Rapp Report School Shootings the Movie Ray Comfort

Striving for Eternity Videos

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:08

Welcome to the Rap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

00:15

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

00:26

All right, welcome to another weekly Rap Report. We are back to the regular gang.

00:32

Well, we have an additional member of the gang, but we have been doing a number of interviews.

00:37

I hope you guys have enjoyed talking with some friends and some others, but being able to hear from folks like Jay Mourner -Wallace and Sean McDowell and others, that Jim Osmond, we've had a number of interviews, good stuff.

00:56

I hope you've been enjoying that. But today what we want to deal with on this podcast is a new movie that is out on YouTube.

01:05

It is available for you to watch for, well, free. That's right. It is a new movie by Ray Comfort.

01:12

And before we get to this movie, I will plug another movie that Ray has coming out. Ray has a new movie that will be out soon,

01:21

I think end of this month, either, no, end of June.

01:26

So I'm not sure when this podcast is going to drop, but so it may be June when this drops. But a new movie coming out called

01:33

The Fool. It is a must see for every Christian. I think this is, if any of you have had that feeling that you've been embarrassed, you've been worried about how the world is going to view you when you share the gospel, the movie

01:51

The Fool will be a great encouragement to you. Ray Comfort opens up, talks about some of his own life and talks about just a little bit of how the world of atheists came in, mocking him, insulting him, trying to humiliate him.

02:10

And instead of taking that and just basically hiding away, he really saw that through advice from a friend as a way that God used to really open up doors.

02:28

And it allowed him when we were at the Reason Rally, as folks may know,

02:34

I organize an event every year at the Reason Rally when they have their atheist convention or worship service, whatever you may want to call it.

02:42

But when they gather every four years, we evangelize them. And I invited Ray out and Ray came with his team and we had a thousand

02:52

Christians to evangelize the hordes and hordes of atheists. Actually, no, no.

02:58

They said they were scared. They said that they would have 20 to 30 ,000 atheists and only about 4 ,000 showed up.

03:06

We made up one -fifth of their group. And they said that it was our fault that no one was there.

03:12

They were so afraid, oh, those Christians might share the gospel with us. Yeah, that's what they were doing.

03:19

But one of our new guys who is here, it was the first time I met him in person, was at that Reason Rally.

03:27

And that is Josh Smith. We'll hear from him in a bit. I'm just saying, we'll probably hear some marriage advice from him at some point.

03:37

He's got some great marriage advice. He's newly married. But for folks who watch or used to watch the

03:47

Slick Answers when Matt Slick and I used to get together, they know of Josh Smith. They know of his marriage advice and the calm dating.

03:57

But there's some insight there that we could share with you. So I will be announcing, and maybe

04:04

John or Vince can remind me if I forget, we will be having a new

04:09

Preacher's Bible giveaway. We said that we have two Preacher Bibles that we got to give away. And Striving Fraternity will be giving the second one away in the month of June.

04:20

And so you have the month of June to be able to enter. And I will tell you those details after we go through the school shooting movie.

04:29

And so we want to go through this. And so I'll welcome in Vincent and John and Josh.

04:36

I don't know, have you guys got a chance beforehand to watch the movie that I sent you?

04:42

I have not. I have not either. I watched it last night. Good.

04:48

So you guys are well prepared. I'm good. I don't want to be biased.

04:56

We're coming into this blind and fair. Yeah. So for folks who are new to hearing

05:07

Josh's voice, Josh is, well, he used to be in Maryland where the Reason Rally was, not far from where the

05:12

Reason Rally was. And that's where we had met. And he was, we used to be, I gave a little bit of inside jokes and it's never good to do.

05:19

So I've got to explain those jokes. So Josh, we first met on Slick Answers when you were talking with Matt Slick about how you were dating someone and you decided to give her a quiz on the first date.

05:35

Yeah. Did it make it to a second date? It did.

05:42

It did actually. I don't know how. It was an injury though.

05:47

It was an injury, but it did. Really? It made it to a second date? Was that in Iraq, that second date?

05:55

Did it, I mean, you basically went through Karm articles and started challenging her on her, you know, what her beliefs were.

06:02

Didn't she flee to Iraq or something? Half truth.

06:14

So, but you did end up getting married and after getting married, you came on to Slick Answers and we were glad to see you.

06:21

And you gave us this wonderful bit of marriage advice. Yeah. It's been challenging, but it's good.

06:28

I feel like it's already been forever. It's only been 16 days, so. And Matt and I love that.

06:34

It's 16 days and you felt like it was forever. I'm glad that you're still married, but it's only because your wife is a wonderful person.

06:45

And that his father -in -law can beat him up. That quote was completely out of context. That was the full quote.

06:53

No, that was, no, no, it was, because I was saying, wow, it feels like, you know,

06:59

I'm already used to everything and it feels like we've already been, you know, been together so long, but it sounded like, because I.

07:05

It sounded like the way that everyone interprets it. Is that what you're saying? No. I mean,

07:13

John, am I wrong here? Does that not sound like exactly like how we heard it? Sounds like it to me.

07:19

I didn't interpret anything with that. Did you? 16 days is important to him is forever.

07:26

It feels like forever. But we like busting on Josh just a little bit too much, but I think

07:37

John is right. If you were ever to think about leaving your wife, your father -in -law could beat you into the ground.

07:46

And he could do that with just a look. I'm just saying. I mean, if my choice was to get into a cage match with Frank Mullis, or have to face your father -in -law,

08:02

I think I'd go with Frank Mullis. Just saying. It keeps

08:13

Josh in line, you know? So, all right, let's get into this movie on school shooting.

08:18

This is more of a serious type of issue. But as we look at this, and I have not been following the news on things.

08:28

I don't know about you guys, but I've discovered that if I stop watching the news like all the time,

08:35

I'm suddenly a lot happier of an individual. But I don't have as much time to watch the news.

08:41

But there was a school shooting and I am convinced that Ray Comfort had a lot of this footage already from previous school shootings and was able to put this together kind of quickly to have this out right after the shooting.

08:58

But this is something you can watch. And I would encourage folks, we're going to play through it and talk about it.

09:05

My encouragement to you, the link will be in the show notes.

09:10

But my encouragement is that you would share this movie with folks because there is a lost and dying world that is trying to make sense of these school shootings that are happening over and over and over again.

09:24

And as we understand from this school shooting, this was not an individual that everyone was watching and looking and thinking he could do this.

09:32

This is someone who wanted his couple of minutes of fame. And I will take a page from Al Mohler's playbook and we will not be naming the individual.

09:45

We will not give him his five minutes of fame in any way. If anything, the people who were injured and murdered should be named and not him.

09:56

But this video becomes something you can share with folks that are asking the question about these repetitive school shootings.

10:06

And in doing so, have a way to also share the gospel with them. So I encourage you to consider doing that and sharing this.

10:16

So I'm going to hit play and then these guys will raise their hands and let me know when they want me to stop and we'll talk through it.

10:24

So, all right, here we go. I'm going to, I'm just going to speed it up a little bit.

10:30

Just at 1 .25 shouldn't be too quick, but all righty. So here we go.

10:49

Now, this is one of the deadliest school shootings in U .S. history. It seems we're saying that well too often these days.

10:55

17 people killed in a mass shooting at a Florida high school. This guy that recently killed 17 people, do you think he was evil?

11:03

I don't think he was evil per se. Do you think this guy was evil? Um, I mean, it's hard to define the difference between evil and what's good.

11:13

Um, but I feel like. Why is it hard? Do you think he was evil? I don't know.

11:18

Was he evil? Evil, I mean, people just don't know about evil. How do you define evil?

11:25

Now, do you guys notice how hard it is for these folks to call murdering of 17 people evil?

11:34

Yep. Oh yeah. They have no way to ground good and evil anymore. I mean,

11:41

I think, I think Ray is hitting on one of the major things that we, you know, people are asking why these school shootings.

11:48

Is this not a major issue when people can't even refer to someone that kills 17 people as evil?

11:57

Right. This is, um, this is what is called post -modernism right here.

12:02

This is where nobody knows the difference between wrong and right, evil and good.

12:08

So this is what the result is, is that when you ask people, what is evil or, you know, is it evil?

12:16

They just shrug their shoulders. They detach morality from anything that's absolute.

12:22

Therefore, subjective of what is good and evil. And so they don't really have a way to compare it anymore.

12:29

You know, this was one of the things I noticed after 9 -11, and that's now 17 years ago.

12:37

But it was the, people were saying it was the end of post -modernism because people could recognize something as being evil.

12:45

And they were calling what happened on 9 -11 evil. This is 17 years later, and they can't refer to this as evil.

12:54

And, and, and we're going to see more of it. It's going to, it's not, but watch how Ray does this. Ray starts with the question of being able to identify evil because I think this is the main problem with the school shootings.

13:06

People can't identify morality because they've been told, because atheism is, is hats to say there is no absolute morality.

13:15

People no longer are looking at things as a right and wrong issue because they don't want to be accountable to God ultimately.

13:28

Why are you hesitating to say that? 17 people murdered, innocent people. How many people do I have to murder before you say evil?

13:34

Yeah, yeah. That's a great question. It's an evil person. It was a person who commits rape evil. Yes. Okay. So a man who killed 17 people, is he evil?

13:43

Now, that's amazing right there, what Ray just did. And this is, I, you know, we want to go through this, not just for the content of the movie, but for folks who don't realize me,

13:54

Ray Comfort is a master of conversation. He's a master of, of maneuvering through conversations.

14:02

And that's what you just saw there. Although I don't know why it is. I always seem to freeze it when someone's got their tongue out.

14:09

Sorry, dude. But, you know, look at it with a question. The person is saying that murdering of 17 people, he has trouble saying that's evil, but he could say raping someone that's evil.

14:22

And so why the difference? That's the question Ray's asking. Can I pause it?

14:31

Nevermind. I was just going to say, I mean, we live in a culture that doesn't value life, but they do value your, your self autonomy.

14:39

And if you go against that, then that's, that's the big sin. But life, as you see with the abortion industry is just not all that important to them.

14:48

It's a weird double standard there, but. But isn't the taking of someone else's life violating their self autonomy?

14:57

I guess depopulation is a greater good though to them. To the people who survive. So I guess,

15:06

I didn't say it made sense, but I just, it's there. You know, they value, they don't value life as much.

15:12

That's their thinking. Yeah. Well, and, and, you know, this is, I mean, this is how a guy like Hitler was able to do what he did.

15:19

Right. And, and this is how others will continue to do these sort of things.

15:25

Because, I mean, a whole generation of people can't even say killing of 17 people for no reason whatsoever is evil, is an evil act.

15:35

I can say it. It's evil. Okay. So you killed women.

15:40

He killed some women. He killed women. It doesn't matter if it's women or men. Well, he worse than raped them. You'll say rape is evil, but you won't say murder.

15:46

Mass murder is evil. Why not? You know, this guy that killed 17 people, was he evil? I, I, you know, deep down,

15:53

I want to say no one's evil. Why do you think no one's evil? I think it has to do with some true things, you know, the stricter gun laws and like, and maybe just like focusing on mental health issues.

16:02

Also, it's a mental, mental illness awareness issue. Mental health issue. No, it's a sin issue.

16:09

Yeah. They think it's a system issue he went through. Yeah. It's a heart issue. Yeah. See, and this is what, there's a whole generation where they want to remove

16:17

God. That's why they can't recognize this. You know, and, and, I mean, we're, we're chopping this up.

16:24

And this is why I'm going to put the link in. Folks, you want to watch this in its entirety. Okay.

16:31

I'm just saying you're, you want to, but we, we want to point out some things that we're going to see in this.

16:37

So that you notice how the culture has such a difficulty recognizing evil.

16:45

Kid was probably bullied. Um, if you're referring to the one in the Florida attack, right. It was an orphan, correct? If I remember correctly, there are millions of orphans that don't go out and kill people.

16:52

Millions of people bullied. I was bullied as a kid. Were you bullied as a kid? Yes. So he was bullied as a kid.

17:01

Josh wants to say something. No, no, no. He was, he was talking about marriage.

17:07

Don't worry. But I mean, you get the point.

17:13

It's like he's saying, oh, well they were bullied. Notice the excuses that these people, these kids are making about to, to really, to excuse the behavior, a sinful, wicked behavior of an individual.

17:30

They have to reap. They have to place the blame somewhere outside of the individual. They it's, it's, it's their environment.

17:36

It's their, it's the system they're in. It's it's society's fault. It's not this follow the end of government.

17:41

It's society. It's politics. It's, it's anything. It's the laws that we have.

17:47

They're unjust. They're not right. You know, they'll always have an excuse. And so it's, so it's a mental health awareness issue or it's that he was bullied.

17:55

But I always find it interesting. They're very quick to blame the gun. Right. The gun did it.

18:03

No, no. Someone did it. Not a gun. I mean, they use the gun.

18:08

In England, they use knives and throw acid in people's face. You know, but they'll find a means.

18:17

Doing it. Why there's so many people? I mean, our great fear is terrorism. You know, some Islamic terrorists showing up at school and blowing people up.

18:24

But this is American against American. Why is this happening? That's a question that I think no one can answer that.

18:31

I don't know the answer. I mean, how do we stop this happening again? That's amazing. We have no, they have no answer. I got another question for you.

18:37

The Bible has an answer, doesn't it? I like to think that I'm good. So you good or evil? Am I good or evil?

18:43

I think I'm in between. So what's your judgment? Do you notice how he laughs? Like, he doesn't even believe it.

18:49

Right. Everybody has a little dark side in themselves. Like, what about you? Do I have a dark side?

18:56

Not really. So what say that? That's not convincing, though. He looked at Ray like, do you believe me?

19:04

I think a lot of these, why they make excuses is because they know they could do the same thing. Yeah.

19:10

No, that's a good point. Yeah, that's a really good point. He killed 17 people, was mentally ill.

19:18

I mean, it's again, it's super tricky, I think. I mean, I think I have a simple solution to it. I don't think there is a simple solution to anything that's going on right now.

19:25

I'd rather keep him locked up and just have him realize, like, what he does, he's done, you know? And he already knows what he's done is wrong.

19:31

We're just going to feed him and clothe him, give him free lodging for life. I think it's worse to just suffer in prison by yourself and go crazy than to just get killed.

19:38

And, you know, do you notice how Ray gets these guys thinking? The guy was already crazy. Yeah, but he'll go even more crazy and he'll just suffer.

19:45

Like, that's going to suffer. We don't want to get ahold of guns, but it's not just insane people. Do you notice, you notice as he goes through this, you notice that this is because they don't have a knowledge of the afterlife.

19:58

They have no fear of spending eternity in a lake of fire. Uh, you got a mother. Got a mother, yes. Let's say this guy put her in the crosshairs and shot her through the head.

20:05

What would you say? You want to put him? You're going into my sphere of moral concern now. Can he be executed? Oh, that'd be kind of ironic, but yeah, sure.

20:13

Why not? So now I can happen to, I would get mad. So if it's this guy's mother, then he'd get mad.

20:19

That's a law. That's a, you can go either way with that. But 17 people he doesn't know. That's okay. It's just, I mean, it's just,

20:24

I can't. That's not you. You know, it reminds me of something that Stalin had said is, you know, killing one person is murder.

20:33

Killing a thousand is a statistic. That's really what that guy just said.

20:38

If you kill his mother, then you should pay for it. But if you kill 17 people, he doesn't know.

20:46

It's not a big deal to him. This is where our culture is at. Yeah. The reason why his mother, you know, it's a big selfish generation out there too.

20:58

So yeah. As long as it don't affect me personally, what do I care, you know? And that's a sad testimony.

21:07

You know, decide whether or not somebody dies. Abortion. That's making the decision whether or not someone lives or dies.

21:17

Right. So I mean, I guess with that logic, you should say immediately I'm against it because of your philosophy. Yeah, of course I am. It's, it's, it's, again, these are just all because I also believe that if it's

21:25

See how Ray gets them like with it, but like thinking and they're trapped. He doesn't want to disagree with abortion, but he really can't with Ray saying, oh, but look at your

21:34

No, I'm not going to stand against you. Against is not the woman's body. It's someone else's body. Look at your own thinking, what you just said. It's people like you that haven't made their mind up strongly that that allow people who think it's a woman's right to kill her own child to go ahead and do it.

21:47

Do you think this nation has lost the fear of God? Yes, that that's definitely

21:53

I'd say a point. That okay, the previous guy.

22:01

Ray nailed it right there where he said. The problem is that you don't want to stand up and actually say something about it.

22:09

That's what it is. No one is passionate enough to actually say something to actually say this is wrong.

22:17

This is right. That's that's the issue right there.

22:23

It's one of the core issues that that because nobody wants to actually have the gall, the guts to actually say, you know, this is wrong.

22:34

This is right. According to what God has has laid out standard of, you know, this is what we need to stand up and do.

22:43

And the problem is, you know, these people don't have that foundation. They don't have any kind of foundation.

22:49

They're just floating around and, you know, without a rudder and they have no moral compass whatsoever.

22:55

So therefore, you know, we don't really we can't really say what's evil.

23:01

We can't say what's what's good. Um, you know, and then when when Ray actually put his feet to the fire, and like you said earlier, when he was saying, you know, when he brought up abortion, he was like, well,

23:14

I mean, abortion is a whole different category. But yet you are saying that these people were murderers.

23:22

Well, you know, be consistent with your with your stance. But yet they don't want to because, like I said, they don't have a stance.

23:31

It's not that they don't want to. They can't. Once you give up God and try to deny he exists, you have no standard to argue for morality at all.

23:45

I mean, that's why they're struggling. They're struggling because they're a generation of people raised believing that there is no standard of morality other than ones we set for ourselves.

23:56

So how can you say that that what that guy did was wrong? You can't.

24:06

That makes people want to lash out like that. And if you don't fear God, you don't care about you shall not kill until you get killed because you're upset at someone.

24:13

Even if you're upset at people you don't know, you just kill them anyway because you don't fear God. Everything I do as a Christian, I think, is this going to get

24:20

God's smile or his frown? And that's how I govern my life. Notice how Ray provides his standard because of God, right?

24:25

The fact that he knows he's going to face God provides a way of how he's going to live.

24:31

There's too many in the population. So it'd be good if a lot died off and everyone would be happy. Massive killing? Um, yeah,

24:38

I think. No, stop it. So are you an atheist? See, Ray didn't even believe that guy that he wants massive killing for population control.

24:46

It's crazy talk. Is that what you believe? Nothing created everything? After one school shooting, the

24:52

Associated Press reported authorities in Kentucky said a teenager accused of fatally wounding two high school classmates and wounding several others showed no remorse when talking about the carnage.

25:02

Police say Gabriel Ross Parker seemed to view his actions as a science experiment. See, you notice how they're connected from what they're actually doing.

25:13

The biggest thing he gave me was that he said he was an atheist and that his life had no purpose and other people's lives also had no purpose.

25:21

You see, this is atheism. That's all it is. When nothing is considered evil, anything is either acceptable or excusable, whether it's adultery, pornography, homosexuality, fornication, blasphemy, mass murder, or even cannibalism, as in the case of the famous atheist

25:37

Richard Dawkins, who's admired by millions. In an article in the National Review entitled Dawkins wants to eat human meat, the review said, quote, researchers may soon be able to manufacture meat from cell lines in the lab.

25:48

And Dawkins has suggested in a tweet that we could overcome our taboo by eating human flesh. So manufacturing.

25:55

Wow. Then the review said the unique, equal and inherent dignity of every human life is a core belief of Judean Christian moral philosophy and a foundation principle of Western civilization.

26:06

Indeed, every historical evil committed in the West, slavery, eugenics, Jim Crow, the

26:11

Holocaust, the Inquisition, you name it, flowed directly from rejecting or disregarding that principle.

26:18

That's right. And that's and that's exactly what we see out of Eden. You know, what we end up seeing is that when we when we reject

26:24

God. This is what happens. You know, you you guys have heard this plenty of times that, you know, religion has killed more.

26:34

You know, in the in all of history that more people die because of religion. And yet in the last hundred years, not all of history, the last hundred years.

26:46

Atheism has been responsible for killing more people, the murder of more people than all the religions combined in all of history, recorded history.

26:56

You know, when you think about what happened in China, in Russia, Stalin, the

27:02

Mao, you know, you look at the hundreds of millions of people they killed.

27:09

In the name of godlessness, because once you remove God, you remove or you remove everything that is a right and wrong, and now it's just what you make right is right.

27:24

And that's how you can excuse a Holocaust. And for folks who want to say, oh,

27:30

Hitler was religious, they haven't read Hitler. He used the Catholic Church. But he only he, you know, as any politician, he's going to use it to get his power.

27:41

But he didn't believe it. Yeah, he believed he was a devout believer in evolution. And that makes that point later on here, too.

27:49

Someone someone threw that Hitler card out and he's like, politicians kiss babies to get voted to get votes.

27:59

So it's a good one. He said there is no purpose, no evil and no good. We're merely dancing to our own

28:05

DNA. Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist at the Kinsey Institute. Let's go back a million years.

28:12

A man has one wife and has two children. But if he occasionally goes over the hill and sleeps with another woman and has two extra children, he's doubled the amount of DNA he has sent into tomorrow.

28:20

So adultery made it more likely that any given gene pool would continue. Yes. You see how she just justified adultery?

28:30

Like, I mean, she really thinks she's intelligent with that.

28:35

But don't the genes just reproduce regardless? I mean, I don't have to commit adultery for genes to reproduce.

28:45

And if it's not me, it could be someone else. And maybe that someone else is better genetically. You know, but you notice how she just makes the excuse, we have seen the theory of evolution being used to excuse all kinds of behavior that we know is wrong.

29:04

We know it to be wrong, but we use it to justify sinful actions. Now, can you imagine them actually continuing on without thought?

29:16

Now, eventually, it's going to come to the point like, well, look, I mean, people a million years ago, they went around and they killed people for good reason.

29:25

I mean, it's basically what they're going to come across to at some point. They're going to justify killing, even though nowadays, they already have justified killing through abortions.

29:36

Well, but did Hitler not justify the murder of six million

29:41

Jews and five million others because of the fact that they were not as evolutionarily evolved as the

29:49

Aryan race? He argued that they were closest to the apes. So, I mean, follow that logic with all the race topics that are,

29:59

I mean, evolution is what teaches that blacks are closest to the apes, right?

30:05

That's evolutionary thinking. That's not Christian thinking. We would say it's one race and there's no difference.

30:11

It just is a scientific thing. You have either more or less known and that's it. They would say it's an issue of evolution.

30:20

So, really, if there's any group of people that should be standing up against this, it should be the African Americans because, hey, someone could come along and say, hey, look, you aren't as evolved as us whites.

30:30

I mean, that's what Darwin said in Descent of Man. They're not as evolved. It justified the murder of millions of blacks in Nazi Germany.

30:40

And they said the Jews weren't as evolved. That's the excuse they made. And it was a moral thing to do.

30:47

It was a good thing to do. Lest you think that this is just, oh, this is just crazy talk.

30:54

Sam Harris, if you read his book, Death of Faith, he makes the argument that it is morally right to kill people if they can't separate their faith from or their belief from their actions.

31:10

He says it's a moral thing to do to kill them. And now, lest you think that I'm taking him out of context.

31:17

If you read that book and you read the later editions where he puts an addendum to it and he ends up clarifying that point and emphasizing it even more.

31:27

He argues in the new or in the additional ending where he argues because he was asked that question and he argues, yes, it is morally right to kill people who can't separate their beliefs from their actions.

31:45

We should kill them before they kill us. You know what the problem is with that, Sam Harris? Once you start trying to follow that practice, that belief, you then can't separate your belief from your action.

32:01

Everybody acts based on their belief. The problem is when you remove God and you remove morality, then we now have this where people cannot say something is evil.

32:14

They can't explain that something is wrong. And then that action, they want to say

32:21

Islam is really bad. This is worse. At least Islam understands right from wrong.

32:29

Like we evolved to have hope, you know, like we always got to hope for a better future. So who made us evolve? That's the question

32:35

I can't answer. I don't know. Is it evolution or God or God? In my opinion, I'm a

32:40

Christian atheist. I believe in the teachings of the Bible. Christian atheist. Yeah, we've actually heard that before.

32:56

The atheists on Discord, they all say stuff like that. They'll say like, yeah, I'm a Christian atheist.

33:04

How is that possible? Yeah, I mean, so words have no meaning. That's, I mean, that's the whole thing.

33:09

They redefined everything. Yeah. The scientific impossibility that nothing created everything.

33:16

That's insane. Yeah, that could be insane. That could be insane. God was there in the beginning.

33:23

I love what you're saying. God was there in the beginning. God knows. Well, if you think they feared God in those days, America was called God -fearing nation in those days.

33:29

Well, I mean, I would think there was more Christians back then than now, you know, in some ways. Believing God's existence. So I like what you said there.

33:35

There were more Christians back then than now. Like back when before Christ?

33:42

Just saying. How could you have Christians before Christ? See, critical thinking is not under their strong suit, is it?

33:49

That there's something, but I mean. Because you can't teach critical thinking and evolution. I'm still kind of like on my own journey about that kind of thing, you know,

33:56

I can't really answer that question. Think about your own death? Oh yeah, I think everyone does. You can't even define evil, let alone make a judgment that God sees everything that we do that's wrong as evil.

34:06

There are degrees of evil, but lying is evil to God. It's an abomination, the Bible says, so is stealing. So what

34:11

I'm trying to say is that we're as a nation. You see how Ray uses the law. But notice the transition that he did there.

34:19

He's talking about that which is evil with each one of these kids, and going from looking at America's values, looking at the issue of evil, and from there getting into the law of God, getting into discussing what is right and wrong, and where do we know that from?

34:39

This is the thing that's great when you end up looking at what Ray does. Ray is a master at this, at those transitions of just very smoothly, very casually, conversation after conversation, going from one issue right into the gospel over and over.

35:04

Now, this actually encourages me. Ray is sharing the gospel here at Huntington Beach in the rain, and it's encouraging to me because when

35:12

I was out at California, Ray actually was, we were getting really bad weather. Ray was thinking of not going out because he told

35:21

Scotty, hey, it's really bad weather, let's not go. And then the weather broke and it came out nice, and Ray felt bad that he said, you know, not that maybe we shouldn't go.

35:31

And I called him up and said, hey, let's go. And he was like, great. So I'm encouraged.

35:37

The weather doesn't stop him, you know. And notice how many people, even at Huntington Beach, how many people are sitting there in the rain with umbrellas, hearing a guy preach the gospel.

36:35

Only Ray could get away with that. Only Ray could turn to people in public and be like, are you two having sex?

36:41

And they smile and laugh at him. They don't get offended. Only Ray can do that. But it's the way, the manner in which he does this, they're not offended by him.

36:52

You know, he's not insulting even when he asks a personal question like that. It's the accent.

36:59

It's the attitude. It's the demeanor that he has, you know.

37:05

And that is something that for people who go out and evangelize, you know, mimic that from Ray.

37:13

Mimic that because the reality is, as you can see in her face and, you know, she's not offended.

37:19

The other guy wasn't offended. They admit to it. And, you know, he doesn't back down from telling the truth, but because of his demeanor, they're not offended and they don't mind.

37:31

And you see this over and over again with Ray. He'll say things like this and people don't get super upset with him because they realize that he's trying to explain something to them.

37:43

And he's so likable that it's hard to not like him. I would also say that they're not aware that they are living in sin.

37:52

Yeah. And so they just kind of chuckle at it like, oh, yeah, okay. And, you know, when

37:58

Ray points that out, it's like, no, you're living in sin. You're fornicating. You're sexual immorality.

38:05

I mean, you know, when he starts using the Bible as his standard to these guys and they start realizing, oh, okay.

38:14

Yeah, he calls it adultery. Yeah, just did right here. Listen, fornication.

38:20

And the Bible says fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God. What you have to do is that smile and trust in Jesus like you trust a parishioner or like you trust an umbrella.

38:30

Okay. She's holding an umbrella. And if you have Christ, you're sheltered from God's wrath against your sins.

38:36

Would that be a spiritual transition game right there? That would be. And, you know, this is the thing, though. You know, Ray is a master of the spiritual transition game.

38:45

You know, and this is what you're seeing with person after person. Ray is doing this spiritual transition, you know, and he's taking everything that he has, whether it's talking about the school shootings and what evil is and transitioning from that to the gospel in what the law is.

39:07

If here he's, you know, from trusting a parachute to trusting an umbrella to trusting the gospel.

39:12

So that's on that. He's very, very good at. Encourages them to go get married and stop living in adultery.

39:27

And they're not offended. No, they're laughing. He's the best advice they probably ever heard. Yeah. But is he watering down the gospel in any way?

39:36

No. You see,

39:42

Ray doesn't water down the gospel. He's saying hard things, personal things to point out their sin, but doing it in such a loving way that, you know, they're they're listening.

39:54

They're, you know. They haven't left. Yeah. They haven't walked away.

40:04

That's right. You know, the flame is hot.

40:09

True. Yeah, I believe. And I came to know this guy says, well, no one could know anything. A hundred percent.

40:15

Yep. Ray quickly shows him. Yes, there's things, you know, a hundred percent. Stick your hand in fire. You know, it's a rich man who fell in the ocean, wouldn't let go of his gold belt.

40:23

And it took him under. If you hold on to your sins, they'll take you to hell. And I'd hate that to happen. I'd be horrified. Hear the compassion in his voice.

40:29

Just told me you're a lying thief of blasphemer and an adulterer at heart. So if you face God on judgment day and he judges you.

40:34

Yeah. Well, you could say that on judgment day, you'll be guilty and end up in hell. Does that concern you? No. Don't love life?

40:40

No. Do you love life? No, I don't love life. Do you hate life? Very much so. Become a Christian and you'll die to your evil self.

40:47

You give up the battle against God. That's what happens when you become a Christian. You die to yourself and you live for God. You're resurrected in a newness of life.

40:53

Therefore, he's cool with me living my life the way I see fit. No, you're under his wrath. You're an enemy of God in your mind through wicked works. You see how Ray does not water it down at all.

41:00

Every judge sounds like a bully to a guilty criminal. Boom. That's brilliant what

41:07

Ray just did there. Because so many people, this guy's saying, I hate life. I hate life. It's, you know, God's a bully.

41:14

Ray puts it right into perspective, right? A judge always seems like a bully to a criminal.

41:22

A police officer always is a bully to a criminal when they get caught. Always. That's the issue with our culture.

41:28

They want to say God is a bully because they're under his judgment. They hate him.

41:36

They want to be able to get away with murder, literally, and not have anyone tell them they're wrong.

41:44

And when you tell them they're wrong, they want to say you're being a bully. That's what this guy just said. And Ray just put him in his place.

41:51

Because what did he do? He brought him right back in a compassionate way to say, you're a criminal in God's sight.

41:59

And Ray was saying that to him with such compassion that you end up seeing that this guy is,

42:05

I mean, he's got a smile on his face. He's thinking through some of it. I don't think he's ready to convert, but God can do that.

42:14

But the reality is, Ray's not letting him escape with his own foolish thinking.

42:21

This is for the proverb, you answer a fool according to his folly, or don't answer a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him.

42:29

Ray's not giving up God to answer this guy, as some people try to evangelize and do. No, Ray is upholding

42:36

God's word and saying, this is the standard. Yes, of course you think he's a bully, because you're a criminal.

42:43

Ray's not trying to make it sound good for this guy, just so this guy will like it or hear it and be like, oh,

42:50

I really like you. Ray is more concerned that this guy believes in Christ, that this guy loves

42:56

Christ than loves Ray. Ray, along with what a Christian should be, is there is no compromise, especially when it comes to the gospel.

43:06

You have to be, for lack of a better word, I would say cutthroat. You have to be stern to these kind of guys, because sometimes that's what it takes to wake them up.

43:19

If he soft -pedaled it, if he actually went back and just said, well, you know, God does this and this, and he's good here, and he may do something good for you over here,

43:32

I mean, the guy will probably have a completely different view of God, a false view of God.

43:42

And so I think, you know, what Ray does, he stands firm with what the

43:50

Bible teaches. If he doesn't, is this guy going to believe that Ray believes what he believes?

43:57

I mean, if you think about it, I mean, this is the thing, you know, David Wood was telling me that Nabeel Qureshi, when he first became a believer, was very, very passionate, yelling when he would do debates, and people took it negatively in the

44:12

West. And he was explaining to me that from where Nabeel came from, if he didn't argue and sound angry and get heated, the people he knew from the

44:24

Middle East wouldn't think he believed what he believed. Their idea is you could be completely wrong, but if you're completely emotional about it, you believe it.

44:32

Where if you're very calm and have a calm demeanor and willing to just kind of placate, they would think you don't even believe what you're saying.

44:44

You're weak. Yeah. And here, this guy believes Ray believes what he's saying.

44:49

And that's the thing. A lot of people, it's like they share the gospel and they want, well, you know,

44:55

I don't want to say it that way. I mean, just watch Joelstein, right? Ask Joelstein what the gospel is.

45:02

Well, are people going to go to hell? Well, I don't want to think about that. I don't think that people are that bad.

45:10

Yeah. Because what's he trying to, he wants people to like him. He's more interested in people liking him than they are liking

45:17

God. Right. Well, that's a good one. So you need to repent and trust

45:23

Christ. Man, I care about you. Jose, I love you. So he says, Jose, you're a criminal. And this guy said, that's a good point.

45:30

I mean, let's back that up. So you hear that in its context. That's a good one.

45:35

So you need to repent. Hold on, back up a little more. Ah, that's a good one. Because, Rath, you're an enemy of God in your mind through wicked works.

45:43

That's why you need to repent. I messed up. It sounds like a bully to me. Well, every judge sounds like a bully to a guilty criminal.

45:49

Ah, that's a good one. So you need to repent. You see, he's smiling at that. Jose, I love you. I care about you.

45:55

The answer to the problems in this nation is love. And when you love someone, you don't kill them. And that's why people let Ray say what he says.

46:01

They hear the compassion in his voice. You don't see that very often. I walk around.

46:06

I don't see people crying. Probably hurt, you know. You know, they're hurt. Their face expressions. I don't know.

46:12

You just gotta be more friendly to the people around you. You just gotta realize it's a tough world out here. You gotta be more loving.

46:18

Yeah. You're a mortal danger, and I'm just telling you that. So it's not just about loving people more? In a culture that says you gotta love self.

46:25

So how do you love others and love self? You know I'm speaking the truth. You know

46:30

I'm speaking the truth because your conscience bears witness to exactly what I'm saying. So what do you think about this? It's been an interesting conversation, but I want you to think about it.

46:36

Yeah, I'll think about it for sure. I'll think about Christianity. If more and more people become secular, we're basically teasing the bull here.

46:43

Well, you've got the bull attacking you. This is what's happening at school shootings. We've got a secular nation. We've got a nation that draws near to God with its lips, but his heart is far from him.

46:49

We've got to turn to God as a nation and as individuals and say, please forgive us. And he promises to heal our land. That's the answer to the school shootings.

46:55

You see how Ray has the answer? Hitler did what he did in the name of God. There you go. All politicians kiss babies and say they love

47:01

God. That's how to get votes. And so don't be fooled by what people say. Look at what they do. If someone's a

47:06

Christian, they will love you and be concerned about your salvation. That's why I'm concerned for you. Jose, please think about this, okay?

47:13

I'll try. I actually recently went to a Bible study. Jesus said you must be born again. That's so interesting. When you're born again, the moment you stop saying

47:20

I'm a good person and you say I'm evil and I repent of sin and I trust alone in Christ, not my goodness, not my Catholicism, not my confession.

47:26

I trust alone in him as my savior. That's what you need to do. And the moment you do that, God will give you a new heart with new desires.

47:33

And you won't run around saying, I think it's okay for a woman to kill a baby because it's her own body. You'll know right from wrong because you're out of the darkness.

47:38

You're into light yourself. Does this make sense? Does this make 100 % sense? Yes. I pray with you. Of course. Yeah, I'd love to.

47:44

You hear that? He'd love to. Do you notice how Ray is, what he's doing is he's asking questions.

47:52

They won't hate someone. They'll love them. They won't shoot them. He's using questions and he makes people think.

47:59

He's not just preaching at them all the time. He uses questions to get them to have to think because the culture is right now not wanting people to think.

48:14

So many Christians try to teach when we should be asking questions to make them think about it.

48:21

That's what Ray's a master at. This is just one of a series. And that's 20 minutes long, folks.

48:30

So you should be able to share that with folks, to be able to encourage people to watch that.

48:38

It's not very long. The gospel is presented clearly, as you heard, in a very powerful way.

48:44

But notice how the world has no answer for school shootings but the

48:50

Bible does. I mean, Ray can explain it to people very quickly for them to understand.

48:56

The reason we have school shootings and will continue to have school shootings is because we have a secular nation.

49:02

We have a nation that wants to remove God, wants to remove accountability, wants to remove morality, and then say, how does this happen?

49:10

Well, it happens because you removed God. It's not about trying to get prayer back into school.

49:17

That's superficial and does nothing. Okay. It's not about prayer. It's about Christ.

49:25

We need, as Christians, to proclaim the gospel loudly, boldly, but as you heard

49:32

Ray, compassionately. It's not enough to just stand up and preach at people.

49:39

No, lovingly proclaim the truth that they may hear, and by hearing,

49:46

God may bring them to repentance. Amen. Can I also bring up something?

49:55

Because this is what happened recently on Facebook when I shared a video of Todd Friel.

50:06

And I know that Todd and Ray go way back, and they are good friends.

50:12

And this is something I just don't understand, but how some people can claim that Ray or Todd Friel or people like him under the same ministry are not preaching the gospel, and that they're preaching a false gospel.

50:30

And it just blows my mind. How can you not see the gospel in that?

50:35

Why are you not understanding that you have to preach the law first and then give them the good news?

50:44

I mean, it just blows my mind. I mean, have you heard this yet? Oh yeah, I've heard it countless times.

50:50

What did he say about this? I mean, it's just like, I love Ray Comfort. I really do. Yeah. I don't see anything heretical about him.

50:58

Well, you know, look, here's the thing. All right. So Ray Comfort is an evangelist.

51:05

He's not a theologian. He's not a guy who sits and studies theology. And I think part of the problem is that people want

51:13

Ray to have the precision in his words of a theologian, you know, like a

51:20

Mark Spence or an Emile Zwing who work at Living Waters. They have that precision.

51:26

They like to study that. Ray's concern is that people come to know

51:32

Christ. And it's not that what he's saying is heretical in any way.

51:39

It's just he's less concerned with, and he doesn't seem to be as concerned with the precision because when you study theology, the little words, they make big differences sometimes.

51:53

And so what people are doing is attributing to Ray things they've studied. And you have to, and this is true with anybody, you have to understand what they mean by what they say.

52:06

Okay. And Ray has clarified some of these things over and over again.

52:11

I even think there's an article over on Living Waters for the people that were saying, you know, there used to be a thing where people would say, oh,

52:19

Ray saying that if you stop sinning, you'll be saved. And it's like, that's not what he's saying.

52:27

The point is, though, is that you have to understand what he means by his words.

52:35

And if he means that your works will get you saved, that would be the complete opposite of everything he's taught.

52:42

So is that really what he's believing? You know, so put it in context and understand he's, you know, he's not speaking to theologians.

52:52

He's speaking to lost people who don't know anything about the Bible. All right.

53:03

So anything you guys want to add either about this new film that I encourage folks to share or specifically about these school shootings that have been going on?

53:17

Just that the answer is us proclaiming the gospel. And the only thing that's going to save this nation is the

53:25

Lord God himself. You know, right now, I believe he's lifted his hand of protection off of us more and more because of the route it's been going.

53:33

But that's not to say that if a nation turns like Israel did so many times back to the

53:39

Lord that it can't reverse what's been done. Do you think, Vincent, that this nation, the way they're behaving now, do you think they want to turn?

53:51

I do not. But I also don't think that it's not devoid of if the

53:58

Lord's willing to let this nation turn back. That is his call. So I believe in the

54:04

Lord's hands for sure. Yes. So let me ask you, Vincent, if the Lord is going to bring a revival to this nation, how's he going to do it?

54:13

He's going to do it by his people proclaiming the gospel. That's right. Far and wide to everyone.

54:20

So all those people that are like, that are Christians glued to Fox News and going, Oh, I can't believe this is happening.

54:26

And that's happening in there. And they're worrying about what the politicians are doing. And they know Trump's every move.

54:32

And they knew Barack Obama's every move. And yet they don't know God's every move.

54:38

They don't. They're not reading their Bible to know what God's will is. You know, if you're a

54:44

Christian listening today, and you're looking at these school shootings, and you're talking about gun control, or the immorality of our society, or the fact that people don't have a regard for life anymore, and that's all you see, you're missing the point of what

55:05

Ray was capturing. See, it's not about those things. It's about the gospel. We as believers must be about the business of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people, so that some may come to know

55:20

Christ. That's our commission. That's our job. And instead of complaining about society and saying,

55:27

Oh, it's turning so evil. It's turning so bad. Well, the reason it's turning so bad and turning so evil is because it is

55:34

God's judgment on a nation that has turned their back on God. And it started with the church.

55:41

It started when the church wanted acceptance from the world that we're never going to have. We shouldn't seek that.

55:48

Like Ray did, lovingly share the truth. Don't water it down. We do have to be loving in our approach.

55:57

We do have to be having so much compassion for them that they see that.

56:04

But we still must proclaim the truth. And so I encourage you guys to share this movie from Living Waters.

56:14

You could go to livingwaters .com slash school dash shooting dash movie.

56:20

I'll have the link in the show notes. And so I want to transition there and get into talking about a giveaway.

56:30

We're going to do a giveaway, John. You always like Bible giveaways, don't you? I think you have a nice Schuyler red

56:40

Bible that I got to hold in my hands once. You don't have a preacher's

56:45

Bible to hold in your hands yet. I don't. Okay. So are you wondering how you might be able to enter into a contest to get brand new?

56:55

How can I get my hands on this Bible? This preacher's Bible? I got to have it.

57:00

Well, you can't because I don't like you. And if your name comes up in the drawing, I'm throwing it out. I would not be offended because I already have my nice Bible.

57:10

Well, I will say I was shocked. And folks who heard the drawing know this. I was shocked.

57:15

I forget what the number was, but I think it was like 12 ,000 entries the last time we gave away because people were going like crazy sharing super tons a lot.

57:26

It was way too much to count. So we're going to do something that may limit those numbers.

57:32

You have a better odds. Okay. We don't want it to be something like winning a Powerball. Like the odds should be better than that.

57:38

Right. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have another giveaway of a brand new $200 preacher's

57:45

Bible. And by the way, it was designed by John MacArthur. Now, I got to clarify because last time we did so many people were like,

57:52

I don't want a Bible written by men. There's no words of John's in there. It's maybe other than an introduction.

57:58

It's a Bible that he designed. So it had wide margins, thick pages, so you could write on and they wouldn't bleed through.

58:05

Okay. That's the design he did. He designed it for preachers so that it lays flat. You can write your notes in big font.

58:12

You can see it easily while preaching. It's a beautiful Bible. Here's how you enter.

58:19

One, you subscribe to the Wrap Report podcast.

58:24

Can we see who subscribed? No, actually we can't. But we encourage you to subscribe. The other thing we ask you to do is follow us on Twitter.

58:34

Look for Andrew Wrap Report at Andrew Wrap Report. Follow us there. Look for on Facebook, follow the

58:42

Striving Fraternity Ministries page. You can also join the group where we dialogue.

58:48

So join those. But how do you enter? You enter by leaving a feed on iTunes for this podcast.

58:56

Leave us a feed. I'm sorry. Leave us a review. The review actually doesn't get us any, you know, some people say, oh, leave us a review because it gets us noticed in iTunes.

59:05

No, actually it doesn't. But it is good feedback for us to know what you're thinking of this podcast.

59:12

So leave us a review. But you say, well, I can only leave a review once. So you're saying I can only enter once.

59:17

No, you can leave a review. But there's other things we're going to give you as entries. You can email us at info at striving for eternity dot o -r -g.

59:26

Info at striving for eternity dot o -r -g. Let us know a couple things. You can email us.

59:32

You can let us know topics you want us to discuss, questions you want us to answer. Or you could just let us know how you think we're doing.

59:40

So you can ask a lot of different questions. You can do that. But we want to engage with you.

59:46

We want to dialogue with you. We're going to take some of your suggestions and deal with them on, if it's on short, we could address in our weekly, on our daily podcast, which is a two -minute podcast.

59:56

We'll deal with it there. If it's a longer one, as one we're going to deal with next week, is on whether you can lose your salvation from Hebrews 6.

01:00:06

We're going to address that question and see whether the Bible teaches that. Those are questions we want to answer.

01:00:13

So you can email us at info at striving for eternity dot o -r -g. Leave us a review on iTunes.

01:00:21

And you can still share the rap report podcast with hashtag rap report.

01:00:28

And we will count all those as entries. So the more you do it, yes, the more you can get entered.

01:00:35

But really what we're looking for is folks that will give a review. And we want honest reviews.

01:00:43

You know, if you want to say, look, John, he just drives me nuts when you guys talk. Oh, yeah,

01:00:48

I agree with you. Oh, sorry. We could talk about Josh since he left early. By the way, Josh is the one that wanted us to start recording late.

01:00:56

And then, you know, hey, did you guys hear that was his wife calling like an hour ago?

01:01:02

And, you know, he had to go right away. So and he's not here to defend himself.

01:01:09

We're so bad. But we're glad that he was able to join us for the little bit that he could. But encourage you guys to enter in.

01:01:16

Leave us a review. Share this podcast with others. We would appreciate that. Subscribe and encourage others to subscribe.

01:01:24

And until next week, we want to remind you to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.