues and that you can go into some more truth about pay there's a there's a spiritual realm there's good and evil battling. I think you can wrestle with a lot of that in that type of setting and christianity of course Goes right into that because that's part of our stories. We believe that there's a conflict and we know there's ultimate victor. The you know. The bible leaves no doubt who wins as jesus and Thank goodness but.
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"He explains his process of turning an idea. Into an actual story to creatively christian husband. Bill brooks. I'm your husband's name and bringing you another creative christian. Our guest today is an author writes superhero and science fiction networker for creatives estar worst donkey and his mission is to share the gospel through the vehicle of science. Fiction is my pleasure to introduce. Jason joyner blow. Jason how are you. i'm good. how are you doing. Good some assuming if you're a star wars junkie that means you read the books as well as the movie on. Tv survey yes. I haven't read Star wars books for a little while. But you know like the thron trilogy back in the legends days. They call now. That was great series. So yeah read the most of the x. being series that they did so you have enjoyed a lot of the books to also I hope we will not disrespect me. But i'm just the movies on the tv person. I haven't even gotten past. I haven't even gotten through the clone. Wars surrey so well. that's my dirty secret. i haven't either. I just so good. Clone wars didn't really work for me and my boys love dip. But yeah i didn't get into it as much. I'm not allowed to finish it without my daughter we were. We were watching it together and then things happen. You know life school than things as it does so So how'd you get hooked on fantasy and science fiction. Yeah so i've always been somebody. That just really enjoyed a lot of fantastical stories stories with that element growing up in the eighties. I was a star wars kid. Obviously i would watch the gi joe and transform cartoons growing up and superheroes. I mean man saturday mornings. I lived for super friends. Batman and superman and all that I would wake up way too early. They'd have this something that kids don't know about now called the You know the test green that were running programming night and so you'd have to wait for programming to start. That was me. I'd wake up super early. Didn't miss my super friends. I've always enjoyed that kind of stuff. And when i went to college. You know you're busy with kind with studying and get married starting a career. And then i Discontinued to enjoy those movies stories. And i got into Star wars roleplaying game called nights at the old republic Came out in the mid two thousands and they had a great fan community online. And i people writing something called fan fiction and a mike. What is this. And so they tell stories in the video game universe and the star wars universe using characters and they'd write these stories. And i'm like well. I used to write some stories so i'd like to try my hand at that and that's kind of what got me.
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"Starting to put cultural god culture over salvation call evangelism culture over that as we have to quote unquote make up for the mistakes of the past Whereas that's another subject for another time guy says in him there is neither juno grieg neither bond or free male or female and so what he does even the playing field for everybody so while it is true that we do need to have that diversity and christian fiction you know. Have the chinese christians who know their story tell. Those stories have The various ethnic groups tell their story. There's nothing wrong with that. But we don't want to super see what god does for us over our culture because at the end of the day guy said i do not know you depart from me. You work iniquity. I never knew. And he's not going to say i don't know your culture he's gonna say. I never knew you you the individual. I don't know you that's what he's going to say. And so we don't want to let this cough to respect culture Negate our evangelism or our knowledge of salvation. Also you also say that. It's time to stop bullying of christian authors who write instead child genres such as like horror and fantasy science fiction. Paranormal can expound on that what do you what kind of bullying you received some mainstream christian readers and publishers. Really look down on people who write not. What's popular for mainstream christian fiction. I am a proponent and advocate a speculative fiction particularly christmas. Ride it because it's such a unique. John era where you can explore a so many interesting ideas okay. Like i'm going to use the alien guy. For example i noticed name is just hannah. He wrote this book a he wrote about aliens is so there's this tension between is this extraterrestrial activity or assist demonic activity and you know for christians two different schools thoughts about it another young man i had on my show. He writes fantasy. He wrote something in a very gray area of the scripture. Talking about demons they all demons side with satan or disown go off on their own. The some ever want to come back to the lord. We don't know okay so it's a gray area christian fiction and he wrote a story called the chronicles qadesh this chronicles and he explore that. Through this fantasy landscape of these demonic for these fallen beans fallen angels wanted to come back to god but their lives are shown through their actions on this world. The qadesh.
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"But when i took myself seriously. When i really became serious about my writing was back in twenty ten i had lost my job. And i had artifact caught a five and a half floppy disk and i know for some percent greatest. This is a roman artifact. They used to us back in the day. And then i took that five and a half floppy disk again. It looks like a big giant floppy disk with a hole in the transfer. It to another ancient artifact caught a three and a quarter floppy disk and i inserted into big giant computer distracts into and i had a story on there and i have been working on since i was eighteen years old and when i lost my job in twenty ten i lost my job. I say you know. I'm tired of seeing you on this computer. I'm tired of it. And i use that opportunity of being fired and i ended up. Finishing my story was a christian horror story a finished it and then i published it and from that moment on things happened in my life that show only. I was definitely living my purpose. Well that's excellent story with the floppy disks and everything. So what is your your opinion of realism in christian fiction. I am off or realism. In christian fiction is something has speak about all the time Over the years though. I have begun to be more accepting of some christians who tend to write a little less realistic and they have their reasons for that but one of the things i like about christian fiction that delves into realism is that we tackle the We have the opportunity tackle subjects that are difficult in the vehicle fiction. For example i had a guest on my podcast. If you don't mind bill. I had the my podcast okay. They they had a book about Oh was it oh. They had a book about aliens. Ufo's alien stuff like that. What did it mean from. A christian perspective is so they use the vehicle fiction to talk about it now. Some mainstream christian. Publishers was stray away from that. They don't wanna talk about it. They wanna keep a contemporary or sweet historical. But that's where speculative fiction is really where the icing on the cake is where you can really delve into these really great topics and get deeper into it. So i'm off a christian realism have christian whore. People have mystery of hat Memoirs all that type of stuff realism. I think is necessary I think.
The Christian Alien
"christian" Discussed on The Christian Alien
"Needs to live. And I'm sure I don't have to point out. Christians are absolutely nowhere on any of these issues politically dead. We're not doing anything for any of these groups of people politically Your church can food drive and you know contributing to the poor bringing meals to the sick and shut-in and that's all good job. We should do all of those things. But there is a massive amount of political power that comes with being the Christian church in America. And we don't use any of it to address any of these issues. And you know why? We don't because we're too busy using our political power. To enact judgment on other people legally. That's what we're using our power to do. It's shameful, like, any hurts me? It hurts me. That this is that this is what's happening. It makes me really makes me really, really sad. It makes me skeptical of what I even signed up for. We have got to do better than this. We have got to do better than this and you know why? Because Jesus doesn't deserve to be represented this way. That's why we owe him more than this. There you have it. The crossover episode on abortion and Christianity for the mercian show and the Christian alien that was a lot. Obviously we are over half an hour significantly. I saw it was getting long but it's already a part too. So I didn't want to school again. But if you made it to the end, thank you so much for hanging in there. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please touch scribe. Again, there are two shows, so if you're looking for more secular content, go ahead and subscribe to the Marissa even show, people, or more Christian content. Subscribe to the Christian alien, if you're really awesome, subscribe to bowl with foil. Also, if you, if you do enjoy the show, please share it with someone who you think would also be interested. I really appreciate that. If you want to see more, For me, you can visit my website, Marissa thanks.com. I have a few of my written commentary pieces posted And you can also contact me through there, or on Twitter at Marissa.
The Christian Alien
"christian" Discussed on The Christian Alien
"And I hope, I hope that I'm explaining it clearly and I hope that you are receiving this in the spirit in which it is offered wage which is tough love. I'm, I'm being loving to you but also, wow. We can't be out here like this boss, not in America. And and it is strictly Christians. Nobody of any other religion, Pink's. Their religious beliefs are reason to start advocating politically for those beliefs to be mandated for people outside of their faith. Literally nobody else is doing this but us. Lots of people don't eat pork for religious reasons. Never in my life, have I heard of anybody? Trying to ban pork? Do you know what they do? Do you know what they do? Instead of trying to ban pork for everybody else? They just don't put it in the cart. And done. That that's how you practice your religion, you do. What your faith prescribes for you and that's it. And the reason. The reason, I'm not sure that I'm explaining this properly is because to be totally honest, I don't understand. Where this idea even came from and I don't understand. How it's not crazy to you already. Like I'm I'm trying to, I guess, convince you, in explain it but to be honest I'm not doing anything other than Same things that I think are incredibly obvious. It's Christianity, is your religion. If your understanding of Christianity means that homosexuality is wrong. And You should never have an abortion, you don't get gay-married and don't have an abortion. You don't have to put it in the cart. That, that's it. I I don't, I genuinely, I don't understand. I don't understand any Abyss. Okay, here's what it is. Here's here's, here's what it is, guys. Freedom and tolerance. Are the same thing. Freedom and tolerance are the same thing. You are only free to the extent that everyone around you tolerates, you doing what you want to do? So, you know, all of this hand over the heart, Fourth of July, protecting our freedom etc, etc. 100% truthfully. And this is not hyperbole at all the number one threat. To freedom in America is American Christians. American Christians aggressively in habitually encroach upon the freedoms of other Americans. And that's whack. That is not it guys. That is not the move. That is not the move, okay. That's not a good look. The deal in America. And why we have freedom is because in this country, you can do whatever you want to do. Nobody can tell you. What to do? In exchange for that freedom. That everyone around you is allowing you to have because they're tolerant of you. In exchange for that freedom, you don't get to tell anybody else what to do. That's the deal. That's the only way any of us is free. As Christians, we have got to back up. We have got. To completely reevaluate, our relationship with American politics. I honestly think that Christians should not be involved in political activism in any kind of values Arena at all ever. It's just not our place for one. But it's also. In addition, to it being way outside of what American citizenship requires of us, right way outside of the mutual respect, Mutual acknowledgement of dignity, that is required of you. When you are an American citizen, in addition, to our way outside of that, It's also a severely corrupting influence. In the church. This entanglement in politics and the seeking of Fame and power and money. That will rot of Faith from the inside out and it's not hard to see how that's happened in Christianity. It's not hard to see that the reason you aren't hearing what I'm saying right now from the pulpit. Just because that's not how church leaders become politically powerful. Telling you to mind your own business is not how they become useful politically. Is, is kind of man and I'm like, I said, I'm new doing the best I can. But you know, even even having just fallen off the turnip truck. The same it this this is not it. That's not to say that Christians can't be active. Politically Christians should be active politically But in terms of organized concerted political activism, we are called to do that for social issues. We are called to use our influence to care for and defend the least Among Us. That is what we are called to do as Christians. So, we we absolutely should be active and I would even say we should be active on a similar scale. So what we are now, but that activism needs to actually be what Jesus told you to do. To care for the sick to care for the poor to care for the hungry, the homeless be incarcerated. That is where Christian political activism..
The Christian Alien
"christian" Discussed on The Christian Alien
"From a compassionate choice. They're not trying to understand. because in their mind, having sex and getting pregnant when they don't want to be pregnant, Has somehow stripped these women of their Humanity altogether. For some reason, when sex is involved in a woman is involved, we can no longer grasp. That everybody has choices to make and that you don't know anybody else's life. In the unfortunate Truth for us as Christians, is that the reason we're not being compassionate about it is because we're too busy trying to make ourselves seem whole better than they are. We're too busy trying to use them to inflate our own egos. We feel like if we're judging someone else, that means we're righteous, we're good. I swear for God if y'all do read the Bible. Listen, my website Marissa thinks. Com has a free Bible study took me course. So what? Many course If you are not reading the Bible everyday, please go and take the course. And start reading. Because I go into a lot more detail about this in previous episodes of the Christian alien. But so many I would even go as far as to say, oh of the problems within the body of Christ. Stem from Christians. Not reading the Bible. You have got to read scripture. If you are a practicing Christian, you have to Okay, but go take the course, all right. Now. Does every woman who seeks an abortion have one of these situations? No, of course not. Probably most of them decided to have sex and don't want to be pregnant. but, Meet segue into act, three act three, that's not your business. Christians. And and when I say Christians, I am specifically speaking to Christians in the United States, okay? American Christians. Let me, let me help you. Understand something about America, okay? In America. Your religious beliefs applied to you. They do not apply to people who don't share your beliefs. Do you understand? Cuz I feel like Christians consistently missed that point hardcore. Like we are blowing past month. The idea that other people don't have to abide by our religious beliefs. And I don't know where that idea became from. Who told you that everybody needed to do? What you're commanded to do in your religion? This is not a theocracy and for people who tend to be among the same individuals hysterical about their freedoms, being encroached upon Christian are super duper comfortable deciding what other American citizens can do with their genitals. Bro, that's crazy. They we the extent to which we are out of order. and not just, This issue not just abortion but across-the-board. It Christians are involved in American politics as of today. It's because they are severely over reaching your religious beliefs. Are not a reason to make laws. Do you get, like, are we all on the same page and understanding that having a religious belief is not a reason to legislate?.
The Christian Alien
"christian" Discussed on The Christian Alien
"I'm a new Christian, I didn't grow up in church. I actually confessed Jesus Christ in April, the end of April, twenty twenty and I have yet to put inside a church because churches have been closed since then. So, ever since then, I have been basically learning how to Christian On my own. So this broadcast is about that journey and my struggles trying to Now integrate into the larger Christian Community and figure out where I fit back and this specific episode is about the one thing that I found the most shocking, In my early Walk With Jesus. Again, I have no religious background. So lots of it was new to me, but found this one fact was something that I found and still find totally not home. I think that this is crazy. So without further Ado, let's get into today's topic. The most shocking thing I learned when I became a Christian So like I said before, I confessed in April of last year and I wanted to start reading the Bible. I have no Christian background, I never read the Bible before, but I also did not have a Bible. So and looking for a Bible reading plan, I stumbled across the professor Grant home Bible reading system. I believe that's what it's called basically. You have a list of ten chapters to read every day. It's not sequential. So it's not cover to cover. So I didn't have a Bible so long. I found that there was a free app that actually did all the organization for that for you. So everyday just open the app. It has a list of the exact chapters you need to read for that day off. And it also has an audio component where you can play the chapters out loud while you read, if you want to do a mass of reading or something like that. So I thought, great, I download App. And you know the first day I read my ten chapters. About Midway through my second day of my ten chapters. I distinctly remember. Having these shocking realization. I paused the app and I said out loud to nobody. Okay, so Christians, don't read any of this. The number one thing that shocked me when I became a Christian was the fact that Christians don't read the Bible. No, they don't. No, they don't. No. so, I mean that I mean listen I I didn't grow up in church so I don't know how it goes. Okay, I'm just coming at this from a new person trying to figure it out on my own during a pandemic. So kiss me Great. Jesus. That's awesome. I'm with you. I'm signing up. To me, the obvious. Step two is Let me read the instructions. I don't know, I don't understand and again this is mid 2020 so you know we're right in the middle of the election cycle. Obviously a lot of political rancor Just the the complete disconnect between what the Bible says to do. And what Christians were loudly doing at that time. Blew my mind. There's no way that there's widespread devotional practice, there's just no way. That you can be reading what I was reading every day. And not immediately be indicted not to do and say the things that you're doing and saying it's just not possible. Now, let me make some disclaimers. Please understand that. This is not an attack on Christians at all. I am a Christian passionate about it, and no way in my office desirous of embarrassing or shaming the church or making people feel like Hypocrites for following Jesus or anything like that. That's not the G. I'm coming at this with at all. Okay, this is just me. as a new person dropped into this situation looking around and saying, hey, hi, Wow, this doesn't make any sense. And that's really all. I'm not saying it's not even judgement for having not read it. It's just it's it's more incredulity. Not even on an individual basis, but on a macro structural basis, like the structure of the faith has allowed for scriptural and competence and that's shocking to me because those are literally the rules for being a Christian. So, how are you thinking you thinking? You don't know what all Christians do. You're right. I don't I don't know what all Christians do you're right. I don't know but I am going to present you evidence that supports my conclusion. Okay. At three points and we'll go in increasing level of importance. Okay, off point number one, is the prevalence of Bible in a year devotional, plans podcast move apps. Every Christian app I have has some version of a Bible in a year plan and off. That's great. That's awesome. I'm glad that that's there. It's fantastic. Everybody should be reading the Bible in a year and reading it again. Next year. Great perfect. The reason it's evidence that Christians don't read the Bible is because most of these apps are aimed at people who have grown up in the church. Most of these things are aimed at lifelong, Christians typical. I'm not Catholic so I'm not risking although I did notice when researching Christian podcast, that the number one Christian podcast was a Catholic Bible in a year wage program. So I I know it was my understanding again. I don't know anything about Catholicism really at all, but it was my understanding that Catholics specifically had to do with a formal Bible study and scriptural competence to be confirmed..
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"Artists matt tommy about making art a sustainable career so without further ado. Let's check it up. Welcome to today's podcast. On creatively christian and i am both delighted and honored to introduce you matt. Tommy so this is something. I have looked forward to because there's things i want to hear from him and i know you do too so Tommy is an artist author and mentor to christian artists around the world. His passion is enabling artists to thrive spiritually artistically and in business from a kingdom perspective. Now he's an artist mentor helping thousands of artists around the world understand inflow in their divine design while being led by god's voice teaching artist to develop their unique artistic voice and create.
Raising Christian Kids
"christian" Discussed on Raising Christian Kids
"Hello and welcome back to raising christian kids. What makes a good christian picture book you know. I'm an author of seven award winning best selling christian children's picture books. I saw most of my books through my website conferences bookstores and word of mouth. I'm not big on amazon or christian. Books dot com. I probably should be more involved with amazon. But when i started selling my books amazon. Discount two point if there was not much revenue left for me to produce more products. And i was highly against putting mom and pop bookstores out of business. And i still am. My books are in most christian bookstores however amazon has become a huge resource for books. So my books are there but you have to look for me or my books by title. Well i hope you will buy directly from me and when you do put a note that you would like me to sign an address the book to your child. I'll be happy to do so at the end of this episode. I will suggest some of my favorite children's authors and a link to their websites in addition to mine as well after all. My books have been turned into an animation series. You can see on trinity broadcasting network on saturday mornings at nine thirty eastern standard time that speaks for the quality of my books and the blessings of gods hand on my ministry. Anyway wanted to speak today about children's picture books. What is a good picture book. What should you look for children's picture. Books may seem simplistic but they can and should be an informative resource to draw your child closer to jesus. Some people will tell you. The words are most important element of a picture. Book others will say the nations are the most important it really is both illustrative techniques. Can draw a child attention to the page. Hold it long enough. So that they will hear the message. Being read for really small children while they are looking at the illustration simply pair phrase the message in my opinion illustrations should be bright and bold in color. There should not be too much on a page that causes the child to get lost in the illustration simple bold illustrations are the best technique and style in addition to color should induce emotion and convey meaning. However some children do for softer subdued colors. Such as watercolors children learn through their senses and environment. A picture book that allows them to feel what they are hearing or feel what they are seeing can make profound impact. Make sure the picture book is written and illustrated so that it creates emotion. The story line must be easy to understand and follow but it should also have rested language as well. When i wrote my book i kept the language simple and easy to understand for children under seven but after my research i think it's beneficial when a book uses biblical words that allows children to ask questions words such as faith. Salvation glorification children's books that are an interactive are wonderful. All my books are on a free app called novel effect. There are many classics on this app. As well like good night moon. Love you forever. When you click on the app located on your smart device and start to read the physical book in your hand the apple as a sound effects of the page you are reading. It is so cool. Children love it. This also encourages children to read because they want to trigger the with their voice mixture to look at the book before you purchase it if you can. I have over four hundred children's books that i've saved from my children's childhood and ones that i've collected for my future grandchildren. My husband said the grandchildren will outgrow the books before. I even get a chance to read all of them many times. I have bought a book online. Only to be disappointed when it arrived so again. If you can make sure to look and read the book before buying it. That's a better way to do that when i'm at the conventions. I have several of each of my book on the table because a mother's grandparents teachers. They will usually read the whole book before they purchase it. Unless they've already have. One of my books are children will be drawn closer to the lord by interacting within the story whether it be a biblical story or christian picture book. Here are some of my all time favorite christian children's authors first of all. I want to list my books and you can find them. At raising christian kids dot com. In addition anything written by crystal bowman is excellent. She has written over a hundred christian children's books. God has truly gifted her for writing children's books and her daughter is also following in her footsteps as they have co written a few recent children's books also michelle medlock adams has written some excellent children's books. I especially like her board books for little ones. Also i like max located books for children. He has a wonderful gift for writing for adults and children. And i love the bud faces in his illustrations in like this. Very new book written by tim tibo. It's titled broncos friends apart to remember. Bronco is the name of his dog and the other names in the book are kids that were on the wishlist that lost their lives to cancer and he wanted to honor these children. And this is a quote from tim. We can look at our differences and see our uniqueness. God did not make a mistake. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made. The illustrations are absolutely breathtaking. In this book as well. So i hope you will look into these books and into these authors and build up your library and read tear children often and get their free app so your children can read these books to you. This is how we start raising strong christian kids. This podcast is part of the edify. Podcast network edify is a faith inspiring app that brings together thousands of the best christian podcasts in one place for your listening enjoyment cut through the noise and grow your faith by diving into the world's top christian podcast today. Download the app for free from the app store. Google play or by going to edify dot app that's f. i dot app..
Creatively Christian
"christian" Discussed on Creatively Christian
"You have to have everyone using the same equipment the same material the same equipment because then your files can transfer very quickly and easily and you know you save that. Save it as a psd. D you uploaded to the google drive. Give it to me. I take it down. Do my part we wanted to next thing. Check it off on the spreadsheet one the next thing so we are streamlining our process to the point where instead of taking me You know six months to do a book. We do it in half the time we do it in three months and this is basically me working also teaching and doing all that other stuff and being husband. Now if i was like you know You know Some of the other guys who are just doing this. Full time You know. I got this friend ryan. Benjamin who does a lot of he was doing black panther and all these other comics. And he's really really. He's doing this cool. Kickstarter called brothers bond indigo brothers bond..