Voddie: Why People Are BLIND to the TRUTH! | Pastor Reacts

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What's wrong with the world? I'm alienated from the one who created me. I'm hostile in mind to the one who created me, and I'm doing evil deeds.

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In other words, I exist for his glory, but I'm living for mine. How dare

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God usurp my own self -autonomy in this way? Does that not ultimately explain so much about the clash we see in our culture?

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We have been fed a steady diet of lies. This is not a talking point from alternative media or far -right conspiracy groups.

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This is actually what the Bible teaches. But what keeps your attention is what ultimately shapes your thought process.

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And so we are about to be reminded of a deep biblical truth that is going to give us the proper perspective that we need, we as Christians, right now, to see the world the way it really is.

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Not the way we're told it is, or the way we're taught that it works. We're about to take a look at a sermon from the one and only

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Vodie Bokum, who is absolutely cooking these days. And we're going to do a deep dive into the scripture.

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But first, if you're brand new, welcome to Wise Disciple. My name is Nate Sala, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be, which includes understanding what's really going on right now.

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Seeing past the false narratives and recognizing the truth as it is presented by the scripture.

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Make sure to like and subscribe and share this video around, only if it truly blesses you. Amen? All right, let's get right into it.

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As I answer these questions, here's what I want you to understand from me. I want you to understand why it is that this is the worldview that I've settled on.

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Why this is my answer. So what Vodie is about to do is he's going to shine a bright spotlight on the truth about the world.

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This is the equivalent of Morpheus explaining to Neo that human beings are being used for batteries.

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You remember that pivotal moment, right? In other words, the Bible answers the deep philosophical and worldview questions for us if we have the eyes to see it.

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And that's what it comes down to, waking up and opening your eyes. And Vodie is about to show us what the world looks like if you have the eyes to see it.

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I know you're probably like, well, you settle on that one because you were raised in that one. Well, actually I wasn't. I was raised in South Central Los Angeles, California by a single teenage

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Buddhist mother. I never heard the gospel until my freshman year in university. So this was not the worldview with which

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I was raised. Not by a long shot. Okay? Not by a long shot.

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All right? And we can talk about that a little bit more later. But for now, let's just get into that. I just want to get that out there. Okay? For anyone who's going to have a hard time hearing what

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I'm saying because of some assumptions that you're making about me and the various intersectional groups to which

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I may or may not belong. This is why I love Vodie. You know,

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I was raised in church, but ultimately rejected it. You know, all those people now who go on social media and they broadcast their deconstruction.

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I did that before the internet was even invented. But I came back to the faith for a reason.

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Why? Well, because Christianity is true, ladies and gentlemen. And so I appreciate

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Vodie's fresh approach to the faith. I think that's what helps him to explain the

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Bible so clearly. And I think my experience has helped me to do the same thing. I met Vodie one time.

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And it was my honor just to go up and chat with him for a little bit. But when I went to shake his hand, his big old bear paw, like just wrapped up my tiny little, you know,

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Samoan hand. It was quite a moment. I do love Vodie. I love him.

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All right. First question. Who am I? Look at verse 15,

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Colossians 1, 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. By the way, the he there is Christ. He is the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

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All things were created through him and for him. How does a biblical worldview answer that first question?

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Who am I? Here's the answer. I am the crowning glory of the creation of God. He's reading from Colossians 1, 15.

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Here it is for your reference. Colossians 1, 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

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Now that word right there in the Greek is prototokos and does not mean that Jesus was literally born or created.

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So this is a bit of a rabbit trail. But every now and then you do run into a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon who wants to use this, this word, this verse to their advantage.

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Prototokos is a term that is referring to preeminence. Okay. How do

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I know that? Well, two things. First, John 1 tells us that Jesus was never created.

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John 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the word. This is Jesus. And the word was with God and the word was

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God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

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That excludes all created things into an entirely different category than Jesus himself.

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Why? Because he's God. And because God is uncreated. So not only was Jesus God, it's very clear.

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John makes this very clear in verse 3. All things were created by Jesus. If Jesus was a created being, he should belong to the category of all things created, right?

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But that's not what John says. Um, but also the word prototokos is used for the nation of Israel to mean preeminence, which is how it is used in Colossians 1.

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Take a look at Exodus chapter 4. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the

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Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. That's verse 22, right? Now, wait a second.

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Is God saying that he created the nation of Israel before he created all other people and beings on the planet?

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No. He's saying that Israel has a place of importance or a status of preeminence in his own mind.

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Now, prototokos is in the LXX version of Exodus chapter 4. Okay. So that's what, that's what we're getting at here.

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Firstborn, right? And that's the same thing that is being communicated back in, uh, about Jesus in Colossians 1.

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It's not that they are literal firstborns. Firstborns created. Firstborns above or before other children is that they hold preeminence.

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Okay. Now there's a lot more to say about all this. Probably another video. The point is Jesus is meant to be understood to have the highest status of preeminence over all creation, which means this is how we should revere him in our own lives.

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As a human being, I am the crowning glory of the creation of God. There's nothing else in creation like us.

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We are the crowning glory of the creation of God. Genesis chapter 1, beginning at verse 26.

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And here's, here's our theme. Then God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

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So God created man in his own image and the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them in the image of God.

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Why dominion though, right? Why does God say, uh, have dominion over every living thing on earth?

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And the answer is because we mirror the dominion that God has in heaven.

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This is why Jesus says, uh, in Matthew six, in the prayer that he taught the disciples on earth, as it is in heaven, he teaches his disciples to pray this very prayer.

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That's what it means to be made in the image of God. But there's something about even there in being male and female that causes us to engage each other that is meant to reflect how the persons of the

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Trinity interact with each other as well. All of this, uh, meant to reflect the image of God in the world.

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Amen. Christian theism says the crowning glory of the creation of God made in the image of God with inherent dignity and inherent worth and inherent value as a direct result of being made by God in God's image.

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Whether you have magnificent levels of melanin like me or not so much,

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God loves you too. So that's the, who am

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I questioning? What about the why am I here question? Verse 16, therefore by him, all things were created in heaven, on earth, visible, invisible with the thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

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He is before all things in him. All things hold together. He is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning of the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent in everything.

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He might be preeminent. Why am I here to bring glory and honor to the one who created me? That's why not to eat, drink and be married because tomorrow we all die.

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I am here to worship, serve, bring glory and honor to the one who created me in his image.

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That's why I exist. That's why you exist. That's why mankind exists during glory and honor.

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There's a key term that you absolutely cannot miss. Okay. In verse 16, take a look again for by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

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Okay. It's that last part. It is for Jesus that we were created. The heart of a selfish person cannot hear that.

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They are offended by it and they clutch their figurative pearls when they hear it, right? How dare God usurp my own self autonomy in this way.

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And that is precisely why they will go to hell. See, we often characterize hell.

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We hear it characterized. By those who don't understand why it exists and what it even is.

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But this is why, you know, it's not that people get forced into going somewhere based on lack of evidence.

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Okay. Even though we've heard that many times, it's because people refuse to accept the meaning and purpose for their own creation.

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So vote is hitting, uh, sort of the big questions, right? Who am I? Why am

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I here? And look at that. The Bible says that Jesus stands at the center of both of those answers to the one who created us.

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Why are men made the way men are and women made the way women are?

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Because it maximizes the glory that we bring to our creator. That's why. That's why.

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And that's why it matters. That's why it matters. So, so wherever we come down on this, we have to come down in a place that recognizes who we are and recognizes why we're here and presses that issue.

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Amen. If we're just here for biological reasons, again, just, just, just try to imagine that, you know, one of the fascinating things to me is, um, there are many groups, especially in the

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Marxist worldview who see, for example, marriage as a means of oppression, right?

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Marriage is a means of oppression. Exists to oppress women. Marriage was invented and created by men in order to oppress women.

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And I'm just thinking, okay, how'd that meeting go? Right? Guys, listen,

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I know we're running around having our way with any woman that we want to, they get stuck with the babies.

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We don't, we're free to go around and propagate and do whatever we like to do. Okay. But I think there's a way that we could probably oppress them more than we're oppressing them now, but just leaving them with babies and no protection.

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If we would commit ourselves to one of them for life and partner with her to raise the children, that would show up.

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That makes no sense at all. Yeah. It's funny to think about, you know, there are people who are thoroughly committed to this idea that marriage is oppression.

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Why? Well, because the paradigm of this world is oppressed and oppressor, victim and victimizer.

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And when everything gets filtered through that particular lens, well, then something like a two -person marriage, right?

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Founded on the ideals, the biblical ideals of submission, right?

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The man submits to Christ, the woman submits to the man. Oh, that makes, that makes no sense.

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That sounds like oppression. A woman submits to her husband? How dare men make them do that?

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Do you see why we clash over everything? Especially today, ladies and gentlemen, it's because our opposing worldviews and values have set us on a collision course.

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Where we look at one thing, everybody's looking at the same thing. And we, on our

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Christian side of the fence, see something good. And they, on their side of the fence, see the same thing and see something wicked, right?

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We see God and they see no God. We see right and they see wrong.

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That's why the best thing that we should do, listen to me now, is we should be talking about worldviews.

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We should talk about the starting points and presuppositions rather than getting into this back and forth over the various tips of the icebergs that are, that are peaking up over the water.

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That's going to get almost nowhere every time. That's why, so yeah,

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I don't want to get on a rabbit trail here. That's why Matt Walsh revolutionized and even galvanized the pushback against the

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T community, right? The T and the LGB, right? It's because he asked a fundamental starting point question.

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What is a woman? That's about presuppositions, ladies and gentlemen. That's about worldview, right?

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That's why it was so effective. And guess what? The Bible is all about answering these kinds of questions.

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That's what Vodie is helping us to see. So we got, there's two questions we've answered so far. So who am I? Crying glory to the creation of God.

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Why am I here? To bring glory and honor to the one who created me. What is wrong with the world? What is,

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I mean, really what's wrong with the world? It is what's wrong with the world that we're insufficiently governed and insufficiently educated.

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It is what's wrong with the world, the oppression of oppressors.

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What's wrong with the world? If you go down to verse 21, you get the answer to the question. And you, that's the answer.

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What's wrong with the world? You. Like me too, but to a lesser degree, right?

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Mainly what's wrong is you. But look at what verse 21 says. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.

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There it is. Who am I? Crowning glory to the creation of God. Why am I here? To bring glory and honor to the one who created me.

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What's wrong with the world? I'm alienated from the one who created me. I'm hostile in mind to the one who created me and I'm doing evil deeds.

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In other words, I exist for his glory, but I'm living for mine. Hmm. Amen.

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Amen. That right there is the dividing line between people that causes all the clash.

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All the clash. The line, if you can imagine it, runs right in between God's glory and self -glory.

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Or you could say it this way, God's desires and self -desire. That explains everything that we're seeing.

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And we, we're on the side of God's glory and his desire. If you've given your life to follow after Jesus Christ, amen.

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You believe in him for salvation and you obey his commands. You're on the one side. If you reject

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God, then you're on the other side. You're on the side of self -desire and self -glorification. Does that not ultimately explain so much about the clash we see in our culture?

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Whether it's a Christian versus atheist, pro -life versus anti -life, right?

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Well, wait a second. Watch this. Does this not also explain why people cannot see the truth?

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Why they are so blinded to understanding how the world really works? It's because everything is filtered through the lens of self -desire and self -glorification.

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That's not the way we were meant to live, ladies and gentlemen. It's not even the way that the system of the world works.

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We live in a spiritual monarchy where only one king sits on the throne. Amen. And it's not you and it's not me.

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It's Jesus Christ. To be free and to have your eyes opened is to recognize that fundamental truth.

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This is why the Bible says this, 2 Corinthians 4. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

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For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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We are not the Lord of all. We are the servants of the one Lord, one

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God, one king. For some reason, creed is in my head right now. Okay.

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Do you understand? Do you see why people are not changing their minds?

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Even in light of the arguments and the evidence that is all around them. It's because everything is filtered through self and self -desire and self -glorification.

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And the enemy realizes this and he uses it to his advantage. So if that's what's wrong with the world, it's you and me, right?

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It's the notion of following after the self. What's the solution? Spoiler alert. It ain't you. People are wicked.

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People are wicked. You don't walk into a school and slaughter nine -year -olds because you're insufficiently educated or because you're insufficiently governed.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just one more law. One more law would fix that. No, no, that's not the answer.

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There is real wickedness in the world. There is real sin in the world. People are sinful.

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You don't even have to watch the news for a week. Just watch it tonight. In fact, you don't even need to watch the news.

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Just take an honest look inside your own dark heart. The things that you think.

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It's interesting, is it Mark Twain who said, everyone is a moon, right?

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Everyone has a dark side that he doesn't wish to show anyone. Even Twain knew and he wasn't a

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Christian. It's amazing because, and here's something else the Bible says, everyone knows deep down that there is a

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God and that they should bend the knee to him. And that's why Romans chapter one says, they are without excuse.

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Everyone knows. And I do, I've said this on a number of occasions, but I've had the privilege of, you know, being on college campuses and speaking on college campuses all around the country.

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And I mean, it never fails. You know, some first year philosophy student, you know, wants to talk to me about the question of theodicy.

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And they got to say theodicy, right? Like philosophy student, right? Well, how did you know?

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Because if you weren't a philosophy student, you'd just ask me why a good God lets bad stuff happen. But you got to say theodicy so that I know that you're a philosophy student, like whatever, right?

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And if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, yeah, philosophy student.

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God is all powerful and all good, continue. Then why, why would he allow tragedies like that to happen to innocent people?

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That's the question. And I don't answer the question. I don't answer the question.

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Here's why I don't answer the question. Because I'd much rather force people to acknowledge the fact that they're not being honest about the question.

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They're not asking it the right way. I'll answer the question if you ask it the right way. And here's how you ask the question the right way.

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If God is so good, God is so powerful, and if God is so just, then why did he not kill me in my sleep last night because of what

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I thought, said, and did on yesterday? You ask me the question that way and we can talk. But you point outside of yourself and act like the only sin that a just and righteous and powerful

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God would deal with is the sin of those people, then you're arrogant or blind or both.

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This, again, reveals what I'm trying to shine a huge spotlight on in this video. It's the point of the video, okay?

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Which, by the way, praise God for Voti Bacchum, amen? What a brilliant mind who clearly has been given a gift by God and is using it to honor the

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Lord, right? But this is the point that I was making a moment ago. The ultimate reason why somebody asks the question of the problem of evil, and they do, they ask it like this, why does

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God let bad things happen to good people? It's because they see themselves through the lens of self -autonomy and self -glorification.

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Only the person who has been shaped and educated from the special revelation of God's will will truly realize that there are no such thing as good people.

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Even Jesus intimated the same idea when he said, there is no one good, but God alone. So I love

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Voti's move here. The question is improperly framed. Reframe it and we can talk, right?

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Because if you don't do some work to deal with the worldview behind the question first, the answer is going to be insufficient.

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This is what I'm trying to communicate in the video. It's always going to be insufficient. Why? Because you began with the wrong presuppositions.

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Are you all with me? Does this make sense to you? Let's finish up here. What's wrong with the world? Sin, wickedness.

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And we get this. One of the first phrases that we learned to say with conviction is, that's not fair. We know things ought to be fair.

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We know things need to be set right. We know that. So how can what is wrong be right? Last question, right?

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Who am I? Proud and glory to the creation of God. Why am I here? To bring glory and honor to the one who created me. What's wrong with the world? You, sin.

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Right? But mainly you. How can what is wrong be made right? Verse 19.

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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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So here Paul is arguing that Christ is the son of God, that he's the

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God man, that he's God in the flesh, that the fullness of God dwelled in bodily form. And that in his body, he reconciled men to God through the blood of his cross.

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Verse 21. Again, and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind and doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in him.

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Christ died for sin once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us back to God.

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Isaiah puts it this way. All we like sheep had gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way, but God has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

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It's an amazing thing. An amazing thing that the perfect spotless, sinless lamb of God would live a perfect life so that he could obey where we could not, so that his righteousness could be imputed to us and then die a death that he did not deserve so that our sin could be punished in him.

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So this Paul says in Romans, God could be just because he pours out his wrath on sin and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus.

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And there it is. There it is. It's funny. When I was coming up as a pastor, my mentor used to say to me all the time,

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Nate, you never outgrow the gospel. You simply grow further and further into the gospel.

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And that has far reaching application, right? Beyond anything that I'm going to cover in this video, but it does help me to think through the point that Vody is making.

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Isn't it interesting that the same gospel message that people living for self reject on a daily basis, they say it's silly.

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They say it's a useless piece of fiction, essentially. Isn't it so incredibly interesting that this same gospel is the antidote to the lies of the devil?

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It's the alarm clock that will wake you up from your sleep in order to recognize what is true.

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It's the gospel. It always was. Here's the takeaway for you, friends.

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The gospel is not only the means of salvation for you, it's the beginning of the journey for you, but it's also the spiritual starting point that keeps your eyes open to what is really going on in this world.

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I've said this before. We need to stop looking at things with our physical eyes. We need to start seeing them through our spiritual and biblical lenses.

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It comes back to the gospel, ladies and gentlemen. For the true follower of Jesus, the gospel is way bigger than you could possibly imagine.

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Not only is it the message that saves, it's the glasses that corrects your vision so that you can understand why we all clash over everything these days, why people reject

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God, why they pursue such foolish and wicked things in the name of self -glory and desire. You never outgrow the gospel, my friends.

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I hope you heard me. You just continue to grow further and further into the gospel. Amen? All right.

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Well, now it's your turn. Why do you think people are blind to the truth? Let me know in the comments below. Let's just keep the conversation going.

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As always, if you made it this far, get yourself on over to my Patreon community like right now. There's lots of great discussions, cool features, exclusive live streams,

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Zoom hangouts, my personal Bible study, one -on -one meetings with yours truly, and more. Go check it out.

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The link for the Patreon is below. I will return soon with more videos, my friends. And in the meantime,