The Rise in Suicides

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. Today, we're gonna be talking about something that is very difficult, something that some of you may not even want to listen to.

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And I wanna just warn you upfront, especially if you have children, if you're driving around, I'm gonna be sharing a story that is kind of disturbing, something that happened to me a week ago.

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And I've been mulling it over for a week. And I wanna share with you some of the thoughts that I've had as I've been mulling this over.

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And my goal in this, it's not to be morbid or to disturb people. My goal is, number one, to relate, to just let you know what

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I'm seeing and I'm seeing what you're seeing. Because I realized a lot of people are seeing what

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I'm about to describe, or they're affected by it somehow in their life, and right now, especially.

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The other thing, and more importantly, perhaps, is just to offer some explanation and some hope.

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I'm gonna give you why I, my reason, why I think, my reasons, why I think so many people right now are deciding to end their lives.

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And it's very sad, and I've attempted to understand it as best as I can.

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I've gone through periods of depression in my own life, not clinical or anything like that, but there's part of me,

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I mean, we've all have that. We all have, life isn't easy. Life is not easy. I remember, what's that quote in the

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Princess Bride? Life is pain. It's not just pain, there's good things, but there is a lot of pain.

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And I think back to, just because I study history, I think back to even 100 years ago, especially 200 or 300 years ago, the deaths that occurred during childbirth and the women who died during childbirth.

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I mean, look at, you're just two people in the 19th century, look at Abraham Lincoln and look at Jefferson Davis.

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If you study both their lives, Jefferson Davis, I think, lost two wives before he married his third wife, if I'm not mistaken.

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A number of sons, Abraham Lincoln, of course, lost his son,

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Tad, and I believe a few others. This wasn't uncommon, though. You look at the people who even went to war and look at how many of their children would come home.

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Go to an old cemetery and walk around and look at the dates for birth and death.

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And you'll see these little kids all over the place and you're wondering, well, this was the world that our ancestors inhabited not even that long ago, filled with disease.

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And it wasn't just that. I don't wanna paint too bleak of a picture, but disease, death, it was a common way of life and you'd pass the graveyard as you went to church.

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Our churches today, they don't have those. And yet, and people have always committed suicide.

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Yet we're going through something it seems like different right now. We're going through an epidemic. We're going through,

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I mean, and that's a medical term. I don't even know if I wanna use that. We're going through just a wave of suicide. And this happens sometimes during economic crashes.

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There was a very high point at which there were a lot of suicides during the great depression. But when life was even more challenging, when life was even more hard and you had to work hard to eat the living out of the soil, this wasn't as big of an issue as it is today in the modern world.

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And I wanna talk about it. I wanna talk about it. So I'll tell you the story. I'll tell you what happened.

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Over the last less than a week, really, well, the last week, there have been three suicides that I've known about.

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One was a local politician who lost, I guess, but ran. It was a

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Afghanistan war veteran who ran against a Democrat and lost.

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And I don't think the cause, I happen to know that it was suicide. I don't think they've released that yet.

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The other one is of someone my wife knew in college, Christian college.

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And then there's this one. So I'll tell you the story. I went camping last

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Friday night and my brother was with me and another friend.

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And we went to kind of a secluded place. We thought we weren't gonna be interrupted there. It's kind of a challenging road even to get there in four -wheel drive.

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And at 1030, someone pulls in. We're about a hundred yards from the parking lot. It's not even much of a parking lot.

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It's more of a turnaround. And I said, maybe we should go talk to this person and just find out why they're here.

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But then there was the thought of like, we don't know who it is. Maybe it's dangerous. So one of the friend that we were with went and checked it out.

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He said, oh, they're going hiking. And we could hear from where we were, he was talking to someone.

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We thought maybe there were two people, but I guess he was on the phone. And he took a hike into the woods. About an hour later, a vehicle comes flying in.

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It was a utility truck for the fire department. And we walked out to see who it was. They had a siren going.

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And it was someone who was frantically looking for this person and asked us if we knew about a gunshot wound to the head.

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And haven't heard anything. We were right by a creek. There was a beautiful waterfall. It's a waterfall I've hiked too many times. And that waterfall is about half a mile,

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I guess, away. And all of a sudden, police, local police, county police, state police, firemen, ambulance, it would just, the whole forest was just lit up with sirens.

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And it was that way till about 4 a .m. And I stood out there. We watched it for about an hour.

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Just, we couldn't figure out what was going on. We didn't know if it was a homicide. We didn't know what was going on. And I still don't know the full extent.

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And I'm gonna not talk about, I'm gonna leave details, certain details out.

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But I found out later on that the first person who showed up on the scene was this boy's, the young man's dad.

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And I found out the next morning, we hiked out to the waterfall.

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We saw the aftermath of what had taken place. And it's, you know, those are images that'll probably stick with me the rest of my life.

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And I wonder if I should have even walked out there. You know, was that, but I didn't know what was going on. It was a curiosity in me.

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I had no clue what was, what the real issue was and what was happening. And since then, we figured it out.

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But I'll say this about the person who died. They were, it was a young white male.

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If you're doing a sociological demographic, that's how they'd be characterized, categorized.

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Probably 20 years old, model citizen, you know, volunteer fireman, all of that.

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I could relate to a lot of things I saw on social media about this guy. And it broke my heart when

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I saw that. And the images of the dad frantically looking around, desperately hoping that his son was still alive and every, like it all clicked.

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And seeing one of the, I guess the policeman who was probably a friend of this man, just the pain, the pounding his police car, screaming in agony about two in the morning.

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I went out to check and I even just offered them. I said, look, you know, I'm, I said, you know, and I didn't,

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I didn't want to lie, obviously. I didn't know how to communicate to people that weren't Christians exactly what

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I could do to help. So I just said, look, I'm a pastor and I'm not ordained technically.

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I've been through seminary though. And we just moved back to a church that I'm going to be very involved with. So I felt okay.

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You know, they would, they would get it. They, I just wanted to communicate to them. If you need someone to pray or like,

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I didn't know if this person was dead. I didn't know what was going on, but if there's anything I can do, please, you know, let me know. No one came to where I was camping, but it had an impact on me.

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And I felt bad for a little while. I felt bad that I did not just go. And I was the last, one of the last people to see this person alive from a distance and go talk to them, find out what they were doing.

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It wasn't wrong, it's not a sin. And I'm, I know that it wasn't wrong, but I got a small taste.

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I don't know this person. I had, there's mutual friends, mutual people I know. I looked on Facebook. I was like, I have a mutual friend right near the house where my, my in -laws live.

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So people in their church knew, knew who this was. I didn't. And I, I, I'm getting just a very, very small taste of what that's like to feel like I could have done something.

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I could have said something. And I know that's heightened about a thousand times for someone when it is their son or daughter or father or mother or friend.

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It's devastating. It's absolutely devastating. And so there's a few things

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I wanted to say that I'm, things I'm working through, explanations I have for why there's an epidemic, because it's happening all over the place.

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In fact, I was talking to my brother and he's saying, look, it's like weekly almost that someone's jumping off the bridge, which growing up in this area, you barely ever heard about that.

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It's happening now. It's happening a lot. And I think there's a, there's a multiplicity of reasons for it.

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I'm gonna get into some of those, but I wanna talk about how I've been processing this, what I think the correct way to process this is if you're in my position, because I know there's many of you out there who are or have been in a similar position.

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Why didn't you say something? Why couldn't you have prevented this? And then I want to, I just wanna offer the best solution we have, what

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Christianity offers. So first, dealing with the guilt of I could have done something.

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I have a small taste of that. And I've come to terms with it. You know, it was maybe two or three days.

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I was just like, I really, I kept replaying in my head. I could have done something. I, you know, those last images

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I had and, but I prayed about it and I've really come to terms with, and I think peace with,

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I had no knowledge of what was in this person's heart. I did not know if they intended harm for someone who might've confronted them late at night and in the woods like that.

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I had no clue who it was. And the Lord did not impress on me a very, a strong sense that I should go talk to them.

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I think if that happened, I would have. I had a very slight kind of like, should we find out who that person is?

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But it, there was, the Holy Spirit hadn't put on me like a strong sense of like, I really need to talk to this person.

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So if that had happened, if I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Lord wanted me to talk to them and I didn't, that would be a little different perhaps.

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And maybe some of you were dealing with that. But ultimately I can't change the past. And none of you can either.

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What's done is done. And there's no way to go back and replay that.

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There's no way to rectify a regret like that. There's only, and if I wasn't the wrong, which I don't think I was, but if I was, there's a place we can go as Christians, right?

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We can go to Jesus and we confess it and he forgives us. And eternity goes on for a long time.

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It's not, you know, if you look at it from God's perspective, which we have an incomplete view of, there's not just this little blip that we live in and this little space that we live in here on earth.

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There's a huge galaxy and there's eternity. And we just occupy this very short spatial temporal world.

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And knowing that actually gives us some comfort, I think. Knowing that God sees the grand scheme.

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Shall the judge of all the earth not do right? God has even a purpose for evil.

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He glorifies himself. He makes his attributes known of grace and mercy because evil exists.

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There's a purpose for evil in Christianity. It's not purposeless. It will even serve in the end to show the goodness of God.

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It contrasts with his righteous character. And God knew before I did, he had full knowledge of what was about to take place.

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And there's some pretty horrific things that happen in this world, but this world isn't all there is. And you have to come back to that.

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You don't see the full picture. All you see is your little slice of the pie. That's all I saw. It's all

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I see. I don't know what happened before this young man arriving there.

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I don't know what happened after. I don't know where he went. I don't know if he had a

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Christian walk of any kind. God knows though. God knows all of those things. And we can trust him with the things that we can't control.

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We actually have no other choice. Can you imagine if there was no purpose for evil, there was no

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God in control of any of this, if it's just purposeless, or if we're just meant to deal, and here's the thing, even atheists have this kind of guilt.

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They have these kinds of regrets. They have nowhere to go. Other religions, people, this is natural for everyone.

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They have these kinds of regrets. They have these kinds of, I could have done something. And there's no way to get forgiveness.

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Try to make up for it somehow, maybe further on down the line, and then your life becomes about trying to rectify that, and you'll never be able, you'll be haunted by it the rest of your life.

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Maybe I can help this person if I couldn't help that person. I think the lesson, so I was thinking about this too.

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Look, what's the lesson for me? What's God trying to show me? This is the other thing. And I don't know the full answer to that other than I'm doing this podcast.

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I'm raising awareness, I guess, I don't even like using that term sometimes because the left uses that about everything when they're not doing anything about something, they raise awareness.

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But there is something to be said for sometimes raising awareness, realizing there's people silently struggling perhaps around you, and you don't realize it.

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And they're contemplating these things. And so it's really good to realize that the people that you're around, even if they don't die by suicide, even if it's an accident, it may be their last time, and you want them to know that you appreciate them, you want them to, you wanna encourage them with the time that you have, you're only given a little bit of time in this temporal world.

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And so I think that's something that, a lesson that I've learned.

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The other thing is, you know what? I think if that situation repeated itself, I, and I don't think it was wrong for me not to go up to this person, but I think

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I would go up to them. I would say, hey, there's a little bit out of place, starting a hike at 1030 at night, you okay? Thing is,

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I know people who do start hikes at 1030 at night. So I was like, oh, maybe that person's like them, but it is irregular.

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And I think in the future, I would be more proactive. But again, I don't have guilt that anymore, at least, that I did the wrong thing or something like that.

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There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I think it's a lesson for me that realize, okay, you know what?

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If I see something out of place, I should try to say something. So those two things jump out at me as things that I'm working through.

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And it's impressed upon me deeply, especially these other two suicides, how prevalent this is right now and how important it is for Christians to be ready and have an answer for it.

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And I wanna bring up a few things. Well, you know what? Before I do that, let me just show you some headlines. So I was poking around online.

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Sedgwick County, this is in Kansas, I guess, saw its highest rate of deaths by suicide in 2020. So the numbers aren't even out yet for 2021.

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We don't even know, but I think we're gonna see a huge spike. That's just my gut. Military suicides up 25 % in 2020 as pandemic took its toll.

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Suicide is an epidemic in the US. It's time to look at all the possible solutions. And of course, the world doesn't really have any medication.

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Live for the pleasures that you enjoy, the people in your life. I mean, that's, you know, what would they think? What would they, you know, they're gonna miss you.

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Live for the things that you could experience. But the thing is, a lot of that stuff has been shattered.

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There's really is a lot of, the teeth is taken out of the secular arguments for, again, suicide.

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I don't think there is a good secular argument against it. Here's the stats too.

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And this is where I wanna get into my analyzing why this is happening. Suicide rates by race and ethnicity.

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Now this goes up to 2019. I think we're gonna see a big spike 2020 and 21.

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But look how, you wanna talk about disparity? Look where black people are, on the bottom, okay?

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Look where white people are, on the top. It's a huge gap, huge.

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Rate per 100 ,000 individuals. It is, you know, like 13 times, 11 times as many people, white committing suicide as black.

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I mean, it's not even close. Why is this? I mean, it's even beyond American Indians.

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That's what this says. Why is that? Why is that?

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And I want you to chew on that a little bit. What conditions are present that are causing this? And I wanna just give a gander at what

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I think might be going on. Because the people that I know who committed suicide this last week, they fit in this demographic.

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And I don't know what was going through all their heads. And so I'm not gonna judge that, I don't know. But I know if we take, if we're zooming out and we're looking at the big picture, what would cause people, white people and white males in particular to commit suicide?

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Who's being vilified constantly in the media? Who's told that they have unjustified privilege and they oppress other people and they're evil just because of their skin color, basically.

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Who's seeing the destruction of the things that they love and care about, the things from their culture?

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I talked yesterday about how this big Robert E. Lee statue was taken down. You don't think that kind of thing multiplied a hundred times has an effect on people?

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A hopelessness, there's no place for me in this society. There's no place for my heroes or the things

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I value. It's not even my home anymore. What do I have? On a temporal level, you have your home.

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You have your place, a sense of belonging. People are uprooted, they're moving all over the place.

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People are coming from broken households. And now even the regions that they live in, many of the things about them are being vilified.

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Where is there any stability? That's from a temporal level.

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Now, from a spiritual, on a spiritual plane, what do people believe now about God, about eternity?

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I mean, they're secularized, that this is all there is. So many of them. What good is it?

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I mean, look, if they can, if the other side can steal elections, where does that put a young white conservative?

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It's not even about being white, but I'm just saying, that's the suicide stats. Seems it's overwhelmingly white people.

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Where does that put them? Is there any hope whatsoever to be evil in this world?

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Has God abandoned us? See, here's the thing. Ultimately, people commit suicide because they're depressed.

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It starts with depression, but they commit suicide because they're depressed. Why are they depressed? There's a blocked goal of some kind.

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They have a goal, it might be a good goal, but it's blocked, they can't get to it. And so they start to become hopeless.

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It'll never be achieved. There's no way. There's no purpose in my existence. There's no reason for me to continue living.

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I can't accomplish what I want to accomplish. And I would submit to you that there is a particular political party, especially that's making things very difficult for people, especially of the demographic that seems to be killing themselves.

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They're giving them a very hard time, not blaming anyone individually or in particular.

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I'm just saying the narrative that is repeated on over and over and over that vilifies white people, that trashes their history, that trashes

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Western civilization, that even the economy and what's happening with the economy and feeling like you're shut out of certain industries if you believe certain things or you're canceled.

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There's no place for you. There's no belonging in this world. Has an effect. Let me share with you some

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Bible verses. I only have two here. Suicide is ultimately self -murder.

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And I know sometimes there's a sense in which people wanna blame everyone but the person who actually did it.

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It's sin, it's murder. Someone is choosing to do this and they're doing it in a very selfish way.

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All those things that I just mentioned, they're contributing factors, I'm sure, for a lot of people. But it's also uncovering something.

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It's uncovering something about us that our life really wasn't what maybe it should have been about.

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If you don't see any purpose or reason for living because you're not gonna be able to have the good job or the respect you want or your quality of living is gonna go down somehow or I don't know, you're depressed because the things that you care about are being denigrated.

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Yeah, I get that. I get all that. I understand it. But those aren't ultimately the person we live for.

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And it is a person. It's not just principles. It's a person. That's not who we live for.

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I wanna read for you this. James 4 .2 says, you lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You lust and you do not have, so you commit murder.

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Suicide, self -murder. Why do people commit it? Why do people commit murder? They don't have something they want, they don't have.

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Maybe it's even the appreciation of someone else. Spurned lover, right? Or it's just, in most cases, it's a combination of a lot of things.

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And the conditions are already dismal. And then something in their personal life happens and they're just, they're distraught.

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We have a God, though. Psalm 147 says this, three through four. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

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And this is where I wanna get into some hope. I think we do need to condemn suicide.

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We do need to condemn murder. They're sins, they're wrong, they're evil. It's a supreme act of selfishness when someone does that because they're saying, people that rely on me, the people that love me,

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I don't care. They're just gonna have to pick up the pieces. I don't care about how my life is gonna affect them.

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Or they convince themselves it'd be better for them if I were gone or something, which is not true.

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But some people, watch It's a Wonderful Life. I think it does a great job of getting into that mindset.

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I'd be better off dead because of this $500 life insurance policy or something. So people convince themselves by believing lies.

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To do this. I believe this is a personal belief of mine. I believe that, I wanna say in every case,

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I don't think I have scriptural justification to say this, but I think in most cases, at least, there's demonic oppression involved in this somehow.

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This is a supreme act of evil against the creator. Murder is against the creator. It is a rejection of the image of God directly.

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It's an evil thing, it's a wrong thing. It's a selfish thing. I'd rather not feel anything if I have to feel pain.

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Yet, God comforts the brokenhearted. When someone experiences supreme loss, and there are many throughout history.

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Think of Eric Little as an example of this. Separated from his wife, from his child, who was born without him even seeing the child.

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Stuck in a prison camp in China, Japanese prison camp. Malnourished, not able to get the medicine he needed when he had the tumors in his brain.

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Every day, getting up, being optimistic, helping the people around him, living for something more, and experiencing joy in that.

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Teaching everyone to sing Be Still My Soul. How does someone go through what he went through?

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Seeing all the death and destruction, kids being born and not even being able to grow fingernails because they don't have the nutrition to be able to do it because they're not being fed in the prison camp.

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Smugglers having to provide fruits if they can even get into the prison camp. And by the way, some

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Christians in their twisted view of Romans 13, they'd say that that was wrong. No, it's not.

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And Eric Little never indicated he thought it was. But he still had to live in a horrible situation.

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And then he dies of his brain tumor in the prison camp. Not complaining, discipling people, seeing what he could do to make his situation and the situation of others better.

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How in the world do you go through that and not contemplate suicide and not contemplate murder and not contemplate depression?

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And I'm sure maybe Eric Little did contemplate some of those things, especially depression. How do you fight against it though?

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When you're in that spot? I've had depression, not to the extent of people that have committed suicide, but I've certainly had depression.

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And I think if I'm honest with myself and if most of us are honest with ourselves right now, seeing what we've seen over the last year,

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I think we all are living underneath a rain cloud. Can we be honest about that?

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Can we say that maybe a lot of us, even if we're not aware of it, we keep functioning every day. Yeah, we're kind of depressed and there's no sin in being depressed.

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It's not wrong. It could be, but it's not wrong to be sad about, to be despondent, yes, but to be sad about what's happening in the world, that's not wrong.

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But the scripture says, we don't grieve as those who have no hope. We have hope. God comforts the brokenhearted.

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When we're broken about our country, about our family, about the things around us, when we're broken about the opportunities that we'll forfeit, about whatever it is.

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I mean, we all have hardship. Going through breakups is a normal part of life before you get married.

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We go through hardships. How do you deal with it in those circumstances? Do you look up or do you look like Peter did at the waves around you?

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And I think that's the key. If we look at the waves around us, if we focus on the things that are just going bad in this world, and I'll say this, if all you listen to is conversations that matter, and if all you listen to is

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Ben Shapiro, and if all you listen to is Glenn Beck, I don't know why

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I'm picking them, I'm just picking, I don't even listen to them, but I use two more. If you listen to political commentary, and that's all you're listening to, and it's negative, and I hope

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I'm not always negative, but if you're listening to people that's just, here's the latest thing that's bad.

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I mean, you need to be aware about what's going on in your life, in society, you do. That's just responsible, being a responsible citizen.

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But if that's, your diet is just that, and you're looking at the waves around you without looking up and saying,

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God exists, there's a plan, I'm here for a reason, you're gonna be discouraged.

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If you live and die by what Twitter says about you, and you're living for that Facebook ding, or that text message, or something favorable people say about you, you're gonna be depressed.

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They're gonna, that will never be consistent. And there's gonna come a day when they're all after you, and you're unpopular.

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You have got to live for eternal things. You gotta live for God, you gotta live for Jesus. You have to be living to please that person, because that person doesn't go anywhere.

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And there is a place of belonging there, and is, and they are, and God is solid and steady.

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And you can find stability. And that means when things are going on really bad around you, you know

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God has a purpose for you in that. And at the very basic level, it is to fulfill the commands he's given you.

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It's for, you gotta look around, where are the good works that I'm supposed to be fulfilling in this situation? Who are the people that I need to help?

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What can I do? Can I, I can pray at least, right? Yeah, I can at least do that, even if nothing else.

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So, even if you don't feel like you have a place in this country, even if you feel like on the job market you can't do what you wanna do, if your family, you know, you come from a broken relationship or something, you don't have your family, whatever the case may be, there is a place for you.

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There is a place for you. If you are a redeemed individual, there is a place for you.

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And all Jesus says is to repent and turn from your sin, put your faith in him. He'll give you a new heart, he'll give you a

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Holy Spirit. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. You're still gonna struggle with things. And there's things that you should be sad about.

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Jesus wept over Jerusalem, but you're not gonna be, you're not gonna have the sorrow like the world has.

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There's gonna be hope. You're gonna know that this life goes on afterward, that it goes on forever.

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And there is not just the temporal world, but the eternal realm. And that's the only thing that makes it worth living.

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That's the only thing that impacts our world with significance is the fact that it's designed by someone and it has a higher purpose.

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It's not just matter in motion. So I know that's basic.

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I know everyone probably already knows what I've said, but I think we need to be reminded of it. And as we go forward, as the suicide rate might be even increasing, we need to just keep that in mind.

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I know it's hard for vets right now, especially vets of Afghanistan. What's the purpose? What's the point? Why did

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I even go over there and lose my leg? I can't answer all of that for you. I don't know in the grand scheme, but I do know this, no matter what sacrifices we make, they're all temporary.

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You know, why did the founders set up a constitution if it was just gonna be trampled on? I mean, maybe it was for their kids.

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Maybe it's for their grandkids. I mean, there's an expectation set somewhere and the expectations when they're not met, it leads to depression.

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It can. And I don't think it's wrong to be sad about that or angry about it.

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We should be angry about what's happening right now. But at the same time, we know that, look, there was a reason to be there for, if you're a vet, there was a reason you were there.

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I don't know fully what it was, but maybe it didn't have to do with the mission.

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Or maybe there was something else that was prevented because you were there. People heard the gospel.

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I know that. There was a door open for the gospel because Americans were there for the time they were.

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From an eternal standpoint, there's a lot more that can be said that I'm just not aware of. But there is always hope.

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And there's always sunshine. And there's always going to be people. There's always gonna be babies. There's always going to be beautiful things.

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You just look outside your window and you can see the design and the good things God's given us to enjoy.

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He's even given us taste buds. Those aren't the ends in and of themselves, but they point to something else.

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They point to a designer that wanted us to enjoy certain things.

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And that's what this world is. It's goodness marred by sin. That's what it'll always be until the consummation of all things.

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And that's what we look forward to. And we have a guaranteed place.

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Even if you don't get the vaccine, you have a place. There's a seat waiting for you.

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There's a mansion waiting for you. And unless we are strongly walking with the Lord on a day -by -day basis,

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I'm afraid that we can be swept away. And I worry for, to be honest with you, political conservatives who don't have that anchor, who don't have

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Christianity, I worry for them more than I do almost any other demographic just because I know how angry

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I get, how sad I get. I can't imagine if I didn't have the Lord. I'm shocked that there haven't been more, things the left could use to vilify conservatives because of like lone gunmen or any of those things.

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And I'm glad there hasn't been. There's been great restraint, but with all the anger out there,

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I think people are taking that energy and they're turning that on themselves. So I don't wanna live here.

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And you have a purpose to live here. You have a reason to live here. God put you here for a reason. All right, all that being said, thank you for listening for those of you who were able to listen to this.

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And I appreciate your prayers for me just because it's not an easy thing to see what

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I saw. And I know over time, it'll probably fade. Some of that will fade, but I know there's certain things

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I'll remember probably the rest of my life. And I just thank

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God that he is good and that even though I don't know all the plans and purposes, I'm not left floating around aimlessly without plan or purpose that I know there is one.

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And that's who our God is. And he's a good God. And that's the thing we have to remember. Even though he allows evil things to happen, he's still a good

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God. He's not the author of sin. And if we could see on the other side of the veil, we would see it so much more clearly.

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Now we see in part, we shall see face to face. And that's the day we live for. God bless you all.

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I know this, what is it? I think it's tomorrow is September 11th.

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I, growing up where I did, I wasn't too far. And I know people who were in the towers.

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And so sober day, a day of reflection, 20 years. I remember it like it was yesterday.

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It's another thing that'll stick with me. Lots of change since then.

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I remember without getting on a huge tangent here, I remember I told someone, you know, who was born I guess in 2000,

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I was shocked. I remember this happened. It was in college and they're like, hey, John, could you tell me what it was like before 9 -11?

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I'm like, are you serious? And there's someone, I did the math. I was like, I guess that works out. Yeah, you wouldn't have known.

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But I say, well, we could get on airplanes and we didn't have a security check. Are you serious?

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Yeah, you know, I'm gonna be telling, you know, my grandkids, yeah, you know, or my kids actually, I'll be like, you know, there was a time you didn't need a vaccine passport to get on a plane.

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You know, I'll be telling them that. But anyway, there's gonna be a lot, especially where I am, there's gonna be a lot of remembrance.

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There's gonna be a lot of just pain even from the memories of people who died.

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But I think even in this, the thing that I always remember is how the next day people, we saw people showing up at church and that faded.

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And that's been, I think that was a huge turning point in our country right there. That was an opportunity to repent of our sin in which we have many real sins.

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I'm not talking about the fake repentance last year for systemic this or that.

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I'm talking about actual sins people are participating in directly. There's enough to repent about.

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But I think that opportunity after 9 -11, people didn't go down that road and it was there.

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And I see God's judgment on our country. And that's what I'm gonna be reminded of in part tomorrow. But he remembers the elect.

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He remembers those who are his. And I just pray, Lord, if there's 10 righteous people, please, you know, have mercy and we continue to look for real repentance, real revival.

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And all we can do is be the lights in the communities where we are. And that's all God wants us to be, right?

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That's all he expects. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. Do the best you can. Love your family.

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Be an asset to your community. Exercise your social responsibilities there. And that's all you can do.

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And that's all you should be expected to do. You can't go beyond that. You can't fix everything. Sometimes I wanna fix everything.

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And as guys, we wanna do that, we can't. We can't fix everything, but we know who can. We know who will.

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There's a better way to put it. We know who will. All right, God bless. Hope that was not too depressing for some of you, but at least got you to think a little bit.

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More coming next week. In fact, Monday, we're gonna have an episode with Bobby Lopez. Some of you know who that is.