WWUTT 2325 Q&A Year in Review (Part 2), The Influencer Election, the Incarnation, the Bible Recap

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What were some of the biggest stories that happened in 2024 affecting the

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Christian faith? Whether the news was good or bad, we can look at these stories and we can see that God is sovereign.

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He is still in control when we understand the text. Many of the

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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .wutt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. On the Friday edition of the broadcast, we like to take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to WhenWeUnderstandTheText at gmail .com

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or go to www .wutt .com. Click on that voicemail tab on the top right corner of the page and record a voicemail for us, either through your phone or through the laptop.

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We are going to respond to some of those questions today in the second half of the program and Becky is going to join me.

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But first, we have to get back to our list of the 40 biggest news stories affecting the

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Christian faith in 2024. Last week, we did half of that list from January to mid -June and today we pick up with story number 21 on June the 18th.

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Robert Morris removed as pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas for child sex abuse.

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A watchdog website released an interview with a woman named Cindy Clemishire who revealed that Robert Morris, pastor and founder of Gateway Church, had sexually molested her when she was 12, abuse which continued until she was 17.

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Morris was in his 20s and married at the time and he was a traveling evangelist. Morris admitted to the abuse.

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He was removed as pastor and over the next several months, things at Gateway continued to unravel.

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Morris was not the only pastor exposed for sex abuse at Gateway. At last count, 14 pastors were either themselves abusers or part of a cover -up.

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By October, more than 20 ,000 people had left the church. There were many other news stories in 2024 of pastors removed for some kind of sin.

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I kept a lot of those stories. They're too long for me to go through them now, but I'll probably put them in another article later.

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By the way, if you go to PastorGabe .com, you'll find the stories from last week, the 20 that I covered last week in a transcript form, and the stories from today will be on the site as well.

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Tony Evans was another popular pastor who stepped down for a past sin, although we don't know what that was.

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That's kind of a problem, actually. There's another pastor that will show up on this list who was removed for sexual immorality.

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It's also worth noting that Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, resigned this year amid the fallout from a long -running sex abuse scandal.

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Lord God, cleanse your church. Story number 22. On June the 19th, the

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Ten Commandments must be displayed in Louisiana classrooms.

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Louisiana became the first state to mandate that all classrooms of every public school from kindergarten up through state colleges must display the

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Ten Commandments. The commandments must be poster -sized and displayed with a large enough font that is readable.

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It's also to include a context statement noting that the commandments were a prominent part of American public school education for almost three centuries.

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Of course, the commandments are much more than that. It's the word of God. But anyway, this is going to go into effect this month.

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I believe it went into effect on January 1st, in fact. About a week later, after this happened in Louisiana, on June the 27th, the state of Oklahoma announced that the

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Bible must be read in all public schools. 23rd story of the year, on July the 8th, the

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Republican Party becomes pro -choice. The Republican Party, also called the

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GOP or the Grand Ole Party, and largely considered to be the conservative party in the United States, had not released a party platform since 2016.

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There was not a Republican national convention in 2020 due to COVID. So in 2024, they published their first party platform in eight years, and they gutted it of any language that stated marriages to be between a man and a woman only, as the

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GOP had stated back in 2016, and they also removed any language expressing a defense of unborn children.

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Really, as things stand, there is not a pro -life conservative party of the two major parties in the

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United States. God has said marriages to be between a man and a woman, and the Bible says life begins at conception.

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God have mercy on us. Story number 24, on July the 11th, population decline.

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Kind of ironic that right after we go from a story about the Republican Party softening their position on abortion, the next big story of the year is about the global problem of population decline.

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How much of a decline? Well, in the past 60 years, the global fertility rate for any two people, a man and a woman, has declined from 5 .3

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in 1963 to 2 .3 in 2023.

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The global population growth has been declining since 1968. The UN estimates that by the year 2027, the growth rate will be 0 .9%,

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which is less than half of the population growth rate 60 years before. We are estimated to experience global depopulation for the first time within the next generation.

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Estimates are that if the world reaches a global population of 9 .7 billion by 2064, it will decline to 8 .8

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billion by 2100, based on current trends. Countries with decreasing populations include

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Estonia and Greece, both of whom legalized same -sex marriage this year, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Spain, the

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Ukraine, and Venezuela, to name a few. China's population peaked at 1 .41 billion and is now in decline.

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How much? It is estimated that by the year 2100, that number will be less than half at 633 million.

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Story number 25 on July 13th, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the first of two, in fact.

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This is one of those events where you will probably remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about it.

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On a campaign stop near Butler, Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump was speaking outdoors at the

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Butler Farm Show grounds. The assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had climbed to the roof of a building over 400 feet away from the platform where Trump was speaking, and six minutes into his speech,

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Crooks began firing at Trump. At the last split second, Trump turned his head and the bullet grazed his ear.

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He went down to the stage and Secret Service jumped on top of him. He was able to leave the stage on his own two feet and was treated at a nearby hospital for a minor injury that could have been a lot worse.

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Very sadly, one of Crooks' shots struck Corey Comperatore, who was killed shielding his wife and two daughters.

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It is understood that Corey was a Christian and is now with his Lord and Savior in heaven. Two other men were treated with critical injuries but pulled through, and there were other minor injuries as well.

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Trump and many others gave praise to God for surviving the attempt, believing it was divine intervention that saved him.

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Unfortunately, there was some Bible twisting that came along with this. Jack Posobiec posted on X, Trump was shot at 611,

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Ephesians 611, which says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

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That was repeated in the media by Megyn Kelly and by the Republican National, it was also at the

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Republican National Convention. But that verse has nothing to do with why Trump was spared that day.

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The armor of God is spiritual and it is worn by all followers of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, it is true that by God's providence,

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Trump was not assassinated and of course, he would go on to win the election, which is a story that's coming up a little bit later on.

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Story number 26 on July the 26th, the last supper mockery in the

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Olympics opening ceremony. The 2024 Olympics were held in Paris, France, and in the opening ceremony, there was a live scene mocking the last supper, the famous painting from Leonardo da

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Vinci depicting Jesus and his disciples during the institution of the Lord's table. The mockery as choreographed by director

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Thomas Jolly included men in drag and other homosexuals. Following the performance,

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Leslie Barbara Butch, who is a lesbian activist and was in the the Jesus position in the setup, posted an image of the performance on Instagram and proclaimed, yes, the gay

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New Testament. The blasphemous portrayal was criticized by many religious leaders from Ed Stetzer to Franklin Graham and Andy Stanley, John Cooper of Skillet, James White, Albert Muller, even

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Elon Musk called it disrespectful. You could certainly say this, it united professing

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Christians from various backgrounds from all over the world who were denouncing it. The 2024

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Olympics were also known for the first male boxer to win a gold medal for beating women.

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That was in women's boxing. Fortunately, there was a lot of good that came out of the Olympics as well. Gold medal winner and world record holder in women's hurdles,

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Sydney McLaughlin -Lavrone said, I credit all that I do to God. And other

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Christian athletes spoke up at the Olympics, too, including golfer Scotty Scheffler, whose statements about his faith in Christ made the news several times this year.

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Story number 27 on July the 30th, Megan Basham publishes

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Shepherds for Sale. Megan Basham is a personal friend and has been on this podcast a couple of times before a culture reporter for The Daily Wire.

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She became a New York Times bestselling author this year with the book Shepherds for Sale, how evangelical leaders traded the truth for a leftist agenda.

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Follow the money, as the saying goes. And Megan did exactly that with her expert reporting.

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It may have been the bestselling Christian book of the year, but it was also the most controversial.

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It called out evangelical influencers and organizations by name, some of whom receive money from leftist organizations to push a liberal ideology on subjects anywhere from wokeness to covid vaccines, to climate change, to tolerating or accepting

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LGBTQ perversions. The book was publicly denounced by former Southern Baptist President J .D.

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Greer, the Ortlands, Phil Fisher and Warren Cole Smith of Ministry Watch. In fact, his article criticizing the book was

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Ministry Watch's second most read article in twenty twenty four. But the book also received praise from men like John MacArthur, Votie Bockham, teacher

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Rosaria Butterfield and also Tom Askel. Story number twenty eight,

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August the 11th evangelicals for Harris hopes to get Kamala Harris elected on Christian values.

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It was on August 11th that faux conservative David French published to The New York Times to save conservativism from itself.

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I am voting for Harris, the most pro abortion candidate ever to run for president of the

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United States. Harris not only wanted to codify the murder of unborn children in the law, she placed a higher value on that as a right, as she called it, than even the

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First Amendment. Had Harris become president, a doctor would not have been allowed to refuse to conduct an abortion on the basis of his religious beliefs, nor could an insurer or an employer refuse to pay for it.

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Nonetheless, a website called Evangelicals for Harris was launched, claiming Harris was a

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Christian woman, even though her belief in the gospel wasn't even mentioned on the website. I had kind of a go around with them on social media about that, by the way.

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They insisted she was a Christian. And in fact, Kamala probably spoke in more churches leading up to the election than Trump did.

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But Kamala was closer to Jezebel than Jesus. As Revelation 220 says,

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I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality.

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I might mention about David French that he was named quite prominently in Megan's book as having received leftist dollars to push their corruption on evangelicals.

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He was kind of a gullible stooge in that sense. Story number 29, on September the 10th, the church deals with the immigration controversy.

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Illegal immigration was a big subject in 2024, especially considering that under President Joe Biden, it is estimated that over 10 million illegal immigrants entered the

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United States, smashing previous records. And that led to debate in many places, in many pulpits and in many denominations about the church's role, especially in asking, should the church house illegal immigrants?

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Now, no Christian should be opposed to immigration. The Bible says even in God's law that we're supposed to love the sojourner in our midst.

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But even sojourners were subject to the laws of Israel. And likewise, immigrants should be held to the laws of the

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US, their governing authorities. Help the illegal immigrant, even share the gospel with them.

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But they should be encouraged to go through the legal process of becoming citizens or return to their country of origin.

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Story number 30, on September the 19th, Steve Lawson resigns.

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On September 19th, shocking news rippled across evangelicalism when it was announced that Steve Lawson would resign as the pastor of Trinity Bible Church in Dallas, Texas, due to an inappropriate relationship.

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It was later revealed that he had not fornicated with the young woman in question, to whom he was not married, of course.

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In fact, the extent of their private interactions is still not publicly known. Nonetheless, the relationship had reached the level of a love affair that disqualified

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Lawson from ministry. He was removed from his associations with the Shepherds Conference, Masters University, G3, and as teaching fellow with Ligonier.

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He also resigned from One Passion Ministries, which he founded. I've covered this story at greater length, especially in it was in podcast episode 2250, which aired on September the 20th.

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You can listen to my longer comments on this subject there. Story number 31 was on September the 24th.

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Hurricane Helene hits the Southeast and faith -based groups provide disaster relief.

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To this day, the government has been little help in the recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene, especially in Western North Carolina, where many people lost everything they had.

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As fall got closer to winter, thousands of people remain displaced from their homes and in need of basic things like food, water, clothing, and shelter.

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Many churches and parachurch organizations stepped up and are still there doing a lot of work.

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Popular daytime television personality, Dr. Phil, even gave high praise to Franklin Graham's ministry

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Samaritan's Purse for the work that they are doing there. You can contact Samaritan's Purse if you want to find out how you can donate or look for some churches around the

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Carolinas that are still doing work out there and donate to their cause to help those who have been displaced by this storm.

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Story number 32 was on October the 7th, one year after the attack on Israel, a dramatic increase in anti -Semitism.

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On college campuses across the nation, students have rallied behind Palestine and against a

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Jewish state in Israel. Even some Christians have made harsh denouncements against the

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Jews. According to one report, anti -Semitism has increased more than 200 % compared to the same period last year.

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In Romans 9, the Apostle Paul wept for his kinsmen, the Jews, that they would come to believe in the gospel of Christ and be saved.

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Then in chapter 11, Paul says not to be arrogant toward the Jews, even unbelieving

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Jews. For if God did not spare the natural branches, Paul says, neither will he spare you.

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They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith.

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So do not become proud, but fear. We should not discriminate against the

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Jews, but desire that they would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and be saved.

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Story number 33 was on November the 6th, Donald Trump wins the election.

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Of the news sites that I checked to compile this list, Donald Trump winning the 2024 election was the number one news story of the year, according to most of them.

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As in the previous two elections, most evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Unlike in 2020, this time most

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Roman Catholics voted for Trump as well. Biden carried the Catholic vote last time. As in any election year, this one was surely full of all kinds of drama, setting aside the two assassination attempts on Trump's life, which we already talked about.

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It was shortly after that first attempt that Biden resigned from the race, withdrew from the race, and the manner in which it happened really looked like someone resigned him rather than Biden making that decision to withdraw himself.

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Then of course, Vice President Kamala Harris declared herself the Democrat candidate without a vote.

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No caucuses, no decision among the Democrats who their candidate was going to be. She just declared it and was endorsed by the

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Democrat party. All of that aside, God was merciful and spared us what could have been one of the most corrupt regimes in American history, as Ezra 9 -8 says, but now for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the

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Lord our God. So let us use this opportunity to keep preaching the gospel. Let us pray that Donald Trump would have godly men and women around him to help influence public policy for the good of the

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American people and even people abroad. But do not think of Donald Trump as being a

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Christian or a God -fearing man. He is not. We need to pray for his salvation also.

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Sadly, with this election also came expanded access to abortion in seven states.

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That was also voted on in the election this November. Story number 34,

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November the 17th. The United Kingdom is named one of the most hostile regions in Europe toward Christians.

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Have you heard about Irish teacher Enoch Burke, who was repeatedly arrested in 2024 because he refused to go along with transgender ideology or acknowledge people's preferred pronouns?

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Burke is a Christian and is discriminated against for his Christian beliefs. The United Kingdom has also made headlines for arresting people who stood in public and prayed silently.

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I watched a video where police approached a woman standing outside an abortion clinic on a sidewalk.

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She was across the street just standing on the sidewalk and they asked her, are you praying?

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And when she said yes, they arrested her. While discrimination against Christianity is on the rise all over Europe, see the previous story on the blasphemous display during the

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Paris Olympics, it is especially bad in the UK. Greater than 56 % of Christians have reported experiencing hostility for their religious beliefs.

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Much of this is owed to Europe -wide hate speech laws, which have created situations where Christians are criminalized just for expressing non -violent religious beliefs.

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Meanwhile, which violent religion is quickly on the rise in Europe and not experiencing as much hostility from the

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British government? Islam. Story number 35,

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November the 29th. Assisted suicide becomes legal in the

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UK. Assisted medical death is now legal in the United Kingdom, and they are the latest in a handful of countries to permit assisted suicide, including

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Canada, New Zealand, Spain, and most of Australia. You know, when it comes to the pro -life position, it's not just advocating for unborn children, although that's a great part of the position.

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It's also advocating for life from womb to tomb. You've probably heard that expression before.

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So from conception to natural death, all life is valuable and is worthy of dignity and respect.

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Human beings have been created in the image of God, and as image bearers, we must uphold that image and value the life that God has given to us.

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Those who still have breath in their lungs, though they may be painful and suffering, we must appeal to them to turn to the

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Lord Jesus Christ that they may live. Let us speak out in defense of life, that all life is valuable from conception to death, natural death, not suicide.

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Story number 36 on December the 1st, Bible sales spike.

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I mentioned Megan Basham a moment ago, and she just recently did a report for the Daily Wire about how

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Bible sales were up 22 % in 2024. Book sales have been down in almost every category, dropping as much as 3 % from the previous year.

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But what one category of books has experienced growth? Christian books, and the

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Bible in particular, remains a big seller. The Bible is always the best seller from year to year, but especially in 2024, there was an increase in Bible sales.

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I bought a dozen Bibles this year for other people, including someone I baptized back in the spring, and I bought a new

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Bible for myself for preaching, which should arrive in the mail in a couple of weeks.

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So I've contributed to this Bible boom as well. Question number 37. Question 37.

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Yeah, we'll get to questions in the second half. By the way, second half of the program is for those listening on the podcast.

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If you're listening to the radio edition, you're only going to get a half an hour here. You can go to www .utt .com,

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subscribe to the podcast, or look for When We Understand the Text on whatever podcast app you like to use, including

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Spotify. This is story number 37, which is on December 6th, and it's

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Christian movies for the year. Christian movies actually did pretty well in 2024. Christian entertainment was big box office, though they're probably not the most sound works of art doctrinally.

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There might be a lot of biblical problems in some of these films, including the movie

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Mary, which was a big one for Netflix, one of their most watched movies this year.

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But it's terrible, completely off from the biblical narrative. Other movies that came out this year include

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Bonhoeffer about the German Minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was involved in a plot to assassinate

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Adolf Hitler in World War Two. Let's see. Also, the best Christmas pageant ever.

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That was one of the most successful movies this year. It made nearly $40 million at the box office, putting it in the top 50 highest grossing movies for 2024.

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By the way, random fact for you of the top 20 highest grossing films in 2024. Only three of them were not sequels.

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Story number 38, December the 20th. Violence against Christians in India increases.

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Violent acts against Christians in the nation of India went up almost 600 percent over the last 10 years, ever since a certain

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Hindu nationalist party assumed power in 2014. But as the United Christian Forum reported, that number could be much higher because most of those attacks and and oppressions have gone unreported.

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According to the website Persecution .org, hostility against Christianity has increased in 18 countries between 2022 and 24.

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Other countries include China and and and Nigeria, as well as Nicaragua for its mass detention and expulsion of clergy.

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The world was rocked by a story of a young missionary couple killed in Haiti on May the 23rd and the

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East African country of Rwanda closed down more than 10 ,000 church buildings in 2024.

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Story number 39 on December the 22nd, Christian nationalism continues to be divisive.

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I've been saying for a couple of years now that Christian nationalism is a term that needs to be abandoned.

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Christian nationalism is a term that the left was using as an insult. Specifically, they were calling it white

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Christian nationalism, and some groups of Christians loved it and decided to run with it, self -identifying as Christian nationalists.

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For a time, I was even willing to call myself one, but it remains a term that the left has used. It remains undefined by scripture.

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Even the the pinnacle book on the subject, The Case for Christian Nationalism, published by Canon Press, says in the introduction to the book that he's not going to make a biblically exegetical case for Christian nationalism.

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Now I can sympathize with wanting to have a Christian nation that is in submission to Christ and his word.

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Amen. I want that, too. And if saying Christ is king, or abortion and gay marriage should be illegal, or only women give birth, or it's good for us to know who's crossing our border, if statements like that are going to get me labeled a

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Christian nationalist, we'll bring it on. I'll gladly wear it. But that's not most

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Christian nationalism. It's either Roman Catholic, or it's charismatic New Apostolic Dominionist theology, or there's the post -millennial

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Theonomic Reconstructionists. And then there are even those who have embraced the full title of white

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Christian nationalists, and they're flat out racists in the name of Jesus.

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It has descended into personality cults, conspiracy theories, division, and racism.

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It's such a disaster of a movement. The only Christian nation is the church.

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That's in the Bible. 1 Peter 2 .9, you are a holy nation. If you want the country that you live in to be a

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Christian nation, well, the first order of business is for the church in that nation to worship

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God rightly. And then we need to go out into the world to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, because only that has the power to change the hearts of a nation of people toward Jesus.

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And then we pursue holiness. We show love to our neighbor, and we fight for just causes.

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You know what? That's what the church has been doing for 2 ,000 years before anyone came up with the term

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Christian nationalism. So let's abandon these terms that draw unnecessary lines in the sand, and let's get back to the basics.

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Lastly, story number 40, on December 29th, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter passes away.

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Carter's presidency was largely considered to be one of the worst in American history, though he was praised for the humanitarian work that he did after his presidency.

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He is the only former president to reach the age of 100. Upon his death, he was praised for his

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Christian faith by former Vice President Mike Pence, Charlie Kirk, and Christianity Today.

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However, Jimmy Carter, who was also a Sunday school teacher at his church in Georgia, has said that you don't have to believe in Jesus in order to go to heaven.

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He was also an advocate for same -sex marriage, saying that Jesus would approve of it.

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If you're going to be lauded for your Christian faith, you have to believe the words that Jesus said. His funeral is going to be on January 9th, which will also be declared a solemn day of remembrance.

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And there you go, that's 40 of the biggest stories for 2024 that were affecting the

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Christian faith. And you can find a transcript of this list, more details, and including sources when you go to my website,

29:07

PastorGabe .com. If you're listening on the radio, thanks for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast, hang tight with me folks, and we'll be back to answer some of your questions.

29:15

God bless. Are you looking for an easy way to read through the entire

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Bible? Well, there's a perfect Bible reading plan just for you. Best of all, it's free. If you already have a

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Bible or a Bible app, this won't cost you a thing. Are you ready? Here it is. Open the

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Maybe you want a good plan for reading the Bible, say, over the course of a year. Consider that there are 1 ,189 chapters in the

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Bible in a year. Or be committed to reading six days a week. If you read four chapters a day, you will finish the

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Look for our Bible reading podcast, Hear the Word of the Lord, to help you out. Also, Literal Word is one of the best

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But if you commit to reading 10 to 20 minutes of the Bible each day, you can read through the whole Bible in a year.

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In John 8, 31 to 32, Jesus said, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free when we understand the text.

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Check out our newest podcast, Hear the Word of the Lord, with 10 to 20 minutes of Bible reading every day to help you get through the

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Bible in less than a year. Look for it on whatever podcasting app you like to use. Babe.

30:54

Yeah. Welcome to the show. Thank you. How long is it? Thanks for having me on.

30:59

How long has it been? You're my special guest. At this point.

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Folks, I'm joined today by Rebecca Hughes. She is a stay -at -home mom. Well, not since the,

31:12

I guess this semester you started teaching. Yes. This past semester. Well, assistant. Yeah. And we're both teaching this coming semester.

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Yes. How about that? Yeah. Didn't think we'd both become teachers, Christian school teachers.

31:25

Well, technically I was homeschooling, so I was a teacher. You were doing that anyway.

31:31

Yes. But this is more an official capacity, I suppose. Right. Teaching degree, you've served on a school board before.

31:40

Yeah. And we knew you were going to go back to it eventually, but here we are, jumping right back into it already.

31:46

Yeah. Starts up again next week. Yes. Are you ready? It's around the corner.

31:52

I gotta be. That's right. We've gotta go one way or the other. We've gotta roll right into it.

31:58

Well, Becky is eating some ice cream. By the way, you had a lot of emails from folks saying they were praying for you.

32:06

Aw, that's so sweet. Praying for safe travels and also offering condolences after the loss of your grandfather.

32:12

Let me tell you, they were all felt. Very felt. Because we had the smoothest travel

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I think I've ever had in my entire life. Even with the car trouble, it was still, yeah. It was still, we got from point

32:24

A to point B without breaking down and without doing damage that I figured was gonna happen inevitably.

32:32

Well, because the last major vacation we took, we had a blowout. We did. Yeah. So you didn't have to face something that bad happening out in the middle of nowhere on a very desolate interstate.

32:45

And it was hot that day. It was. And windy. And very windy. That is true. So you came home and you brought these with you.

32:53

My mom made these. Do you know what this is? I was trying to remember. Yes, but no.

32:59

She told me. Okay, this is a white fudge covered Keebler elf cookie.

33:05

Oh, is that what's underneath it? Yeah, the fudge, the Keebler elf fudge sandwich cookies. That's what's in this.

33:11

I didn't know that when I picked this up. And it's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, well,

33:16

I'm not really much of a cookie guy, but I bit into this and I was like, this is really good.

33:24

It's a lot of sugar. And it has sprinkles on top and everything.

33:30

Yeah, my mom went all out. Ma 'am. That was our Christmas gift from them.

33:35

That's a really good combo. I know, my favorite were the squirrely pretzels, the small squirrely pretzels.

33:43

I don't know what you call them. Like the typical. Is that what they're called? Squirrely pretzels. There's pretzels and then there's pretzels and then there's pretzels and then there's pretzels.

33:50

You're talking the pretzel twists? Yes, twists. Squirrely pretzels. They're squirrely.

33:58

Anyway, the smaller ones. And then you put a Rolo on it and then you either put

34:03

M &M or you put a Pecan on it. Right, right, right. I know what you're talking about. Super good.

34:09

Did she make a bunch of those? And you ate them all. Almost. Is that the look?

34:15

I ate a lot of them, yes. Almost all of them. Well, there were some. I did leave some.

34:21

They're gone now because they're not in that box. They're not in that box. They're not completely gone.

34:27

Oh, you hid them is what you're saying. I hid them from myself too. You don't know where you put them?

34:34

I know where I put them, but I hid them out of sight so that way I'd quit eating them. Oh, check. All right. You know what

34:39

I mean? I was going to say there's. So bad. There's white fudge covered pretzels in there. Yep.

34:45

But none that had the, yeah, the little Rolo and the. Nope. So is it with the

34:50

M &M or is it with the pecan? Both. There's one, like she has some of them with the

34:55

M &M and some of them with the pecan. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Well, we're here to answer some questions.

35:01

Uh -huh. Answering questions from the listeners. Been through our 40 stories of the year.

35:07

You missed that. You didn't get the chance to say Merry Christmas to anybody. Merry Christmas. Do you want to say.

35:13

Happy New Year. Happy New Year. There you go. All right. Sorry, guys. It's the first Q &A of the new year.

35:19

Yes. And as always, you can send questions to us via email when we understand the text at gmail .com

35:26

or you can send us a voicemail. Go to www .utt

35:32

.com, click on the voicemail tab on the top right corner of the page, record your voicemail and send it to us either through your phone or through your laptop.

35:42

We would love to hear from you. Now, last week, it was like an all voicemail Q &A.

35:48

This week it's all email. Okay. So this one is from Landon in Illinois.

35:54

He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, thank you so much for your countdown of the biggest Christian headlines of the year.

35:59

I don't think I'm overstating this when I say there's no other list on the web like it.

36:04

Hmm. Christianity Today will make you pay to read their list. Oh, wow. And most other lists are just the top 10 stories, not the top 40.

36:15

I don't know how much work you had to do to do this, but I'm grateful. And it's something of a yearbook, like you said, that I'll come back to again later.

36:23

I've referenced your list from past years to a couple of questions related to this. First, in 2019, you actually put this into a book with short articles, but I cannot find where you did this with any other years.

36:36

Have you done another year in review book? If not, do you intend to do any more?

36:43

Well, I remember doing 2019. We were still in Kansas then. Yeah. Then in 2020, we had moved to Texas and we had just moved.

36:52

And I just didn't have the time. And it was 2020. And it was 2020. Everything went nuts that year.

37:00

So like schedule was off. Everything was off. I remember making jokes, too, about, man,

37:06

I started doing a year in review in 2019 and then 2020 happened. Yeah. Yeah. How do

37:11

I do a year in review? The funny thing about that is that manuscript is actually done. Yep.

37:17

I did write the book for 2020 and just never published it. So there is...

37:23

Because he always had the intent to do it every year. Yeah. And then it just kind of...

37:28

It just didn't happen. Didn't materialize. But yeah, that manuscript is done. I'd probably have to go back through it and edit it.

37:35

I don't think I ever did any editing. But I could publish 2020. And now, of course, I've done 2024.

37:42

So that manuscript isn't done, but I've got like a brief version of it. Yeah, I never did get around to doing any of the others, mostly because it got real busy.

37:52

For whatever reason, at the end of 2019, I had enough time that I could bang that out in two weeks.

37:58

Yep. And get it online. And then I even sold it for real cheap. It was under eight bucks or something like that.

38:04

Or you could buy the Kindle version for $2. Yeah. And I thought it was pretty neat to be able to put that out there where you have these stories that happen during the year from a

38:15

Christian worldview perspective, links and stuff in there. Oh, I'll tell you something else that happened. This is what made the stories harder to write for 2020 and in 21.

38:26

There was a news site that I was using in 2019 called Discern. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

38:32

And they went defunct. They shut down and changed to Not the

38:38

Bee. Yes. So the Babylon Bee decided to have two sites.

38:44

There's the satire site, which is the Babylon Bee. And then they were posting stories that were so outlandish, you couldn't even satirize them.

38:55

So that became Not the Bee. So they took Discern and made their true stories into the

39:02

Not the Bee website. Right. And it was not as easy to follow. Oh, my goodness.

39:07

It was so ad -loaded. It's still ad -loaded. It just wasn't as easy to follow, and the articles were not written in as professional and as concise a manner as Discern was.

39:20

Not the Bee is kind of, you know, it keeps that jocular tone like the Babylon Bee has, even though it isn't satire.

39:28

So that made the task harder in 2020 as well, because I couldn't streamline all my stories from one source like I did it in 2019.

39:40

That was one of the reasons why I was able to do it so fast. Now with this, I've got a different system now that I've developed over the last couple of years.

39:48

So it's easier for me than it was in, like, 20 and 21. Less three years, to be exact.

39:54

Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, I think this system really has been since, yeah, maybe 22, 23, somewhere in there

40:02

I might have done it. There was a website that will publish, like, 30 -plus stories of the biggest stories that were circulated around Christian news sites, at least those that were part of the

40:16

Religion News Association, RNA. Oh, okay. But RNA isn't doing that anymore. So again, that was another site that was like, well, okay,

40:23

I found a good one, and now the aren't even publishing that list anymore. So that's why you haven't seen another book.

40:31

It's tough to get real news out there. Like he was saying, like, what's his name again?

40:36

Landon was the one that, yeah, who sent this. Like Landon was saying, because they start off well and then don't continue for whatever reason.

40:47

I mean, I'm sure everything has their own reasons, but. People might change their gimmick or their approach. Yeah. To try to attract more readers.

40:54

Yeah. Attracting more readers. And it could also be the thing. I mean, the market just gets super saturated.

41:01

There are more news sites now than there were four years ago. Oh, yeah, most definitely.

41:07

But no, there hasn't been another book since 2019. I don't know. We'll see if I do another one. And most reporters aren't actually doing their jobs.

41:15

I mean, not from the Christian perspective, but like in general. So getting news, like true news is hard.

41:23

Mainstream media. Definitely. Yes. That's what I mean. Yeah. But with the independent sites, there is a desire to want to put substantial content in front of you to keep you coming back.

41:35

So they have more of a reason to try to draw you in, whereas what we call the legacy media controlled everything.

41:43

It's like, you're not going to watch anything else. We're the only ones out there. Yeah. Yes. It is so bad.

41:48

Now, that goes into Landon's second part of this question. Oh, OK. So he says, second, what are your thoughts about the 2024 election being called the first influencer election?

42:01

Even the mainstream media has been saying things like Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn and other social media personalities played a huge role in the outcome of the election.

42:12

What do you think of YouTube influencers having that kind of reach? Do you think it's a good or bad thing that pretty much anyone can start a

42:20

YouTube channel or a podcast and gain a huge reach? As someone I know who has a radio background,

42:27

I'd be interested in your opinion. Thank you again for all that you do and Happy New Year, Landon in Illinois.

42:35

I think it's a great thing. I think it's fantastic. Me too. I would never go back to radio.

42:42

Oh, really? I would not go back to radio. I mean, the reach that I have now is far broader than anything that I ever had in a local radio station.

42:51

Now, I'm not ripping on radio. Just for me personally, I'm not going back to radio. I think there is value in a local radio station.

42:59

For sure. Definitely. I would not try to labor to start one because I know what kind of work it takes.

43:05

And for me, I just don't see the purpose. I don't like it whenever you have a radio station that you can pick up, but they're not local.

43:13

That drives me crazy. Oh, yeah. That's... See, I think that's just useless. Right? It's like you're talking about stuff that's going on and I'm like, no, no, that's not here.

43:25

You know, it's weird. Christian radio was killed by K -Love.

43:31

I know that K -Love is still, I mean, it is the most popular Christian radio station out there, but they killed

43:37

Christian radio. Because when you take away a local Christian radio station and K -Love goes out and buys all these local stations up, they move into an area.

43:46

They get all the listeners and then they buy up the local stations and stuff.

43:51

And so when you give up a local station to a national conglomerate like that, you lose the impetus of what your station can do in serving your own community.

44:03

Just kind of like Christian radio died in that respect. I know that there are still some good local Christian radio stations out there.

44:09

In fact, some of them air this program. Yes. So we appreciate that very much. They're not airing this part of the program.

44:15

They aired the first half. So I can say this on this. No, I think it's great and I appreciate what you guys do.

44:24

Still laboring. Oh, yes. You have the support, which is why you're still able to stay on the air in the community where you are.

44:30

Yes. So you're providing a service, but K -Love, for the most part, I mean, the relevance that Christian radio had, it's a lot harder for it to be relevant than it used to.

44:40

Anymore you can just start a podcast or you can turn on your own list of music right from your phone. Right.

44:46

Or like subscribe to, what is that, Sirius or whatever? Yeah, that's even dumb.

44:52

I know. But I mean, that's not the only one. There's multiple out there that you pay for to listen to the radio when it used to be you just turn it on and you've got stations.

45:04

So yeah, I think that the reach that people are able to have through YouTube and podcasts and everything,

45:10

I think it's terrific. You have more content creators that are out there. You could say that with all that extra content that's out there, a lot easier to fall into lies.

45:21

I don't know. I think it's harder for those lies to be controlled because you can create channels of people that are exposing the lies and alerting people and warning them into don't listen to this stuff.

45:35

Whereas before, when everything was controlled by certain major media groups,

45:41

I mean, you. I mean, 2020 was a good example when every news station was saying the exact same thing.

45:49

It was creepy. Yeah. And since then, all this stuff has blown up like it has. Yeah. I think it's probably doubled in size.

45:56

I don't know. That's not an accurate statistic maybe, but with all the extra stuff that's come out since 2020, you send everybody home, you quarantine them and they're all going,

46:06

I'm going to start a YouTube channel, you know, at home. Yeah.

46:12

There's now more social media than ever before. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, buys a social media platform.

46:19

And now I think X is probably the most popular thing out there. Oh, it's been shown that X is the number one news app on Apple and what's the other one?

46:35

Android. Android. Yes. Anybody who has a smartphone, the most browsed news app is the social media app

46:42

X, which is pretty incredible. But yeah, it just kind of demonstrates the reach now that social media has.

46:50

And legacy media, mainstream media no longer has a monopoly on those things.

46:56

Yes. Now you can get it from others. I think it's great. I think it's a terrific thing. Isn't monopoly like illegal too?

47:03

Well, yeah, but I think that word is used in the sense of like, you know, these people control everything.

47:09

They own the cable news network. They own the newspapers. They own these news websites.

47:15

And so they, as a syndicate, you know, they kind of control all the news that gets channeled through all their different tentacles, the best way to put it, you know, almost parasitical to a certain degree.

47:32

But we're away from that. With all the social media that's going on now, I think we have more options that one group can't have control over everything.

47:42

And the Democrats, the liberals, were trying to rein that in before Elon bought

47:48

X. Yeah. And that's why he bought X. Or one of the reasons. I mean, Google was falling in line with it.

47:56

So even on YouTube and what would be the well, no,

48:01

Facebook. Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram, Meta, and even he's come out.

48:08

Zuckerberg's come out and said, yeah, with all the stuff, all the control in 2020, the government was telling us to do those things.

48:14

Yeah. So even with the major social media sites, they were being influenced by the government.

48:20

But now those things have become more independent in the last few years. So thankful for that.

48:26

Still not a fan of Facebook or Instagram. No, you're not. Anyway, Landon, you asked my opinion.

48:33

There you go. We've kind of been rambling on that for a little while. Yeah. Next one is from the

48:38

Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. This is Ben, Mr. And possibly Mrs.

48:43

What guy? That's a little awkward. Can you help explain?

48:52

Can you help explain how Jesus was able to be fully God in the flesh, but still put aside the attributes of God, for example, his omniscience and omnipresence for omniscience?

49:04

Jesus increased in wisdom and did not know the hour of his return for omnipresence.

49:10

He was only present where he physically was located. So if these attributes are intended or are sort of intended to be present, then are inherent to God.

49:19

How was Jesus fully God without them? Thank you for staying faithful to your ministry.

49:25

We've been a strong or sorry. You've been a strong driving force in my walk with the Lord for years.

49:31

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Solus Christus, Ben. Sure. Appreciate that, brother.

49:36

Thank you. All right. Answer to your question. I don't know. Very simply put.

49:42

Yeah. The hypostatic union or the incarnation, how you explain these things.

49:49

I just don't know. But I will say with the use of the term fully

49:55

God, how Jesus was fully God. How was he fully God if he's setting aside his omniscience and his omnipresence?

50:03

Well, first of all, I don't think fully God is the best expression to use. As R .C.

50:09

Sproul has pointed out, the better term and the more historic term is actually vera homo, vera

50:14

Deus in Latin, which is very man and very God. Yes.

50:20

So it's different saying fully man and fully God. Right. Because if he was fully God, then he would have to absorb the father and the

50:28

Holy Spirit into the son. Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't have gone that far. But I mean, really, because I'm I don't know.

50:38

Colossian says in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell bodily. OK, so I get why somebody would say fully

50:47

God. I understand. Yeah. But to say fully God and fully man can cause some confusion.

50:54

I understand what a person means when they when they say that. I don't think that they're being in error necessarily.

51:00

I just think it's a more confusing expression. Sure. Because he's he's fully God. He's he's all of God in Jesus, but he's also all of man.

51:09

So how do you be both? So vera homo, vera Deus is better.

51:14

Very God and very man. Well, I just know that whenever God would appear to people, that they would be frightened out of their minds and.

51:24

Right. Not holy enough to stand there. So, you know, there there were for him to, like, come down and be all

51:31

God. Nobody would survive around him. Well, there's a matter of his glory being veiled.

51:38

And that's what he unveils before Peter, James and John. Oh, yeah.

51:43

On the Mount of Transfiguration. So they see him transfigured before them. It's as if the veil of his flesh is taken away and they're able to see him still in a in a reduced sense of his glory.

51:56

It's not so glorious that it melts them right there in his presence. Same with same with Isaiah in Isaiah, chapter six, or with the apostle

52:06

John in Revelation, chapter one, when they see the glory of God, it's still kind of held back in power because we would not be able to stand in the presence of God like that, especially in our current corrupted forms.

52:21

Right. Yeah. As first John three says, we will see him as he is because we will be made to be like him.

52:30

And in first Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul says that what is perishable cannot inherit the imperishable.

52:37

So we will be changed and we will be transformed so that we may dwell in the place where the holy

52:43

God dwells. Right. But in our present state, we can't do that. Now, how does how does the incarnation work?

52:49

How is it that God is all powerful and yet at the same time, as it says in Philippians two, though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

53:06

Now, even the language that Paul's using there, of course, he's divinely inspired.

53:12

He has the Holy Spirit guiding him to write the words that he says. Right. But it's still very careful language.

53:18

The way that he expresses that Jesus empties himself, but he doesn't cease being

53:24

God. Right. And emptying himself is he takes the form of a servant. He condescends himself.

53:30

And any time God communicates with us about anything, I mean, the very fact that God has spoken to his people through prophets.

53:37

Yes. God condescended himself. The holy God who is so above and beyond us.

53:43

We are not worthy to know him or be in his presence in any way. Right. And yet he speaks to us, even if through a prophet, that is

53:52

God condescending himself. He brings himself down so that we might know, we might hear from him, we might know him.

54:01

And the most intimate way in which God has demonstrated that kind of fellowship with his people is through the giving of his son.

54:09

Right. So Jesus Christ comes down from heaven, takes on the likeness of sinful flesh, as talked about in Romans eight, and he's born in the likeness of men,

54:21

Philippians two, seven, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

54:30

That is the greatest condescension on our behalf and ultimately to the glory of God.

54:36

So verse nine, therefore, God is highly exalted him and bestowed on him. Now, in the incarnate form, the son of God, as the

54:46

God man, he has been given the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

54:56

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father.

55:02

Now, was Jesus omnipresent at the time that he was also on this earth in human form?

55:12

I mean, he still could have been. He just chooses to be in one place with his disciples.

55:19

It's not that it's not that he gave up omnipresence. Right. And same with his omniscience.

55:24

We're not capable of it. Yeah. He didn't give up omniscience. He didn't give up omnipotence. Nothing about God ceased to be in the son, as said in the book of Hebrews, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

55:47

Hebrews 217. So in order for him to be the bridge that gaps the distance between God and man, he has to become the

55:57

God man. And hence, Paul's statement in First Timothy 2 5, there is one mediator between God and man, and that is the man,

56:07

Christ Jesus. So even after his death and resurrection and ascension into heaven and being seated at the right hand of the father, he's still the

56:15

God man. He hasn't ceased to be the God man. And even as the

56:21

God man, he's omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Right. Hebrews 4 14.

56:28

Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

56:44

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

56:53

Remember that I think Matthew, Mark and Luke, all three record this, that when Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted, he's led up by the spirit.

57:03

And so all of this was by the will of God, that Jesus would go through this for this purpose, that he is perfected to become the spotless lamb for us who dies in our place and takes away our sin, and that he becomes our high priest who has been tempted as we are yet is without sin and is able to sympathize with us in our weakness and in every respect.

57:29

So this is, again, a great divine mystery. How do we understand?

57:34

We don't. The incarnation, it is it is complicated, but just trust and believe he is

57:41

God. He's always been God and he's never ceased to be God. Right. Also in Hebrews, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

57:50

Amen. This next question comes from Morgan, Pastor Gabe and Becky. My husband and I have enjoyed listening to the

57:56

Friday episodes for months now, and they have given us so much to think about and discuss. We especially love the episode on December 13th in which you went in depth on reasons to avoid certain popular

58:08

Christian entertainment and agree with everything you said. Our question is, do you have any media recommendations, in particular movie shows that are

58:20

Christian and solid? Thanks again for all you do. I don't really keep a running list of all of those.

58:27

Yeah, I don't either. What's what's the name of that cartoon the kids have enjoyed? Wing Feather Saga. Yes.

58:33

So Andrew Peterson's books, The Wing Feather Saga, have been turned into cartoons.

58:40

I think it's put out by Angel Studios. So again, that's the studio that is

58:45

Mormon owned and operated. Andrew Peterson's not a Mormon. Nothing in the cartoon has

58:52

Mormon doctrine in it. It's kind of like a Lord of the Rings type story. It's a fantasy story for kids.

58:59

Yeah, that's something you might want to watch and enjoy. I think adults would probably enjoy it as well.

59:04

Isn't that on Prime? I can't remember how we purchased it for the kids.

59:10

I don't remember through what medium. I'm pretty sure it was Prime. Yeah, I bought it, though. Yeah. So it wasn't a you know, it wasn't.

59:17

You have a streaming service. Yeah, it wasn't free. Unless you signed up with Angel. Maybe. I don't know if they have a streaming service or not.

59:25

I don't either. But again, it's Mormon owned and operated. Exactly. So I guess if you're going to pay for Netflix or Amazon, you know, what difference does it make if you pay for Angel and their content is going to be cleaner?

59:36

It will be cleaner than what you find on any of those other sites. But yeah, sorry, Morgan. I really don't keep track of stuff that would make me go, oh,

59:44

I need to remember this so that I can recommend it to somebody. It's just not a whole lot. We just we kind of filter things in bits.

59:54

Yeah. You know, like don't don't watch too much of this. Don't watch too much of that. I mean, I can't even really in good conscience recommend something like pure flicks.

01:00:02

Yeah, no, because they have those movies where God is one of the characters and that's in a lot of the pure flicks films.

01:00:11

Like God comes down and becomes one of the characters. And you have a conversation where an angel becomes a character or whatever.

01:00:18

And a lot of that content becomes blasphemous pretty quick. Yeah. So for that reason,

01:00:25

I can't even really recommend pure flicks to you. If you want to watch some of the movies that are on there, I guess that's between you and the

01:00:31

Lord. It's liberty of conscience again, as any time we've talked about this subject or breached this.

01:00:38

I mean, the children love to watch Dude Perfect on.

01:00:44

Oh, yeah. Now you're talking YouTube channels. Yeah. I mean, really, that's clean. You got to go to individuals at this point.

01:00:51

Right. Yeah. They they really do enjoy that. Also, how ridiculous. Yes. So from what

01:00:57

I understand, both groups of guys, Dude Perfect and How Ridiculous are Christians. In fact,

01:01:02

I had a friend in Texas who was in a youth group where one of the youth leaders was one of the

01:01:10

Dude Perfect guys. Oh, cool. So he could watch Dude Perfect say, that was my youth pastor back in the day.

01:01:16

It's a little crazy. And then what else do they like?

01:01:23

Studio C, but that's Mormon. That is Mormon. I think it is clean.

01:01:29

If you sign on to Angel, I think if you were to sign on to their streaming service,

01:01:35

I think you get Studio C through them as well. OK. I know the guy that started

01:01:40

Studio C has been one of the spokespersons for Angel. Oh, OK. Interesting.

01:01:46

Angel's also been, of course, the first distributor of The Chosen. Yes. Which if you listen, yeah, to my

01:01:52

December 13th episode, you know what I think about that. Yep. There's it's it's just it's tough.

01:02:00

Yeah. Well, which specifically was she asking for, like just TV shows or do you have any media recommendations, media recommendations in particular, movie slash shows that are

01:02:11

Christian and solid? That's pretty much our list. It's rather short.

01:02:20

The rest of the stuff we we either filter or we monitor or we talk about it afterward.

01:02:27

You know what's not right. Right. And what's not appropriate. Yeah. Right. We do that.

01:02:32

So on and so forth. What's funny about this question is I don't really think about the media that I'm consuming that much or how or how little media

01:02:40

I'll put it that way. There you go. How little media I'm consuming until somebody asked me this question. I think

01:02:45

I'm watching stuff all the time. And then somebody asked me something. I'm like, oh, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:53

I mean, we'll watch old shows. Yeah. Like Dick Van Dyke show. Yeah. We've joked about how our teenage daughter will watch

01:03:00

Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies. Yeah. Yeah.

01:03:06

And even some of the old black and white westerns and stuff. Yeah. She loves my movies.

01:03:11

Yeah. She recently got into Newhart. It was the it was the second

01:03:17

Bob Newhart series. I can't remember which is which. So the first one was the Bob Newhart show.

01:03:23

And the second one was Newhart, if I remember right. Now, all these were off air by the time

01:03:28

I was watching TV as a kid. I was I was seeing them on Nick at night. Yeah. Yeah. Back in the day when

01:03:34

Nick at night was showing old shows, we don't even have cable anymore. So I don't I don't know if that's even still a thing.

01:03:40

But so the second show, like the season finale of Bob Newhart's second program, if you had not watched the first show, you wouldn't get the joke at the at the end of the second.

01:03:54

And so I told her, I said, you really have to watch the first series. And so I think she went back and watched the other one, too.

01:04:01

I don't remember. But anyway, yeah, I'm going back to some of those old programs. Yeah.

01:04:07

I'm not giving a recommendation, by the way. I'm just mentioning it. I made a what we watch.

01:04:15

Yeah. I made a comment on social media the other day about how we were watching Star Wars on New Year's Eve.

01:04:21

Oh, yeah. And I time it so that the Death Star explodes at midnight. Right. I've gotten it right on the money two years in a row.

01:04:29

It was pretty astounding. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It blows up right when the clock hits midnight.

01:04:36

And I made a comment about it on X. And there was somebody that expressed,

01:04:41

I'm disappointed in you because you're watching you're letting your kids watch Star Wars. OK, Star Wars is innocent.

01:04:48

It's what they've done with it that makes it. Well, his his whole angle, it seemed like was you got this light side and dark side motif, which is not spiritual or not biblical at all.

01:05:01

And I'm just like, it's not poisoning my kids. They're not getting infected with, like,

01:05:06

Taoism or the yin and the yang. Yeah, no, not affecting my children.

01:05:13

So they they see wizards with laser swords. That's what they see. They do. But what what today's children are missing is the fact that there are bad people in the world who stay bad, like there are people who are that evil that will try to kill you.

01:05:34

Right. And those type of things. And I think that's what the old movies and shows have.

01:05:41

Whereas today they've tried to make it a spin on everything of why the bad person is not so bad.

01:05:49

Oh, yeah. Bad person should be your friend and you should be befriending this bad person. And yes, there are people like that.

01:05:55

There are difficult people. Fine. Not saying there's not. I'm just saying they've lost the whole concept of people can be evil.

01:06:06

Yeah. And just pure evil. That's even in the kids shows, because even what's that one?

01:06:12

The Little Einsteins, Little Einstein show, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Where they have the spaceship and the little kids or it teaches them music and all these other kinds of things.

01:06:23

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's good things about the show educational wise. But there's there always seems to be some sort of antagonist.

01:06:31

I don't know if this is always, but a lot of the episodes that I've seen, there's an antagonist that's pursuing them and they're trying to get away from the antagonist.

01:06:39

Right. But by the end, it turns out, oh, that alligator that's been chasing us just wanted a hug.

01:06:45

Right. You know, yes, or something like that. It's always something that's like, oh, they're not so bad.

01:06:51

Yeah, they're not so bad after all. They're just misunderstood. Yes. Which, like I said, sometimes that is the case.

01:06:58

Yeah. But other times, no, my children no longer have. I mean, like I had a grasp on this as a kid that there are people that are that evil, that will steal you in the back of their van, you know, telling you there's puppies in there or candy in there, whatever, you know, right, that they're going to share with you.

01:07:18

And so it's worse now, but my children have no clue.

01:07:24

They don't know. They know because we've told them. But I've talked with them like in depth about this and well, not in depth, but as in depth as you can get.

01:07:34

And and they're like, I just don't understand. And I'm like, well, I don't either. But there are.

01:07:40

So you just need to know that don't go with strangers, you know, and our two oldest kids would go with everybody. Oh, everybody.

01:07:47

And I think it was when when we had our third, you were hoping this is going to be the one that is going to be skeptical.

01:07:52

Right. And we'll actually talk her siblings into not going with the strange. Yes. Yes, that's exactly what

01:07:59

I was praying for. She had a good head on her shoulders to keep her siblings from going to places where I need to be going.

01:08:07

Well, even with with like the Disney movies, now they're making all those villains spin offs.

01:08:12

Yes. So the villains are just misunderstood people. Right. They just ended up in a bad situation.

01:08:19

Right. And that's what made them bad. But everybody's still basically good to the core. They're just grumpy. Yeah, right.

01:08:25

And this kind of goes back to there's a quote from Martin Lloyd Jones. I can't remember when he said this.

01:08:32

I think he was preaching in Matthew seven, but I don't recall. Anyway, it's in his Sermon on the Mount series where he says it's a tragic fallacy that we think in order to change the man, all we have to do is change his environment.

01:08:45

Yes. We just have to improve his environment. And if you improve the environment, then you improve the man.

01:08:51

And he says that's a tragic fallacy because it overlooks the fact that it was in paradise.

01:08:57

Yes. That man fell. Yes. And so the whole social justice cause, even with these kinds of things in entertainment, trying to make the villain either into an antihero or some sort of misunderstood person, it's all this idea of like, if we just change a person's environment, if they had better circumstances, then they would have come out pretty good.

01:09:21

Right. And it it's under the assumption that people are basically good way deep down inside.

01:09:26

And it's, it's the stuff that's outside of us that make us bad. But Jesus said that it's out of the heart flow, these evil thoughts and sexual immoralities and murderers and slanderers that comes from inside the heart.

01:09:41

Yes. It is in our nature to behave this evil, to rebel against God, to hate others and go after the things that we want.

01:09:50

Of course, we got onto this, you know, just simply from a question of, what do we recommend?

01:09:56

What sort of entertainment do we recommend? Just the moral lessons just aren't out there anymore.

01:10:01

Or even in the stuff that you would, you would say is secular is religion, or attempting to be religiously neutral.

01:10:07

Yeah. However that comes out. It's, it's just frustrating because we, we don't have as many to recommend as we would like to.

01:10:15

Yeah. I wish I could give you some, some good stuff. Yeah. That would be awesome. Hey, somebody out there, if you're listening and creative, go for it.

01:10:27

Make some good content. Yes, please. Oh, Hey, speaking of content. So our daughter said that she wanted a limousine.

01:10:36

Right. And, and as a joke, I was going to get her a limousine, you know, matchbox car.

01:10:42

Do they even make those? Oh, okay. So I'm, I'm in the section. I'm looking through this massive aisle of hot wheels and matchbox cars.

01:10:51

Oh yeah. I remember when I was a kid and it just being like, like a section. Yes. You couldn't even a miniature.

01:10:57

You could put your arms around it. Yeah. I mean, that was about the, you basically had all of them except for maybe one.

01:11:04

Yeah. That I have to go back to the store for. Do you get that? No. Okay. I don't,

01:11:12

I don't know what you're talking about. You're looking a little lost. I am. I. Okay. So like you have a collection at home and you go to the store and you realize that all of that at the store is what you already had at home.

01:11:22

Right. Except for maybe one, because that's how small. That's the one that I need. That's how small it was.

01:11:28

It was so small that you already had everything. I thought you were making an illustration about like, I just need one more.

01:11:34

Well, just one more. I thought that's where you were going with it. That's where it came from.

01:11:41

Like that way of thinking. No matter how many matchbox cars you have. You just need the one.

01:11:47

I just need one more. That's right. Because it doesn't have this color combination like this. I was going for some, you know, moral lesson here.

01:11:55

It's never enough. You just need one more, but Christ is sufficient. You've got a sermon illustration for me right there.

01:12:05

So anyway, I'm looking for a limousine. There's a guy there that's stocking them. Okay. Stocking limousines, stocking, stocking limousine.

01:12:13

Yeah. The matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. Okay. And I've, I've been staring at these for a good 10 minutes already going through the different, you know, just shuffling through them.

01:12:23

Sure. So I just stopped this guy and I go, okay, maybe, you know, this since you're stocking these cars, have you ever seen a limousine in here?

01:12:31

And he goes, no, but I did just recently watch a YouTube video where a guy took a bunch of black

01:12:37

Mercedes Hot Wheels cars, cut them and fuse them all together to make a limousine.

01:12:47

He watched this. And I said, I have neither the time nor the tools to do something like that.

01:12:55

But while I'm looking for these cars, while I'm looking through the cars for a limousine, right.

01:13:00

I might have to special order it just to do a joke with my daughter. Oh my goodness. Cause she wanted a limousine, but I found this.

01:13:11

Oh, nice. It's kit. It's kit from Knight Rider. I never knew kit has two

01:13:17

T's. Yeah. Knight Industries 2000 is what it stands for. As you can tell,

01:13:25

I was a fan of this show when I was a kid. I have not seen a kit car in 20 years.

01:13:32

Maybe. It's probably been longer than that. It's been a minute. I was like, what? So I got one.

01:13:38

There was a bigger version. What did you say? So now, and now

01:13:45

I can't decide, do I want to open this or just leave it in the box? Well, I'm sure you'll have that answered for you in just a few days.

01:13:56

Oh, that's true. Yeah. My son's going to come in here and, and open it up. It's wheels. It's wheels. It's a car.

01:14:02

It's a box. It's black. Anyway, as we were talking about old shows and yeah.

01:14:08

And uh, content creating content. There you go. I was a Knight Rider fan when

01:14:13

I was a kid. There you go. We got one more question here. Hang on just a second. I shut my window down.

01:14:19

Let me bring it back up. Scrolling down. This is from Cassandra.

01:14:24

Hi, Pastor Gabe. My church is getting ready to go through the Bible recap. And I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this.

01:14:33

I would appreciate any feedback. Um, so the Bible recap is

01:14:38

Tara Lee Cobble. Do you remember who that is? Not off the top of my head now. So I looked her up again because I looked at this a couple of years ago.

01:14:45

She's been doing the Bible recap for a while. It's kind of a year through the Bible sort of a thing, but she provides five to 10 minute videos doing an overview of the section or kind of a review of the section that you're reading.

01:14:59

Oh, so here's, here's the notes on the show, on the section that you're reading today. And that's what her podcast is popular for.

01:15:05

And it's, it has tons of subscribers on YouTube subscribing to the podcast, you know, through an app or whatever.

01:15:14

Anyway, it's been really, really popular. She's had articles and things like this. Uh, there's a book as well.

01:15:20

There's the Bible recap book. Of course. Anyway, I looked her up. I did not realize she's older than me.

01:15:26

For some reason I thought she was like. Younger. 30. She's actually older than I am.

01:15:32

Surprisingly enough. I'm sure she appreciates that. You look, you look 30

01:15:38

Tara Lee Cobble. Uh, I don't, I can't give you notes because it's been a couple of years since I've watched these videos.

01:15:46

I do remember watching them and just not being very impressed. It was very light fare.

01:15:52

I don't know why anyone would want to do this. There are study

01:15:57

Bibles. Her specifically. Her specifically. Yeah. Okay. So there are one year study

01:16:03

Bibles that you can get or just one year Bibles that will section out your reading for that day.

01:16:09

It might be three or four chapters and then it will give you a one page or a half page summary of everything that you're about to read.

01:16:15

Oh, that's cool. I think that would be more beneficial than going through Tara Lee Cobble stuff, especially when

01:16:21

Cassandra, you're talking about your church doing this. So does that mean the men are going to be taught by Tara Lee Cobble? See, I would have a problem with that.

01:16:28

Yeah. I don't know much about her theology. I have not watched many of these videos.

01:16:34

I'm just familiar with her and the kind of content that she puts out. Fortunately, Michelle Leslie has a section in which she's gone through the

01:16:45

Bible recap. She said that she watched 50 of these videos. Oh wow. And she didn't find anything in particular that was immediately troubling.

01:16:54

Like nothing jumped out as, Oh, this gal's a heretic. Don't listen to her. But there were enough things in there that were troubling with her statements that just kind of revealed that Tara Lee Cobble is not especially mature.

01:17:08

Okay. Or learned enough really for you to want to go along with her teaching.

01:17:14

I'm sure that she's had an impact on people. Maybe she's reached some women.

01:17:20

God bless her for that. I just don't think it's a good idea for a church to decide let's go through Tara Lee Cobble's Bible recap.

01:17:27

Yeah. I mean, we've seen a lot of people who are pedestaled and then fall like way off.

01:17:36

Yeah. Because it's, it's unfortunate that they get pedestaled that way. Yeah. And I don't know if it's their promoting or, or just people latching onto that.

01:17:45

I don't know, fad. Yeah. Right. Cause it trends, it gets popular. When you're searching for daily

01:17:51

Bible lessons, her stuff's going to be at the top of the list because it's so popular. Okay. So it's easy to come into that.

01:17:57

Oh, I think she's even, I can't remember the name of the group, but there's another, um, kind of a collection of teachings that gets fished out to churches.

01:18:07

I can't remember the name of the organization, but I think she's in there. So she probably does get passed around to a lot of churches.

01:18:13

Hey, consider Tara Lee Cobble. You know, she's got a publisher, so she's got some money behind her that kind of pushes this stuff out there.

01:18:20

But this is also the downside to what we were talking about earlier with regards to, it's great that there's so much content out there, like on YouTube.

01:18:29

Yeah. The problem is you also have this kind of stuff and you don't necessarily have a person like Tara Lee Cobble with a higher authority that she's answering to.

01:18:40

Like for me as a pastor, you know, I've got other elders that are checking me with all of all the stuff that I do with Tara Lee Cobble.

01:18:49

She's not a pastor, at least I hope not. And so who is her pastor?

01:18:54

What churches is she associated with? How do you know what checks and balances she's submitted to with regard to what it is that she's teaching?

01:19:03

Yeah. So that's the downside to having stuff like YouTube and everybody being able to start their own podcast.

01:19:10

Anybody can do it and may not be qualified to do it. Right. Again, that not being able to know anything about her in particular, but just saying the potential pitfalls here.

01:19:21

Yeah. So look up Michelle Leslie's review of that. In fact, Cassandra, I'll respond to your email and I'll give you the link so you can see what she has said.

01:19:29

But again, it's just not substantial enough to consider her material as something that your church would go through.

01:19:37

Why not just get one of those one year Bibles and you've got one or two people in the church that are responsible to read the summary page and make sure the church gets that.

01:19:48

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's not hard to do that. You don't have to go to something like this. It takes some work, obviously.

01:19:54

Yeah. It's easier to just pull up a YouTube video and watch it. Yeah. But I think that there's other material out there.

01:20:00

It's just a little bit better for you. Doesn't Justin Peters have something like, so he did a read through of the legacy standard

01:20:08

Bible, which is on his channel. I don't think he added any commentary to it. I think it's just straight reading.

01:20:13

So same with mine. You can listen to hear the word of the Lord. Nice. That's back up again.

01:20:19

We started that on Wednesday and uh, and that's the podcast you're looking for on whatever podcast app you use.

01:20:26

Look for hear the word of the Lord and it's daily Bible reading three to four chapters, anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes a day.

01:20:32

And you can get daily Bible reading that way. There's no summary of it though, cause it's just Bible reading, right?

01:20:38

No commentary. Right. And that's one of the things that sets this apart from a lot of the other year, year long read throughs of the

01:20:46

Bible. They usually have some kind of, here's what we're reading today, but I don't have that.

01:20:51

It's just straight reading. That's all you're getting. And then you can get the commentary through this podcast, which we do

01:20:59

Monday through Thursday, new Testament, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, old Testament, Thursday, and then our

01:21:04

Q and a on Friday. Yes. And if you'd like to submit a question, send it to when we understand the text at gmail .com

01:21:10

or you can send us a voicemail by going to www dot com and click on the voicemail tab, record it through your phone or your computer.

01:21:19

And we appreciate you listening and passing this on to somebody else. All right.

01:21:25

Anything else? Anything you think I might need to add? Oh, next week we are counting down.

01:21:33

Are you going to join me? I hope so. You're going to be on? Lord willing. You gave me an hour this week.

01:21:38

I did. Yeah. So next week we're counting down the top 10 most popular what videos for 2024.

01:21:48

What year did we just leave and what year are we in now? Don't confuse them. And I have had to write checks this year already.

01:21:57

So I've had to think about like, okay, what year am I writing down? Yeah. I started that I think next week.

01:22:03

That's right. Yeah. You got to do it too. So top 10 most watched what videos of the year we're going to count those down next week on the

01:22:11

Q and a, uh, Oh, I want to, I want to give a special thank you as well to people who have donated.

01:22:19

So the treasurer at our church showed me the giving this year outside the church giving that we received from people who listened to the podcast.

01:22:29

Some of them marked that they listened. Some of them might be donations from listeners and they just didn't say this is for what or because I listened to what.

01:22:38

Right. So some of them told us and some of them we just assume, well, maybe that's why this person's donating because they listened to the podcast.

01:22:44

Right. But I just, I just want to say a special thank you to everybody who cares about the ministry has given to the church.

01:22:51

We've talked about how we're actually starting a building project here in 2025. We're going to build a large enough building to have more people right now.

01:23:00

We can only get 70 people in the room. Yeah. It's quite snug. Without getting in trouble with, uh, with fire codes.

01:23:06

We don't like open up the lobby. Yeah. I mean, yes, it's still fire code appropriate, but it, we squeeze every ounce of that.

01:23:14

Sanctuary. We use all the room that we can. And there's people that will sit out in the lobby area of people that'll sit in the overflow room.

01:23:22

So we're, we're working on getting a bigger building going and need donations for that.

01:23:27

Yes. So when you give to the ministry, that's what it may be going to. And we appreciate you listening and we thank you for your support in every way that you've given to us.

01:23:37

Remember being a church nonprofit ministry, all of that is tax deductible. So, uh, continue to pray for us as we continue to reach out with ministry through the airwaves like this evangelism in our own community or preaching in the pulpit, however way, in whatever way we can spread the gospel, we're going to utilize the tools and the opportunities that God has given us for that.

01:24:01

Amen. May 2025 be another banner year for the gospel of Jesus. Let's do it.

01:24:08

Heavenly father. We thank you for this time together. Thank you for those who listen and support the program.

01:24:14

And, uh, we pray Lord that you would continue to bless us with more fruit with, uh, preaching the gospel that will reach into the lives of people, bringing people to the cross, to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, also growing the people of God in an understanding of the gospel and maturing in those things that have been spoken to us from your word regarding our salvation and the promises that are stored up for us in eternity above in glory with Christ forever.

01:24:46

I pray that we continue in heavenly mindedness. We don't let ourselves be overwhelmed by a lot of the crazy things that are going on in this world, but we remember

01:24:59

Christ is in control. Whether you have a good year or a bad year, Christ has been in control of all of that. The apostle

01:25:04

Paul saying that whether in want or in plenty, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

01:25:12

And we remember that and continue forward in the strength of Christ into this year and beyond.

01:25:18

Continue to lift us up by your spirit. Guide us in your truth. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.

01:25:36

All right. We are, we're just rolling. So you eat your ice cream. Okay. Ready?

01:25:42

Yeah. No, seriously. Eat it. I've got something I'm going to eat. So you keep going. What? Yeah. Good.

01:25:49

Put your, put your phones on. Yep. We're just going to go. We're just flying here. Well, I can't hear anything.

01:25:55

So it's perfect. You got them on. Yes. Oh, I didn't turn this up. Are you good now?

01:26:00

Maybe. Check, check, check, check. Is that good? All right. All right.