WWUTT 2330 Q&A Top 10 Videos of the Year

We're counting down the top 10 most watched what videos for 2024 and responding to some of your comments.

Are eclipses a sign of the end? Did Trump publish a Bible? Where did the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary come from?

The answers when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text, a daily

Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the word. Thank you for sharing our podcast and videos with others.

You can find all our resources online at www .utt .com.

And once again, it's Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Welcome finally to our year -end countdown of the biggest what videos of 2024.

We're only a couple weeks late. Three, three weeks. How long have we been in? No, it's not been three weeks, 17 days.

Yes. Not, not quite a few days. Shy. Where have we been?

Oh, everywhere. Everywhere. It's been busy and we're both teaching stomach bug.

We've both been sick. Kids have been sick. We've had, uh, we've had to cancel groups and reschedule groups and move groups.

And yeah, it's, it's been quite crazy. All kinds of things going on, but the

Lord is good. And he got us through. And so sorry, we're a little bit delayed on this particular episode, but we still want to go through the videos you watched the most in 2024.

We actually doubled our views in 24 compared to how many views we had in 23.

Oh, that's awesome. Part of that I think is actually the algorithm. Oh yeah. Uh, cause I did not do as many videos in, in 24, but I think the algorithm just kind of swung in our favor a little bit more last year.

You didn't do as many in 24. No, I didn't. Oh, I thought you did more in 24. Nope. I didn't.

I did more videos in 23 than I did last year, but we had more views in 24 than we had the year before.

So let's get to our top 10 videos. We're splitting this into two parts. Obviously this first half of the episode, which airs on some

Christian radio stations, you're only going to get five videos. So if you want to hear the top five, you're going to have to listen to the podcast, which you go to www .utt

.com to get those other five videos, which will be in the second half hour. Oh, gotcha.

So we're doing the bottom five first. This is the bottom five. All right. 10 through number six.

And we'll start here with number 10, which was one of the bigger events to happen in 2024.

This was also on my list of the big news happenings of the year.

I was wondering. So this was back in April and this video got so many views because Justin Peters boosted it for me.

Oh, awesome. It was featured in one of his videos. So here we go. This is the 10th most watched video of last year.

Hey, remember those four blood moons prophecies in the 2010s? John Hagee wrote a bestselling book.

There was even a theatrical film. And what happened? Absolutely nothing. Did a single false prophet lose their job after that?

And here we are again with another eclipse and more wannabe prophets saying Jesus is coming soon. Even though the

Bible already says that let's just put this to rest right here. Natural solar eclipses are never mentioned in the

Bible. They are not prophetic signs of anything. And don't let the YouTube and TikTok prophets tell you otherwise, no matter how many millions of views they have.

But Gabe, haven't you heard that the great solar eclipse of 2017 passed over seven cities named

Salem, which is short for Jerusalem. So what? Jerusalem is in the Middle East, not the United States.

And neither that eclipse nor this one are visible there or by most people on the earth. But Gabe, haven't you heard that the great solar eclipse of 2024 is going to pass over seven cities named

Nineveh? Not true. The total eclipse is going to pass over two cities named Nineveh, and it will be partially visible from another five.

By the way, the eclipse will be at least partially visible everywhere in the U .S. But Gabe, haven't you heard that both eclipses cross over a town called

Rapture, Indiana? No, it's an unincorporated town called Rapture. And the total eclipse was not seen there in 2017, but will be in 2024.

And this has no prophetic significance. Again, solar eclipses are naturally occurring.

An Ohio newspaper from 1970 reported the eclipse in 2024. We can calculate when they will happen.

But Jesus said no one will know the hour or the day of his return. Enjoy an eclipse for the beauty that it is.

For Psalm 19 5 says that the sun runs its course with joy as God made the sun and the moon to run like clockwork.

This is not a sign of the end, but you do still need to repent and turn to Christ for judgment will come at an hour you do not expect when we understand the text.

Yeah, big surprise that the solar eclipse was so big among the false prophets.

Yeah, I'm surprised there's not more push on the one coming up on the 25th.

The 25th. Yeah, it's not a solar eclipse, but it's where all the planets line up.

Oh, yeah, I saw Mars right next to the moon. Okay, so Mars is supposed to be the biggest within every 26 months apparently or something like that.

And so that happened just a few days ago. And so it's still pretty astounding right in our view.

And it was where Mars went directly behind our moon, which apparently doesn't happen very often.

Yeah, well, it can only go behind the moon. Well, no, I mean, like directly, directly behind the moon. It was like eclipsed behind the moon almost.

Yeah. Almost. Yeah. But then, oh, that was earlier this week.

And then just a couple days ago was the Mars was the closest again. And then it won't be that close until 26 months later.

Interesting. And then the 25th is when all of the planets line up.

And you should be able to see it after sunset. That's interesting. Okay. Yeah. I'll have to do that. All across North America, if I'm not mistaken, you can see at sunset all of those planets, like some of them you can see with a telescope, but most of them you can see with your naked eye.

No one's claiming it's going to create this shadow that will unleash the titans from the middle of the earth or something. I haven't heard anything like psycho anything.

So I'm still waiting around for it, kind of curious who will come up with what story.

Yeah. I can't remember which night it was that Annie had play practice that went late. And so I took

Bubz with me to go pick her up. And as we were leaving the neighborhood, we're driving right toward where the moon is coming up and you could see

Mars like right next to it. I mean, it looked like you're looking at a planet with its own little moon around.

It was almost the way that it looked. I was like, oh my goodness, there's a planet right next to the moon there. Kind of a

Star Wars feel, you know? Yeah. I hadn't even heard about it. And then I'm pulling it up online and finding out

Mars is in some sort of alignment or whatever else. Yeah. I mean, I don't follow astrology. I only do for my class.

That's how I know. Well, astronomy. Astronomy. I'm talking astrology. Okay. Fair enough. Yes. I did get that confused.

I saw somebody posted a great meme that said, stop blaming yourself, learn astrology and start blaming the planets.

Okay. But that sounds like they're repentful.

Yeah. Right. Right. It's a joke. I know. Don't be so hard on yourself. Blame the planets. Somebody else's problem.

That's right. All right. Well, that was the 10th most popular video of the year. Yes. This next one is it was actually debunking a common myth.

Okay. There were some people that were saying that Donald Trump had come up with a Bible. Okay. Did Donald Trump release a

Trump Bible in 2024? Well, this video will set you straight here.

Did Donald Trump just come out with a Trump Bible? No, he did not. The God Bless the

USA Bible is actually sold by Lee Greenwood, the guy who wrote the song of the same name, God Bless the USA, which came out in 1984.

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed the Bible and urged his supporters to buy a copy for Easter.

But it's not Trump's Bible, nor is it a new Bible, as it's been in print for a few years. In addition to the

King James version of the text, it also contains the U .S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, and of course, the lyrics to Greenwood's famous song.

Now, some conservatives genuinely believe that the U .S. Constitution is divinely inspired like the

Bible. We were a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God, because he wrote the

Constitution. So it's probably not a good idea to print the Constitution in the Bible.

But that aside, this is not the first time someone has published a Bible like this. The Geneva Bible Patriots Edition includes a prayer by George Washington, the

Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. There's also the

Patriots Bible, which includes a bunch of articles about the history of the You can also find the

Young American Patriots Bible, the Founders Bible, and the American Woman's Bible. Various ways to market a

Bible with patriotism. While it's good to remember America's Christian roots, do not confuse these national documents with sacred scripture.

Only those 66 books that make up the Bible are breathed out by God, given by his Holy Spirit, and contain the words of eternal life in Christ Jesus our

Lord, when we understand the text. So that quote in the middle there was Dan Patrick, who was the

Lieutenant Governor of Texas. And he was the one that made the comment that God inspired even our nation's documents, such as the

Constitution. As if God had given those words of the Founding Fathers the same way he gave the

New Testament to the apostles. That was, he made that quote at a

CPAC in 2022, I believe is when it was. I don't think everybody who signed those documents were saved.

No, not everybody was. But who wrote it? The vast majority of them were God -fearers.

Even God -fearers, it's not the same. They would not have said. No. None of the Founding Fathers would have said,

God inspired me to write this. This is God -ordained. I mean, it was ordained by God.

It just wasn't. They would probably be beside themselves if they lived in today's culture, versus when they came over.

Well, it's the same with the King James only us. The editors of the King James Bible would not have said, this is the only divinely authorized

English translation of the Bible. The same arguments that come in there. Some of the comments on that video about the

Trump Bible, Paul said, praying that Trump -supporting non -believers will buy the Bible, read it, and that God would save many of them by grace, through faith in Christ for his glory.

Amen. Just as long as they don't confuse the divinely -inspired verses.

The founding documents are not divinely -inspired. Cammy said, it's a little weird to include the

Constitution in the Bible, but as long as people know it's not God's word and the Bible is, then it's fine.

Which this might give people who don't know any better the false belief that it is. The Constitution has amendments.

God's word is unchanging and therefore needs no amendments. Amen. Amen to that.

And this comment from Stephen, Trump may have endorsed the Bible, but I don't know if he's ever read it.

Touche. I have to agree with you there. Hey, praying for Trump and his cabinet as Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated.

Oh yeah, very soon. President of the United States this coming Monday. Lord willing, yeah.

So pray that he will surround himself with God -fearing men and even some women that will help direct his course in a way that is right and honoring of God and according to his word.

Amen, yes. More likely that we were going to have a God -fearing administration under Trump than we would have had under Kamala.

Yes. Now with this next video, I cheated on it a little bit. Let me go ahead and play this here and then

I'll tell you how I cheated on this video. Okay. Okay. At the

National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, there is on display the remains of a

Pharaoh named Amenhotep II. If you were to walk up to the glass and look into the face of that man, you may be looking into the face of the same

Pharaoh whom Moses stood before when he said, thus says Yahweh, let my people go.

Now, what makes us think Amenhotep II may have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus? Well, we know the Exodus occurred in 1446

BC. A key verse to calculating this is 1 Kings 6, 1, which says that Solomon began building the temple 480 years after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt.

This was in the year 966 plus 480 years gives us 1446 during the 18th dynasty in Egypt.

The Jewish historian Josephus writing in the first century referenced an Egyptian historian named

Manetho who said the Pharaoh of the Exodus was named Aminathus. Well, Aminathus happens to be the

Greek name for Amenhotep. With other details we know about Pharaoh from the book of Exodus, it was more than likely

Amenhotep II rather than the first or third. For example, as Pharaoh did not die during the 10th plague, he could not have been a firstborn son.

Indeed, Amenhotep II had an older brother who died before he could assume the throne. And we know

Amenhotep II's firstborn son did not become Pharaoh, which is expected if Amenhotep II is the

Pharaoh of the Exodus and his eldest son died in the 10th plague. Now, though these mummified remains are a pretty cool relic from biblical history, if indeed

Amenhotep II was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, the fact remains that Pharaoh, who thought he was a god, is a dusty old corpse in a museum.

Jesus Christ, who is actually God, is risen from the dead and reigns on high.

All who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life when we understand the text.

Okay, so this video has never been seen on YouTube before.

You are getting it on this podcast for the very first time. So why is it that the video could be included in my top 10 most popular videos for 2024?

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Because it's a slightly longer version than the original video that I had posted, which was a clip of me teaching in my

Sunday school class on the date of the Exodus. And I had featured it as one of the short videos, where if you make a video on YouTube that's under 60 seconds, it'll post it as a short video.

So I made a longer version of it in our minute and a half format, and that's what that video was.

So the short one was super popular, got a ton of views, but I didn't want to include the short video in my most popular videos of the year.

I still wanted to keep the usual what format. So I cheated a little bit with that one. Fair enough.

And you're hearing it for the first time now, but it will soon be uploaded to YouTube and it will be its own video.

I suppose I'll let you have it. Okay, all right. No, actually, that's funny because our youngest girl, she is learning about when

Moses went to Pharaoh right now. Oh, really? Uh -huh, on one of her Bible cards. So, yeah.

So she's learning about it according to Exodus or she's learning about it in, like, where it occurred in history? I believe in history because it's a timeline, but it's, you know, like, biblical timeline, so.

Yeah, makes sense. Now, I'll do a follow -up to that one and I'll talk about why, like, how do we know that 1446 is the year that the

Exodus occurred? Okay. And that's a little bit longer argument. I made a little bit there in that video, but there's a deeper explanation to how we've come to that date.

Okay, awesome. So there you go. That was the eighth most popular video for 2024.

Who was the Pharaoh in the Exodus? And that was part of the, kind of, a short archaeology series that I did in my

Sunday school class over the summer. Yeah, that was really fun. All right, number seven. Here's the seventh most popular video of the year.

Was it really the summer? Yeah, that was back in the summer. Oh, my goodness. Number seven.

Leading up to season five of The Chosen, creator and director Dallas Jenkins hosted a live stream online.

There were behind -the -scenes looks, he sold a bunch of merchandise, and he gave a sneak peek of a scene between Jesus and Judas who would betray him.

Judas believed the time was right for Jesus to claim the throne of David. Jesus disagreed, so Judas said,

Why won't you take my advice? Am I not here to help you? I've never asked you for your advice.

Then what am I here for? Then Jesus said to him, You have a choice to make, Judas. I'm listening.

Who you belong to. Who has your heart. I want it, and I've had it before.

That's not what the Bible says. John 6, 64 says Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.

In verse 70, he called Judas a devil. And in John 17, 12, he called Judas the son of perdition or the son of destruction.

The heart of Judas was never after Jesus. And Jesus knew this. Judas's destiny was always to betray him in fulfillment of prophecies made about him.

Let's continue. You followed me willingly. I want to continue.

There's nothing more than I want than that. Then I will pray for you. Jesus never said this to Judas.

Would Jesus have prayed that Judas would make a different choice and not betray Jesus? Then God's word would be wrong and you and I would not be saved.

Psalm 22, 41, 69 and 109 and Zechariah 11 all contain prophecies about a wicked man who would betray the

Lord's anointed, even for 30 pieces of silver. That was Judas, whom Jesus called to fulfill this purpose.

In John 13, Jesus washed his disciples feet and said, Do just as I have done to you.

I am not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled.

He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me. Beware those teachers who twist the scriptures, especially for the feels, for entertainment and for profit.

When we understand the text. That was not the only video that I did on The Chosen in 2024.

Yeah. So it may not be. We've had quite a few. Yeah. It may not be the only one on this list either.

But that was the, what was that? Seventh most popular video. Yeah. The sneak peek of season five that they've already released, which comes out in March.

Season five. Season five. It's still going. I think they have six seasons all together.

I can't remember if Dallas Jenkins says he's doing six or seven. Six or seven seasons. But get this.

The actor who plays Jesus is 50. Oh, okay.

How old was Jesus when he died? 32 or something. 33. Yeah. Generally, we think of him as being 33 years old.

Oh, okay. So the actor playing him looks 50, by the way.

Well, there's AI and all that. You can alter and make up.

I thought of that years ago when I was watching. What is that? Bee pollen.

Or not bee pollen, but the bee poison. Bee poison? Yes. What are you talking about?

They do it to their lips and make them all poofy and stuff. So you can do that to your wrinkles. I thought that was a joke, because their lips look so fat and fluffy.

I don't know if it is or not. They're selling lip gloss with stuff in it that makes your lips like poof.

Yeah. They actually make that to make your lips pucker. I thought they had, like, fat injected in their lips or something like that.

Well, probably that, too. What else do they stick in there?

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Anyway, I thought this about Jonathan Rumi, the actor who plays

Jesus. I thought it years ago. The very first time I think it was even that I saw him playing

Jesus. I looked at him. I was like, that guy's not in his young 30s. And when I looked up his age,

I think at the time was 44 or 45. I'm going, okay, how long are they going to keep this going?

Because he already looks like he's got more miles on him than Jesus would have had.

Well, who knows? Jesus didn't have the easy life, so maybe.

I can't remember which early church father it was. Irenaeus it might have been, who thought that Jesus actually was 50 years old when he died.

So maybe they're going with the Irenaeus version of. Maybe.

And it comes from the reference the crowd makes in John, where they say of Jesus, you're not even 50.

And so Irenaeus took it as meaning. He's almost there. Yeah, he's almost there. He's almost 50 years old.

That was how Irenaeus read it. So a couple of comments that we got on that video. Zimi said,

Jesus literally asked Nicodemus in season one, what does your heart tell you?

The heresy has always been there. We made a God in our own image.

I think we speaking very generally. Yeah. I didn't have anything to do with the making of the show, but.

Touche. Handeman said, I watched five minutes of this show and thought that something wasn't right.

This is a mockery of scripture. Laura said, I've never watched The Chosen and never will.

You're not missing anything. I watch it so you don't have to. That's the way

Becky sees it, too. I don't have to watch this show. Scott said, this is the problem with people saying crazy things like, oh,

God told me to make a movie or write a book or make him famous. These same people do not know him or his word.

There's no fear or reverence for the God of the Bible. Therefore, they take liberties with the truth of God's word and profit off of their false teaching.

See, that's the impression that I get from the show as well. There is not a high reverence for the source material.

However much Dallas Jenkins wants to say. It's a story. It's still based in the

Bible. We still encourage you to go and read the Bible. Yeah. It's not the Bible that you love here.

It's your own story that you're telling. It's like they've used the

Bible as just a story that they can maybe get ideas from. That's Lord of the

Rings for us. So we're creating our own version of that world building. But they don't say that.

Well, he does give a disclaimer. I will say there's a disclaimer at the very beginning of the first episode of season one.

This is based on events. Some of the events that you see here may not have actually happened.

But we're trying to take creative liberties here or something like that. And then more and more and more. More and more creative liberties.

Yeah. It just keeps right on going. Now, there are some that have completely written off the show because they will say any depiction like this is a second commandment violation.

I'm not trying to take that angle on it because I think you can just look at the substance of the show and see that none of this is biblical.

Right. This is not the biblical Jesus that they are that they are portraying in the chosen.

So, like I said, there may be another video coming up here, but let's get to our sixth most popular video of twenty twenty four.

Our Lady of Fatima is a Roman Catholic title given to Mary, the mother of Jesus. After three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, witness what was believed to be an apparition of Mary, a bright vision of a lady only three feet tall told the children to pray the rosary every day to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.

This was in 1917. And altogether, the vision appeared to them six times between May 13th and October 13th.

During that last appearance, many thousands of people claimed to have witnessed the miracle of the sun in which the sun appeared to dance or zigzag in the sky.

Thousands of others, even among believers, said they saw nothing at all. The lady prophesied to the children, telling them of future events.

She said two of the children would soon be taken to heaven. And indeed, the two younger children died a couple of years later of the

Spanish flu. She said World War One would soon end. But if people did not stop offending

God, a second worse war would come. And she gave them a prayer and a vision of hell. The thing is, though, these so -called prophecies were not revealed until long after they happen.

Lucia, the oldest of the children, grew up to become a nun, and she did not reveal these secrets until the 1940s.

Lucia herself wrote that she first believed the apparitions were of the devil. And no wonder, Scripture says, for even

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Italian priest John DeMarchi wrote a book called

The Immaculate Heart, the true story of Our Lady of Fatima. And though he celebrated the story as miraculous, he revealed this false prophecy.

The children insisted that the lady told them World War One would end on October 13, 1917.

But it did not end for another 13 months. Whatever Our Lady of Fatima was, it was not

Mary. For the real Mary would not prophesy falsely, nor would she ever tell anyone to pray to her or build her a shrine.

But millions of people journey every year to visit the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima.

And the legend has had a huge influence on Marian worship. Jesus said, it is written, you shall worship the

Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. When we understand the text.

Now, this fellow named Thomas made this comment. He said, I'm not speaking as an agitated

Catholic here. But Our Lady did not say that the war would end by October 13, 1917.

She said the war would end soon. Probably she said it on that date. And that may be the source of confusion.

No, I got the fact in the video exactly right. Oh, yeah, she did say it on October.

At least the children reported that this apparition said on October 13, 1917, that it would be that day that the war would end.

World War I would end. Yeah. And the priest that they told this to asked for clarification.

Are you sure she said that? Because the war is still going on. And the children reported, yes, that's what she said.

And the war did not end for over a year later. So, yes, it was actually on that date.

And the apparition said it would be that date that the war would end. False prophecy, false apparition, wasn't

Mary. It was instead something demonic. And the more I've looked into these Marian apparition stories, the more

I'm 100 % convinced that almost all of them are demonic apparitions. They're pretty spooky.

It's like reading ghost stories. It really is when you read the details of these things. Gives me goosebumps.

Yeah. So pray for the truth to be proclaimed, that the gospel of Jesus Christ would break through to folks who have been fooled by some of these false miracles and ghost stories.

For it is only through Jesus Christ that we can have the forgiveness of our sins and everlasting life.

And he shares his glory with no one, not even his own mother. Yeah.

Although these apparitions are not actually Mary. Right. Yeah. Just to make the distinction there.

Well, there's the first half of our list. Yeah. So we're going to take a break. For those of you listening to the full one hour podcast, hang tight.

We're coming back with the top five. If you're listening on the radio, you got to subscribe. To hear the five most popular videos of the year, go to www .utt

.com or... Give us a click. Yeah. Type in WWUTT on whatever podcast app you like to use and you'll find us that way.

Yeah. God bless. We'll talk to you again next week. So this meme was explosive with millions of views across multiple platforms in a day.

It's a stock image of a man stepping in something and saying, Oh man, I stepped in something pagan. In the next frame, he lifts up his shoe and it's a smudged image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

This was after the what videos on Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Guadalupe, in which it was shown that neither apparition could have been the

Virgin Mary. Incredibly, the outrage was not just from Roman Catholics. Cartoonist Jeff Larson said,

Not funny. And I am not Catholic. Political commentator Calvin Robinson said, What is wrong with you? And said,

I was leading people away from Jesus. Anglican writer J Brandon Meeks called me a cad.

No gentleman insults a man's mother. No Christian denigrates the mother of God. It just goes to show how culturally accepted these myths have become.

This is not the mother of Jesus. Our Lady of Guadalupe was either an elaborate hoax or a demonic apparition or both.

It cannot be argued in any biblically credible sense that this was really Mary. The legend goes that this visibly pregnant spirit appeared to a peasant named

Juan Diego and introduced herself as the ever -virgin, Holy Mary, mother of the true God.

She said she wanted a temple built to her and people to pray to her. The real Mary would never do this.

Scripture says that one who inquires of the dead is an abomination to the Lord. To prove herself, she miraculously imprinted her image on the inside of Diego's cloak.

Now hanging in the temple built in her honor. Many other myths surround this image, though it is likely the creation of 16th century artist

Marco Cipac D 'Acchino. The image is unquestionably man -made. It is dishonoring of Mary to say this spirit was her.

And blasphemous to suggest this apparition is carrying the Son of God. This is what people should be upset about.

People crawl on their knees to this image and ask it to bless them. Because they've stepped in something pagan.

Jonah 2 .8 -9 says, Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. Salvation belongs to the

Lord. When we understand the text. Yeah, those images of people crawling on their knees to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

It was really sad to watch those clips. Because I had to get various clips to put into the video.

And you're watching people who are sick. They're ailing. They're begging this false apparition that probably never even happened.

Believing that they're talking to the mother of Jesus. And asking her for some kind of miracle that they could be healed.

That is so sad. Some of them will crawl on their knees for miles. Whoa. To come to the temple of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Begging her for some sort of miracle that either they would be healed. Or a member of their family would be healed.

Oh my goodness. It's so heartbreaking to watch it. But they're pagan.

I mean, they're praying to a ghost. Because we're not supposed to be appealing to the dead.

Right. In Deuteronomy, those who appeal to the dead are an abomination to Yahweh.

And that's what they're doing. They're appealing to Mary. Yeah. Not praying to God. And even said, whatever this spirit was that appeared to Juan Diego.

If that story ever even happened at all. Because there's doubt that any of this even took place.

Yeah. That spirit that appeared to Juan Diego is not Mary.

Yeah. Especially considering this thing's still pregnant. Yeah, that's kind of weird.

Because that's part of the legend. And that's part of the painting. When you see that famous painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Mary is still pregnant in that image. Jesus is born. He's not even an infant anymore.

He's a man. Yeah. And that's the other thing about some of these Mary statues that they'll have in so many different Catholic churches.

Holding the baby Jesus. Yeah. And there's prayers to baby Jesus. You can get certain

Catholic prayers to baby Jesus in those prayer candles. He's not a baby anymore.

Nope. Why are you praying to baby Jesus? So still thinking that Mary is pregnant.

Still thinking that Jesus is a baby. I mean, all these things just have pagan aspect to them.

Instead of praying to God, knowing you can come right to the creator of the universe.

Yeah. Your savior who died for you and rose again from the dead. You can pray to him. Instead of praying to him, they go to his mother.

Or think they're going to his mother. Yeah. And really, you're probably praying to something pagan.

Peter. Comment from Peter here says Mary's not a virgin anymore. Jesus had siblings, so she can't be the ever virgin.

Right. Also a good point. Moises says Catholics should read the gospels more.

Even the Catholic Bible has the same gospels as the KJV, NKJV, NIV, and NLT, where Jesus says worship

God alone. As a former devout Catholic, the moment I became born again and read my Bible, I found it incredibly hard to go back.

Yes, I agree. You could probably relate to that, can't you? Yes, definitely. This one whose name is

Spurgeon, although not the Spurgeon. Okay, that'd be a little weird. Keep fighting the good fight,

Gabe. So many Christians are compromised when it comes to Roman Catholicism. I have such an appreciation for people like you,

James White, Allie Beth Stuckey, and others who do not compromise on this, no matter how many papists flame you in the comments.

Speaking of Allie Beth Stuckey, she quoted me on our podcast yesterday. Oh, yeah? Yeah. That's cool. Had to do with the masculine wars that are going on right now.

What makes a man masculine? What is biblical masculinity? And there's people with opinions on one side and me on the other saying, stop chasing after guys like Andrew Tate.

Who? Yeah, don't worry about it. Okay. Don't even bother looking him up. You will regret that you did.

Okay. But he's really popular among a lot of young men right now, especially on social media. Okay.

And so not a model of masculinity in any way, shape, or form. Interesting. Like there are some that are making the arguments that, well, we can take the good parts of the things that he's promoting as masculinity and discard.

No, don't listen to him at all. Yeah. There are no good parts. Ignore. Yes.

Ignore, ignore, ignore. Block. More sound biblical view of masculinity voices out there.

Oh, yeah, sure. Look them up. You'll find good models of biblical masculinity in your own church.

Yes, definitely. Men who've been married to their wives for decades. Yes. Faithful in the word, love their kids.

Amen. Look to those men. If not your own father, you know, look. Right. There's not a better model of biblical masculinity than a man's own father.

That was the way it was for me. Love my dad. Great model for me. Yeah. Early in our marriage, when

Becky would ask me things like, where did you learn to do that? I'd say, my dad. Proudly be able to say, my dad taught me that.

That's so true. I remember that. Here is the fourth most popular video for 2024.

All right. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a

German Lutheran minister, most known for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler near the end of World War II, for which

Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and later executed. This became the focus of a movie about his life that came out in 2024 entitled

Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Spy, Assassin. His most famous work was The Cost of Discipleship, published in 1937, examining what he called cheap grace versus costly grace.

Cheap grace would be like preaching forgiveness without repentance, whereas costly grace is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Bonhoeffer taught that salvation should radically change a person's life, for faith without obedience is no faith at all.

As said in James 2 .17. Unfortunately, Bonhoeffer's theology was rather liberal. In his book,

Christ the Center, he cast doubt on the fact that Christ really existed. He wrote, as a subject for historical investigation,

Jesus Christ remains an uncertain phenomenon. His historicity can neither be confirmed nor denied with the necessary absolute certainty.

Bonhoeffer said of Christ's resurrection from the grave, Empty or not empty, it remains a stumbling block.

We cannot be sure of its historicity. Whereas the Apostle Paul provided numerous proofs for the resurrection and said,

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Bonhoeffer denied the inerrancy of Scripture, calling the

Bible flawed. He went as far as denying the power of the gospel itself, saying, We must finally break away from the idea that the gospel deals with the salvation of an individual's soul.

But Romans 1 .16 says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

Though regarded as a courageous hero of the faith, one should be very careful with the theology and life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer when we understand the text.

Santa Fe left this comment, When somebody becomes a martyr, it is common for them to be put up on a pedestal and their flaws overlooked.

Ah, very true. Jake said, This is almost as disheartening as hearing the ugly truths about Martin Luther King Jr.

Oh, no joke. Yeah, that man was not a Christian either. It was just a few weeks ago, in fact,

Justin Peters did a video on that. Oh, really? I think so. I think he covered some of the things regarding Martin Luther King.

I can't remember if it was a few weeks ago we did that, or it was right after John MacArthur made a comment about it earlier in 24.

That was one of our big news items of the year where he made his comments about Martin Luther King Jr., which wasn't even the main comment that he was making and the answer that he gave.

It was just kind of like 30 seconds, just kind of an offshoot of what he was saying and the response that he was giving.

And it just lit up a firestorm. Well, of course. John MacArthur says

Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't saved. Yeah. Well, he denied basic biblical doctrines and lived in a moral lifestyle.

Yes. So there wasn't really anything in his life that demonstrated that he was a genuine believer. That he had any fruit of the spirit.

Right. Ethan said, I watched part of an older Bonhoeffer movie and he quoted in it that he wanted to learn from Gandhi.

I thought that was something inserted by the creators. But upon further discovery, I found out that it was true.

Oh, wow. BC Modern says, can you do one about C .S.

Lewis? Everyone seems to like him, but certainly had his theological flaws. He did, but I'm not in the camp that believes that Lewis was not a

Christian. There are some that go that far with it. I don't think that was the case at all. Yeah. And let's see one other comment here.

This fellow said, as a Lutheran and a confessional Lutheran at that, you are absolutely correct about Bonhoeffer.

I believe he was a hero for standing up for the Jews in World War II, but his theology was completely wonky.

Yes. Yeah, and we talked about that before. Yes and yes. Yep. Yep, we did. We were fielding questions in a previous episode from folks that were asking about that particular video.

It is great that he wanted to defend the Jews. Oh, yeah, for sure. His heart was in the right place there, certainly.

But yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, well.

I mean, really? At least as far as wanting to protect an endangered group of people, because that was who

Hitler wanted to exterminate. Right. It's good that Bonhoeffer wanted to protect them, wanted to protect life.

The Lord used him for his will. Right. Amen, yes. But where his heart was in that, yeah, only the

Lord can judge. Yes. And certainly his heart was not for the true Christ of the

Bible. But the saying goes, his heart was in the right place. Yeah, right. So it's just a saying. It's not that he had a good heart at that one moment.

Yeah, what do we know? Yeah. What do we know about that? All right, this was the third most popular video of the year.

And until we hit the month of December, I thought this one was going to be my number one most popular video for 2024.

But the videos that end up in the top two, I made both of those in December.

Yeah. And they passed this one. So here's the third most popular video of the year. If you ask why

Roman Catholics worship Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Catholic apologists will tell you they don't worship

Mary. When people ask me why do Catholics worship Mary, the first answer I have to say is we don't worship

Mary. Why do Catholics worship Mary? Obviously, the answer is we don't. Catechism of the

Catholic Church in Section 971 says it is an essential part of Christian worship to honor the

Blessed Virgin Mary. And say what of Christian worship? Really? Now, it doesn't mean we worship

Mary. Absolutely not. Well, here is the pope kissing statues and portraits of Mary in reverence.

Here he is burning incense to a likeness of Mary. Here he is bowing and praying before these likenesses.

Catholic sources say he prays to Mary. How are these things not worship? Here are people bowing to images of Mary and appearing to pray to them.

Praying the rosary involves more prayer to Mary than to God. Here is a massive parade on a religious feast day dedicated to Mary with a portrait of her in front of the procession.

Here is another Marian parade. And another. And another. They sing songs to her. They write psalms to her.

They burn candles to her. They will say this isn't worship. It's veneration. But really, what's the difference?

They ascribe to Mary divine characteristics like omnipresence, believing she can hear them from anywhere and grant requests.

They claim she was without sin when Jesus said, No one is good but God alone. She makes appearances, foretells the future, and does miracles.

They give her divine names like Queen of Heaven. The only place that title appears in the Bible is in Jeremiah, for an idol.

In Exodus 20, 3 -5, God says, You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them. When we understand the text.

Now I hear from Catholics over and over again that this kind of veneration that they offer to Mary can't be worship because worship requires sacrifice.

So they're trying to make a distinction between like the Eucharist in the mass. That's worship because Christ is being sacrificed or the sacrifice is being honored there in the mass.

And so that's the true worship. That's where we really worship. We worship Christ in the mass. Right.

I think it is a matter of definition. Yeah. So they will say this bowing before Mary, even the bowing, even the praying to her, none of that's worship.

That's just veneration. Now what's interesting is I would get so many comments from Catholics saying we do not pray to Mary.

We're asking her to pray for us. Right. That's what they would say. Right. So it was important for me in that video to include statements from Catholics, including the

Pope that say they pray to Mary. Yes. So I was heading off at the pass any of those comments that were going to say, we don't pray to Mary.

Right. All your Catholic sources say that you pray to Mary. So don't give me that. But this thing of like, oh, it's just veneration.

It's not worship. The Bible says bowing before and praying to is worship.

Yes. Revelation 22, eight. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things.

And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.

But he said to me, you must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book, worship

God. So bowing before is absolutely described as worship in the

Bible, Old Testament and new. Right. Yeah. So this is the worship of Mary.

It is not merely the veneration of. Right. It's like a battle over the dictionary, really.

And it's a quarrel over words. It is. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Yeah. And what does scripture tell us about quarreling over words?

Don't do it. Don't quarrel over words. So anyway, yeah, that was the number three most popular video.

And like I said, thought it was going to be the biggest one of the year until. So it was number one for most of the year.

For most of the year. Well, when did I do this video? It says it was April. So I had published it in April.

Most of the year. Yeah. Most of the year. Yeah. So this person said, why do Catholics pray to Mary when she is dead?

The only one that we should pray to is God Almighty. Absolutely. Now some Catholics might say, well, she didn't really die.

Yes, they do. Because they believe in the doctrine of the assumption of Mary in which before she died, she was assumed into heaven bodily.

Yes. And I was told that I didn't know whether to believe it or not. When you were

Catholic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, huh, I don't get it. And then that was it. That was as far as I went with my curiosity.

They only tell you as much as they need to tell you. Yeah. This person said, a common argument

I hear is that they only pray to Mary and the saints because they are asking them to intercede on their behalf.

Right. They must have omitted First Timothy 2 .5 from their version of the Bible. Yep. There is.

Or there's a contradicting one in the extra Bible books that they have. Well, of course.

Yeah. And it's from those extra books, the Apocrypha, that they get things like the perpetual virginity of Mary and her immaculate conception.

Right. And praying to the dead. Right. And praying on behalf of the dead.

Different kinds of some of those doctrines will come out of the Apocryphal books. Yeah. Which is part of their

Bible. So they're thinking that it's true. Of course. And they're convinced. Most of them are absolutely convinced.

So be praying for the Lord to reveal it to them. This person named

Androxene, how disrespectful it is that God literally tore the veil that separated us from him, and we would choose to pray to a sinful human being over God.

Well, they would say that she's not sinful. They don't think she's sinful. Yeah. That's the immaculate conception.

Yeah. This person said, I don't know how they not call it worshipping when it is clear that their ways of showing veneration to Mary is much more worshipy than how the

Israelites even worship the golden calf. Yeah. Yeah. They just danced around it.

Yeah, that's true. We don't have a description in Exodus of them bowing to it and praying to it, just that they held a feast to it.

Yeah. Well, I felt whenever I went to mass as a kid,

I felt like it was more about everything else than it was about Christ.

Yeah. So when my Christian friends would ask me about Christ, if I believed in him and that sort of thing,

I'm like, well, yeah, I guess. I mean, and then they're like, are you Christian? I'm like, no,

I'm Catholic. That was my answer because I didn't know what Christian meant. Right. So it was more focused on everything else than it was about Christ.

Yes, Christ was the communion, but that was pretty much all

I got out of it. Now, granted, I didn't pay attention to a whole lot. I kind of sat there in my own little world most of the time.

But yeah, I remember just being like, okay, this is about everything other than God.

Yeah. Well, when we did our series back in October on the five solos, that was one of the things that I pointed out was what

Roman Catholicism had become, and it's only gotten worse since then. Everything Roman Catholicism had become made

Christ hidden. Yes. Made the word of God, the Bible, even less important.

Yes. All the authority was in the church, and they were the ones, like the church was the way that you get to God or you get to the

Savior. Yeah. We get you there. Right. Because whenever I had to go confess, I was actually, what do you call that?

In the confession booth? Yeah, herded to the confession booth by my teachers and everything. I would sit there and confess my sins.

And every time it was like, two Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys. Yeah. And I'm like, huh, why is it 10

Hail Marys? Oh, okay, whatever. And then I just go and do it. Like, okay, now I can keep on sinning because I'm forgiven, and I'll just come back and ask for forgiveness again.

Ask forgiveness again. Another one of the videos that I did this year was on the rosary. And so that's, yeah, there's what?

Five Our Fathers and 50 Hail Marys. Yeah. Over the course of the rosary.

Every time. I was like, wow, that's okay. And I remember that being like, what do you call that?

Like penance? Penance. Yeah, doing penance. Yeah. And that was it. And I'm like, okay, well,

I can do this at home. I don't have to come confess to my priest. Well, no, yeah. And they don't want you to do that.

They want you to come and. But it was the same thing every time. And so that's what got in my head. I was like, yeah, I could do this at home.

No biggie. Right. They don't want you to think that way. Your only way to get to true forgiveness is if your priest absolves you of your sins.

Danny says, at every Catholic church I've been to, there's a room outside of the church where people go to pray to a statue of Mary.

Yeah, the one here in town, there's a little courtyard right outside. The statue of Mary benches all around it.

Yeah. So you go sit in front of Mary and offer your prayers. I always thought that, like,

I don't know. We didn't have that. We had a room, sure, like a little area, but not.

We were from a small town, so it was really quite small. Yeah. And granted, it was long ago, too.

So it's kind of embellished since then. And depending upon your culture of where you're at, too.

So anyway, I always thought those were, like, the places where you just go sit and you wait for the people to get out of church.

I'm like, why do you have benches out there? I'm hanging out with Mary, waiting for my parents to get out.

Why would you sit there? You know, it's just awkward. Don't sit there. Mary's your babysitter while you're waiting for your parents to come.

I had no idea. Well, speaking of Mary, that actually is the subject of the second most popular video of the year as well.

Yeah, this one, this one less Catholic. Okay. But still, well, I say it's less

Catholic. The director of this film was Catholic. Oh, okay. So this the review of this movie, my second most popular video of 2024.

Netflix made a movie about Mary, directed by Roman Catholic DJ Caruso, who made

Redeeming Love, the dreadful romance based on the book of Hosea. The movie Mary begins with her saying,

You may think you know my story. Trust me, you don't.

So this will be a bunch of extra biblical nonsense. After all, it's produced by Joel Osteen. The angel

Gabriel appears to Joachim and Anne and tells them they will have a daughter who must be given to serve God in the temple.

When she is older, they take her to the prophetess Anna, and Mary is presented in the temple as the vessel of the promise.

There's a weird scene where Satan tries to seduce Mary, and then Mary stares down the brutal

King Herod, played by Hannibal Lecter. Mary's parents agree to marry her to a man named

Joseph, and she argues with their decision as if they're selling her off. She meets Joseph and is immediately belittling of him, just like the

Mary in the previous year's Journey to Bethlehem. This trope is already tired. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says she will be with child.

And while he does say the child will reign over the house of David, he does not mention the Holy Spirit or that the child will be the son of God.

He says all the world will know him because she is blessed among women. Since Mary is found to be pregnant, she's kicked out of the temple.

She meets with her cousin Elizabeth, who's really not all that old, and she tells her, trust the strength inside you.

And she doesn't mean Jesus with whom she's pregnant, so this is one of those believe -in -yourself movies. When she gives birth to Jesus, she tells him,

I choose you just as you chose me. And in the very last line of the film, she says, Love will cost you dearly.

It will pierce your heart. But in the end, love will save the world.

No shepherds or magi come to visit Jesus. Joseph kills a guy. Yes, really. And there are many other problems.

But in short, the Netflix movie Mary is an unbiblical mess with no gospel, no message that Jesus Christ has come to save his people from their sins.

Avoid these rewrites of history and stick with the truth when we understand the text. But it's

Mary's story. Why is that so funny to you?

Because otherwise it'd be about Jesus. I mean, it's her story. Oh, yes, right, right.

Gotta tell her story. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist it. You know, a lot of the things from that film, there was another video that I was going to make.

I never got around to making it. It was going to be like in the last week of the year anyway. And it was kind of like I hit that point where I was like, okay,

I'm done. I've got videos I'm going to start doing once we get into the new year. Yeah. But there was one other video that I was going to make.

And it was going to be on the Proto -Evangelium of James, also called the

Gospel of James. Not to be confused with the Book of James in the New Testament. Oh, okay.

But it's from that book that a lot of myth was developed about Mary.

Because this book may have been written in about the second century. So it's pretty early. Okay. But a lot of the myths that we still think of being popular about Mary, like her perpetual virginity, being immaculate, even stories about her growing up in the temple, which this movie kind of made light of in her past, which isn't true.

She did not grow up in the temple. She was a peasant girl. Yeah. She didn't grow up in the temple. But that whole concept, this idea that she was dedicated to holy service in the temple because she herself was holy, that comes from the

Proto -Evangelium of James. And it's also in that book where it talks about how because she was a virgin and she would always remain a virgin, that it was necessary for Jesus to be born another way than vaginally.

Wait, what? Yes, it could not be a vaginal birth. Because if it was a vaginal birth, she wouldn't be a virgin anymore.

So they're trying to come up with... Whoever's writing this in the second century with this high veneration of Mary, like how do we keep

Mary a virgin even after she gives birth to Jesus? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that the hymen isn't broken and everything.

So in the Proto -Evangelium of James, there's an account in which Jesus is transported out of her womb in a flash of light and just appears there next to her and then begins to nurse from his mother.

I'm a little jealous. I wish that would happen. That would be awesome.

Because Mary was without sin, she couldn't go through the pains of childbirth, right?

And also her virginity needs to remain intact. So we're going to transport Jesus outside of the womb.

Yeah, I kind of like this. All right. I like this idea. The story gets weirder. Oh boy. So there was a midwife who was there at the birth of Jesus and she comes running out and talks to another midwife and says,

I have just witnessed a virgin birth. And the older midwife goes, impossible, can't be.

And I won't believe it until I go and inspect her parts and be convinced myself that she's actually still a virgin.

So the older midwife comes in and does her inspection of Mary and when she pulls her hand back, it's on fire because she's being punished for doubting the fact.

Oh my goodness. And so an angel of the

Lord tells her to take the child in her arms. And when she does take up Jesus in her arms, then her arm is extinguished and it's restored again as new.

And now she. Because I'm going to hold a baby if my arms are on fire. Especially one as important as Jesus.

Yeah, no. Oh my goodness. So that's, I've got that script written and recorded.

It's insane. It's already recorded. I actually did some AI art to come up with the pictures. Oh, you'd have to.

Nobody's illustrated this story. I don't understand why not. Wow.

Wow. So that's an upcoming video. I still plan to do that. Classical paintings don't have any of that.

Yeah, there's none of that. Okay. Yeah. Well, there you go. But it's from that Gnostic book that a lot of the mythos surrounding

Mary and her perpetual virginity and things like that, all of that was developed out of the Proto -Evangelium of James.

Now, obviously there was still some of that floating around at the time that book was written because that was why he wrote those things or whoever the author was.

That's why those things were written into that book. Whoever the author was, it wasn't James. Right. That's pseudepigraphical, meaning they attribute it to James to give it credibility, but James wasn't the one who wrote it.

So anyway. Oh, don't they do that nowadays online too? Oh, all the time.

So, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. It still happens. Like we've talked about this too with regarding the popular

Christmas carol, Away in a Manger. Oh, yeah. So nobody knows who wrote Away in a Manger, but when it was first published, it was said to have been

Luther's cradle hymn. So Martin Luther was the guy that wrote Away in a

Manger. Whoever wrote it, we know it wasn't Martin Luther. Right. But they attributed it to Luther in a

Lutheran hymnal to kind of give the song. A credibility. Yeah. Yeah. It'd make you go, oh, wow, it was written by Martin Luther.

We got to sing this. Yeah. Which every time I've heard the song since learning that,

I've gone, this was written by a liar. Anyway.

Okay. We got one more video to get to here. Okay. Here it is. The number one most watched what video for 2024?

Number one. Previously, we looked at a scene from The Chosen in which TV Jesus tells

TV Judas. Who has your heart? I want it.

And I've had it before. And also. Then I will pray for you. Two things Jesus never would have said to Judas.

John 664 says Jesus knew from the beginning who it was who would betray him. And in John 1712,

Jesus prayed for his disciples. Not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled.

He said he was not praying for Judas. And if Judas had not betrayed Jesus, then scripture would be wrong.

Well, creator Dallas Jenkins didn't like that criticism so much. He recorded a response in which he said.

No, we are not implying that Jesus is going to pray that Judas. Judas will change his mind.

Yeah, watch it again. In the scene, Jesus said, you have a choice to make Judas who you belong to.

Who has your heart? I want it. And I've had it before. You followed me willingly.

I want to continue. There's nothing more than I want than that. Then I will pray for you.

That doesn't imply that Jesus would pray for Judas to change his mind. Dallas said.

So Jesus did not say in this scene, I'll pray for you, Judas, that you change your mind. He said,

I'll pray for you, which can mean any number of things. And there are many reasons to pray for someone. OK, then what other reason would

Jesus have to pray for Judas? And the only suggestion Dallas gives is this.

It absolutely is possible for Jesus to be praying for Judas's heart and to possibly even say to the father, could could he still be saved from this?

Could he not betray me? Now, it's true that Jesus loved

Judas. He washed his feet and dined with him. Jesus said, love your enemies. And he demonstrated that with Judas so that when

Judas did betray him, Jesus said, friend, do what you came to do. Is the truth so boring that Dallas has to make up his own drama?

Do not go beyond what is written when we understand the text. Now, obviously, these were made as videos, not as audios.

So they're not as much fun to listen to as they are to watch. True. So you got to go find the videos and watch the top 10 most popular videos in 2024.

They've now been compiled into a single video and uploaded to our What Channel.

So look for WWUTT on YouTube. Subscribe to us, follow the channel, click on the alert button so that you'll get notified whenever a new video gets uploaded.

I'm trying to do one a week or so. Yeah. Something like that. And in the meantime, the podcast is still updating daily, five days a week.

Yep. Lord willing. After, yeah, after our little hiatus because of illness. Yes. But we thank you so much for watching and for listening and for sharing the videos with others.

And praying for us. Praying for us. Thank you. And for listening to the podcast, sending your emails.

Because typically on Friday, we take questions from the listeners. And you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

or send us a voicemail. Yeah. Go to WWUTT .com, click on the voicemail tab in the top right corner of the page and record us a message from your phone or laptop.

Those are always fun. We would love to hear from you. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, everybody.

Babe, always wonderful to look at you from across the way. It's good to see you, too.

I know everybody likes hearing from you more than me on Friday, anyway. All right, let's pray.

Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, thank you for a great year. And may you give us many blessings as we are already close to three weeks into 2025 now.

May we look for more ways that we can honor God, that we can share your word with others.

And may Christ be exalted this year as in every year. Christ reigns, sits on his throne.

No matter what happens this year, you continue to remain in control and all things working out to the counsel of your will.

So may we trust God in all things, knowing that you are working all things together for good for those who love

God and are called according to your purpose, as said in Romans 8 .28. It's in Jesus' name we pray.