Radio Lux Lucet 105

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00:24

You're listening to Radio Looks. Listen, I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 105. The title of this episode is

00:31

Happy New Year 2024. Yeah, I'm trying something new here today. And, you know, sometimes when you try something new, you get weird things going on them.

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You might see me, I'm in portrait mode right now. The streaming service that I use is called

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Restream. It's a program, you gotta pay for it. But anyway, they made it possible to do live streams now on Instagram.

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Now, I don't normally use Instagram, hardly ever use it, but I have an account. I thought, why not give it a shot?

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And so I did. And I had the Instagram account sound on.

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And when I started the first time around, it ended up feeding back, there's a delay there.

01:13

So I'm streaming again to Instagram this time. But this time, I actually just closed the window that I had open.

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So hopefully we won't get the feedback. It sounds like everything's working okay right now. Should be interesting to see if the Restream feed actually goes through this time.

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But yeah, but one of the things that requires you when you stream on Instagram is you have to be in portrait mode.

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So that's why instead of seeing the usual landscape, you just see this portrait mode is what they call it.

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So anyway, I'm just kind of playing around with some things and trying to learn the old dogs trying to learn some new tricks.

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I hope you had a good 2023. And I hope you had a chance to learn some new things yourself. During the year. I just had a project

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I got that I was pretty stoked about. You probably can see it a little bit behind my head here. Back on the back wall back there.

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Those are some acoustic tiles I finally got mounted. And I'm pretty excited about that.

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Because one of the things I've noticed is depending on the recording that I the service that I've used, that sometimes these recordings come out kind of echoey.

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And I'm hoping that this will cut down on the echo. This is a fairly live room. I've got a kind of like a Persian rug on the floor, but it's not doesn't have a real thick nap.

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So it doesn't absorb a lot of sound on the walls themselves. I mean, it's just their bare walls for the most part. So there's a lot of echo in here there can be.

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I've got some I put up on the wall in front of me. And as I said, I've got some on the wall behind me.

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And well, anyway, we'll see. I've got some extras that I can add if I need to. But we'll see if see what kind of help these these tiles get.

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So anyway, I was kind of excited about that. It's funny how you can learn things through YouTube.

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And I was doing some studying on YouTube. And I did this a number of months ago back early in the year. And I bought these tiles.

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And I've been meaning to get started on the things. And I made a little bit of a start. And then I had to stop. And I didn't get anything done for months and months and months.

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And one of the big goals I had as I was off this whole past week, from work,

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I wanted I wanted to get these acoustic tiles up. So I, I succeeded in doing that. So I'm thankful for that.

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And like I say, we'll, we'll see how things go. As I said, I hope you all had a great 2023.

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I had a pretty good year this past year, I had some successes, was able to, one of the things

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I did, I was able to do a certification at work, I work in the retirement plan business.

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And I, I was able to successfully complete a course of studies, it was about a six month course.

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And I guess I probably put in close to I'd say 300 hours in studying for this thing.

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So it was a lot, you know, I mean, it was probably 10, 15, 10, 12, 15 hours a week, typically to get through that.

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And I took the test back in early, early November. So almost two months ago, and I passed that.

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So I was real happy with that. And Lord willing, I plan on doing one final certification here in 2024.

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Now my, my goal is I probably won't start until in the fall next year. And maybe work it over the winter.

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So we'll, we'll see how that goes. But that's, that's the game plan. Anyway, that's one of the reasons why I haven't done so many podcasts this year,

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I've only done just a handful, I, I did one, I think, right back around the first of June.

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And then I had was off, didn't do anything for almost six months, I did the one on Thanksgiving, and I was hoping to get more done after Thanksgiving and start doing it on a regular weekly basis again.

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But it just I've had various things come up, you know how it is. And during Christmas season, I rejoined the choir at church, and we did a

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Christmas cantata back on, I think it was the first weekend in December. And then we had a, a second weekend in December.

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And then we had a Sunday School Christmas party the next Saturday. And then last week, you know, it was right before Christmas, and there's all kinds of stuff going on.

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I couldn't get that done. And but today, I finally got one done here. It's December 30. Actually, well, it's well, it's right about it's midnight right now.

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So I guess it's actually officially December 31, 2023. And this is this is

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New Year's Eve. So anyway, so I can wish everybody a Happy New Year's, it's going to be 2024 and exactly 24 hours.

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So that's, that's kind of exciting. Well, anyway, so that's kind of,

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I guess, in a nutshell, my year this year, I didn't really get to go any place cool for vacation. Unfortunately, that was was too bad.

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When I went to went to a Christmas Eve service last week, and I ran into a friend of mine, we've been friends since we were kids, going way back to we're about 12 years old.

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And I had a chance to get together with him over the later that evening and just met and talked.

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That was a lot of fun. And he's got a son now in in college, you know, who's you know, his son is he's taller than I am.

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He's like six two or something like that. And anyway, it was good to see. Good to see him and his son and anyway, wish wish them both a

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Happy New Year as well. Let's see, I don't have anything really other than that terribly exciting for myself in 2023.

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Yeah, I just I know this, I know the year goes pretty quickly. You know, it's amazing how fast that goes. One of the things in my business, that my line of work, it's, as I say, do retirement plan work, retirement plan administration work.

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And we're about to get really busy here in about two weeks or so. With we're a little bit like in my line of work, we're a little bit like accountants, in that our busy time of year is the first quarter, because what we do is you got to wait for the year to be over to get all of the numbers from the prior year.

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So you can crunch them. What happens is all these, these retirement plans, I work mostly on 401k plans, maybe some of you've got a 401k plan at work.

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But all these plans, they have to undergo testing every year to make sure that they're doing the things that they should be doing and not doing things they shouldn't be doing.

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And you know, all the numbers are, are proper. But they do a lot of number crunching.

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So they these plans submit all this data to us, then we crunch the numbers, and maybe we have questions about the numbers and just some back and forth.

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And then finally issue a final result. It's a little bit like if, say, maybe you have somebody do your taxes, you know, if maybe you've got an accountant, you know, you got to give them all your information, maybe the accountant might come back and say,

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Hey, we got questions about, you know, A, B, and C, and then you've got to provide additional information. Well, that's what

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I go through, but I've got 180 clients. So I have to sort of shepherd them all through the process.

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And that typically starts right about the middle of January, it takes a couple weeks for most of the clients to really start getting their data to us.

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And then that's when we start doing the, the number crunching. So we're about to get really busy here in a couple weeks.

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It's been nice here at the end of the year, just for things to kind of, kind of back down a bit and not be so busy.

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But, but yeah, you know, come the middle of January, it's gonna be right back at it. And, you know, as I said, it seems like, you know, goodness, the year goes so fast.

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And it seems like we just got done doing this last year. I am thankful.

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One other thing I can be thankful for certainly in 2023 was having the, the opportunity to, to get another year on the job.

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I've been working for my current company for about a year and a half. And when you, you start a new job with a new company, even though I've been in the field for a while now, it's, it's like, there's a lot of things that are different.

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When you start with a new company, you may be some, you've had that experience, maybe in your own jobs, you know, you maybe you've done something for a while, but you start with a new company, they have their own way of doing things.

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And there's a big learning curve. And so this will be, I've already had a full cycle under my belt now, in, in, in 2023.

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And now starting in 2024, I'll be going back and doing that a second time. So I think things should be a little bit easier.

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So anyway, hopefully, well, hopefully, it'll be a little bit easier. We'll see here. But I guess that's really about it on my, it on the, the job things for the year.

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I did have a chance to, a couple other things, I did have a chance to do a second

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Reformation Day presentation for the Trinity Foundation. So I enjoyed doing that was on the subject of Rome and immigration, and how the

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Roman Catholic Church is doing a great deal to drive the immigration, the illegal alien crisis that we're facing here in the

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United States. So that was interesting. And I also had, you know, probably the best thing that I did in 2023 is

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I had an opportunity at church to begin teaching a men's Bible study.

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And, you know, that has been one of the most sanctifying and best things that I've done in a long, long time. It's really been nice to get back to doing some live and in -person teaching.

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I taught Sunday school years ago, but it's probably been 15 years since I've done that. And it's really been nice.

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It's been really a wonderful experience to get back in and dig into the scriptures. You know, when you are teaching a class of any sort of Bible study, what have you,

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I mean, you got to put in the time to get ready for it. And it's been great to just have an opportunity to dig into the

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Word of God and to really prepare myself for things. We just finished doing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

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John. We just wrapped up 3rd John this past week, and we're going to begin next week. We're going to be doing, starting on Jude.

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And that's a book that is not often studied, but I think it's got a lot of very interesting things and a lot of very important things in it.

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It is the Word of God, even though it's a small book. Sometimes we tend to overlook the smaller books, but there's a number of things in there that I think are worthwhile studying, and it deserves respect as the

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Word of God. So anyway, I'm really kind of excited about having an opportunity to do that, and we get that done.

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I think what we're going to be doing is probably looking at Daniel. And then we're going to be doing Revelation, Lord willing, probably sometime later in 2024.

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And what's going to be interesting about that is the plan here that I have for it, I want to approach

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Revelation using the historicist system of prophetic interpretation.

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And that's going to be very interesting to see how that goes. And if you could pray for me about that, because I know that it's something that's,

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I think, very biblical. I think it's very Reformed in terms of its approach.

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I mean, the nickname for historicism is the Protestant School of Prophetic Interpretations.

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I mean, this goes back 500 years to the Reformation, and even somewhat before that, really.

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But it's been almost forgotten in the last 125 years or so, really since about 1900.

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There was a big deal in the Presbyterian Church where they made some changes to the

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Westminster Confession in 1902, and the new version of the Confession came out in 1903, and it eliminated the historicist references in the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. And I think that was a major mistake. That was the portion of the

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Confession that identified the Pope as Antichrist. Now, that's a very controversial position today.

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And some people may not like that. I don't know. We'll just have to see.

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Historicism is a fascinating way of looking at Revelation. It's the only thing I've ever seen that made any sense out of it.

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So, anyway, Lord willing, that's going to be sometime here, probably later in 2024.

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Probably won't get to it until the fall, I wouldn't suppose. So, give me some time to get ready for it.

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I've not had an opportunity to teach Revelation before, so that's going to be an interesting experience.

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And I really think it could be... I look forward to it, but it's a little bit scary, too, to think about that as well.

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So, anyway, Lord willing, that will be something that will happen here in 2024.

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So, let's see. Other than that, I guess that really probably covers my 2023 and look ahead from a personal perspective in 2023.

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So, what else do we have here as far as 2024 goes, I should say? Well, 2024, it's interesting.

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If you follow the news, and I've got my favorite commentators, and writers, and YouTubers, and people like this to follow, as maybe you do as well.

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And one of the common... In fact, I would say the most common... I guess common theme, maybe we'll put it that way, that you read in people, in various commentators,

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YouTubers, what have you, podcasters, is they talk about 2024 being a really tough year.

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Maybe if you follow some of Tucker Carlson's work on X. Always want to still call it

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Twitter. I don't know why they changed the name to X. I thought that was a mistake. I still think it was a mistake. When you go to do something on Twitter, I mean, you used to be able to use

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Twitter as a verb, right? You could say, well, you could tweet something out. I mean, what do you do now? You say you X.

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I mean, you can't really use... I can't say I X to post. I mean, that sounds kind of silly. I suppose you can say it, but it sounds kind of silly.

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I guess you'd have to say I posted to X rather than tweet it out. I kind of like saying tweet it out.

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I think that's a very natural way of speaking. And for whatever reason,

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Elon Musk decided to rebrand it to X. I don't know, maybe he's trying to put some separation between the old, some of the bad censorship stuff that went on and the new branding as a more free speech platform.

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I think that's actually one of the really bits of good news. Sometimes it's hard to find good news in what's going on all around us.

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I mean, you see a lot of bad stuff. I mean, it really is. I mean, there's a lot of bad things that have gone on and there are some bad things that don't look so great for 2024.

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But I think certainly one maybe surprise positive that we had in 2023 was

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Elon Musk. He actually completed the purchase of Twitter, I think it was in what,

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November of 2022 and began to immediately make some changes. There were a lot of revelations about some of the, well, let's say rigging and things like this that were going on behind the scenes at X with the government.

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And the platform has definitely become more free speech than it's been in a long, long time.

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Now, it's not perfect, but it certainly is a lot better. And that's a good thing.

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That's a good thing that that has been reduced. I think it's important as Americans that we fight for that First Amendment right to free speech.

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Now, some people say, oh, well, it's a private company and they can do what they want. And if you don't like it, you go out and found your own

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Twitter. You go make your own YouTube, you go make your own Facebook, these kinds of things.

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Well, there's something to be said for that. But I think it was always interesting that argument was usually made by people who had zero respect for the free market.

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These people who are making that argument. And as we came to find out, when the

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Twitter files were all dumped, some of the work that Matt Taibbi and others did on the

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Twitter files, that it wasn't just the Twitter people that were doing this, but they were in collusion directly with the government.

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And that type of private -public partnership, if you will, that's actually almost the dictionary definition of fascism.

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When you've got the government controlling private companies and using private companies to attack free speech, that is fascist.

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That's what that is. Fascism, a lot of times, it's interesting people use that word and it's kind of become a bit of a political swear word.

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You say, oh, so -and -so is a fascist. We like to hear, or you often hear people talk like that.

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And I think a lot of times when people, one person accuses somebody else of being fascist, I don't know that they really even know what fascism is.

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But fascism, it's a type of socialism. And in fascism, private property still exists.

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Now, maybe we can talk about fascism in contrast to communism. In a communist society, the government owns all means of production.

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So there are no privately owned farms. There are no privately owned factories. There are no privately owned grocery stores or things of this sort.

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Now, you still can have private property in a communist system. For instance, you can own your own toothbrush.

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You can own your own shirt, things of this sort. But those aren't the means of production.

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You can't own, as I said, you can't own a factory that makes shirts. You can't own a factory that makes toothbrushes.

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Or you can't own a store that sells toothbrushes or shirts or other sorts of things. Those are all state -owned.

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So the state owns the means of production. Now, in a fascist economy, you can still own, as an individual, you could still own your own farm, you could still own your own factory, you could still own your own store, your own restaurant.

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But the government regulates and tells you how to go about your business and everything. That's the fascist model.

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And you might pick up on that. We actually have had a lot of fascism in the United States, certainly going back to at least the 1930s, and probably even beginning in earnest in the

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Progressive Era in the early 20th century. So that's what fascism is.

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Fascism is that public -private partnership. That's usually the kind of language you often hear politicians talk about.

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Oh, this is public -private partnership. And what that is, is that's kind of a kinder, gentler, euphemistic way of saying fascism.

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Nobody likes to use the word fascism because it's got a very ugly name. About 80 or 90 years ago, with good reason, we as Christians, we don't advocate for fascism.

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And of course, we don't advocate for communism either. Neither communism nor fascism is a

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Christian political or economic arrangement. We believe in liberty and limited government and a constitutional republic.

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We believe in private property. We believe in capitalism. That is the Christian message of politics and economics.

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And as Christians, we know we need to keep making that point. The importance of having limited government, the rule of law, having sound money, having liberty, freedom of speech.

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Freedom of speech is constantly under attack in the West. And you see this, on the one hand, by the sometimes they're called the neoliberal types, and they want to enforce certain narratives.

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Since I'm going out on social media, I'm going to be a little bit careful about that. But say narratives related to, say, certain diseases, certain international conflicts, they want to maintain a certain narrative.

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But what's also troubling too, as you see here more recently, that a lot of people who claim to be, oh, they're for the

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Constitution and they're for free speech, and they want to fight against all that censorship on the internet. Well, because this conflict going on now in the

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Middle East, there's a lot of people want to crack down on free speech there too. And some of them have been actually quite brutal, and they've made very sharp about faces.

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And you have a lot of Republicans attacking free speech. Nikki Haley, for example.

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Nikki Haley is probably, of all the candidates, probably the worst on that issue. But as Christians, I mean, we need to defend the

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Constitution. One writer I read quite a bit, he says the United States is the

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Constitution. And I think that's probably, I think that's a good way of thinking about it. Without the

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Constitution, this is not the same country. And there's always that tendency to want to shut somebody down.

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And if you don't agree with them, well, we're going to get the government to shut you down, to shut you up.

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And that is antithetical to our Constitution.

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And as some people have said, and I agree with this as well, that the proper stance of a social media company is really the

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First Amendment. And that's, you know, should there be some type of moderation on a social media platform?

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Well, I think yes. And I think that moderation should conform to the First Amendment. I mean, there's certain things you can't go out and you can't threaten to physically harm somebody.

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You can't, you know, there's certain things, you know, that are illegal, that are violent. You cannot go out and say illegally.

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I mean, if you're threatening physical harm to somebody who's standing,

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I mean, that's not protected First Amendment speech. You know, if you're trying to incite a crowd to say, go harm somebody, you can't do that.

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You're not permitted to do that. But, you know, free speech is very broad.

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And, you know, that First Amendment, that is one of our most precious rights. There's a good reason why the First Amendment is the First Amendment, because everything else really is predicated on that.

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And it's very biblical, it's very Christian, you know, to be able to talk and debate issues openly, rather than just using the power of the state to crush your opponents.

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I mean, it's always tempting to want to do that, right? You know, I don't want to have to argue with these people. I'm just going to use the power of state to shut them up.

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And of course, that's the way it's been in most of history. You use the power of state to shut people up. So, I mean, there have been, you know, this past year,

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I think the First Amendment really does, to some degree, weigh in the balance right now.

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I don't think it's settled. I don't know how that's going to go.

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I mean, I wish I could sit here and tell you. I mean, as I said, there's some positive things. I mean, the fact that Twitter has become more free, or X has become more free speech.

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The fact that other social media platforms have come up that are supportive of free speech.

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I mean, you think, for instance, Rumble has gained a lot of following in the last year or two.

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I mean, it used to be that there was only one video sharing service, right? I mean, it was like YouTube or nothing. And if you didn't stream on YouTube, well, you know, well, that was pretty much it.

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That was the only game in town. Well, there are other video channels. It's not just Rumble. There are other ones. I think, what, Odyssey is another one.

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There's a few others that are slipping my mind right now. But there are alternatives.

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And that's really the main point there. And it's also true in other areas of social media as well.

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I mean, for instance, there's Gab out there that is a competitor of X. And there's

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True Social. I guess that's Trump's platform. There is Getter, I think, out there as well.

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So, I mean, there are other places you can go to get your message out rather than just all the big, you know, sort of legacy, if you want to call them that, legacy social media companies.

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And even those haven't been around all that long. So, it's good news that there is, I think, more freedom out there on the internet maybe than there was two or three years ago.

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But that's still a problem. I mean, censorship is still an issue with tech.

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And there's also, of course, there's the issues of free speech being attacked on places like college campuses.

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I think it was interesting this past year, of course, Riley Gaines. She was a University of Kentucky swimmer.

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I think she's graduated now. But she has gone around and has campaigned against trans women being in women's sports.

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And I think she was out in California someplace. And she was attacked to the point that she had to be whisked into some room to get away from the angry mob.

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And you see a lot of that on college campuses today. There are certain ideas you simply cannot bring up on a college campus.

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And that's one of them. Now, here in Ohio, it's kind of interesting, too. We had a, in fact, this was just a couple days ago, the governor, our governor,

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Mike DeWine, vetoed a couple of bills having to do with transgender care for those who, for minors, and also a bill that would have prohibited the trans women from participating in women's sports.

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And he vetoed these. A lot of people are frustrated with that. And apparently, I was reading some of the local stories here.

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I'm from Ohio. So I was reading some stories here in the local paper, and they were talking about this. And the bill has support, has a supermajority support in the

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Ohio State Legislature. So there's a good chance. I think it's certainly an opportunity.

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I think that that veto could be overridden. And those laws may end up being passed anyway.

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That bill may end up being passed. So we'll see on that. We'll keep an eye on it. And I'll keep you posted as I find out more.

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But right now, at any rate, the bill that would have prohibited transgender care for minors and trans women, that is men, from competing in women's sports, that bill was vetoed.

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So that's where things stand right now. And we can pray that good sense and Christian view of men and women prevails in this case.

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And I think it's certainly something that I need to be in prayer with, in prayer for, as somebody who lives in Ohio here.

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So anyway, that's some of the big things that have gone on in 2023.

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And I'm sure they will continue on into 2024. Another thing, too, that a lot of the commentators that I've read have talked about is, of course, obviously, the upcoming presidential election.

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I mean, there's a lot of concern that people have.

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And I think that that's a legitimate concern. I mean, what were the big stories this past week, or maybe the past couple weeks?

28:54

In, I guess, Colorado, the Supreme Court in Colorado said, well, that they can remove

29:00

Trump from the ballot in Colorado. Now, I guess the

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Supreme Court said, well, you know, it's pending review by the US Supreme Court.

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Now, from what I have seen, that there are apparently some people who know some things about the

29:22

Supreme Court. They think it could be a 9 -0 decision. That is a unanimous decision on the

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US Supreme Court to overturn the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court.

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But then again, you had another situation in Maine, where the Secretary of State there also took unilateral action to remove

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Donald Trump from the ballot. And this is going to be, yeah,

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I mean, these are sort of the opening salvos. And I think what's going to be probably a pretty unique election season.

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So, I mean, we're coming up on that. That's going to be, I don't know exactly what date, but what is it, the second, first Tuesday in November, second

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Tuesday in November, I guess it is, whatever that date is in 2024. So, I mean, we're about 10 months away.

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So, it's not too far. And I think it's going to be a very eventful next 10 months.

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I don't think there's, I think that's pretty much a consensus view. And it's my view as well.

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I don't see how this is not a very contentious time for this nation. And again,

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I tend to be kind of a glass half empty guy.

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I'm a pessimist by nature. I'm not saying that's a good thing to be. I'm just saying that that's kind of how

30:47

I am. And the Lord's working on me. I'm getting better.

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But sometimes it's very easy to become really just disgusted and say, well, everything is just going to pieces and it's going to be a huge disaster.

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And I mean, there are some reasons to be concerned about this coming year. But as Christians, I mean, we know who's in charge.

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We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose.

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Now, we know that. We also know this. I mean, we're called to pray for those who are in authority.

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We're called to pray for our countries. And we need to be in prayer for our country. And I have to admit,

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I don't do that as much as I should. And that's something that by God's grace,

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I want to be able to do more of in 2024. So that's, I think, something that I know that I need to do.

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And it's something that we all need to, you know, as Christians, I mean, we need to be doing this.

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Because things are, you know, civility, I mean, civilization is a blessing from God. And the civilization that we have, with all the warts, all the problems that are out there,

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I mean, we still have some things that most people in the history of this world have never had, you know, the ability to speak.

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And we've got some wonderful technology, just like what this is, you know, the internet and all the social media platforms.

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And, you know, the fact that some guy can sit behind a microphone and broadcast to the world or podcast to the world, maybe

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I should say. And of course, that's one of the things that really concerns the powers that be, right? Yeah, they don't want ordinary people actually having a voice, you know, they just want you to shut up and do what they tell you to do.

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Well, we don't have to do that, you know, we can speak. And I'm thankful for the opportunity that I have to be able to speak as well.

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And that's something that as Christians, we need to be thankful for that. And we need to be able to use it, we need to use it.

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We need to be able to talk, you know, whether you don't have to have a, you don't have to do videos, you don't have to have a podcast or things like that.

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But we can all speak, you know, we can all speak to our families, we can all speak to our neighbors. And maybe you've thought about doing some podcasting or something.

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Do it, you know, the thing is, you can get into this for almost nothing. I mean, if you've got a laptop, you know, you can set up a

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YouTube channel, you can set up a Facebook account, you can go live, you can do it right off your cell phone if you want to.

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So, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to at least get started. If you've never done it before, maybe you'll think about a

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New Year's resolution, right? I mean, this is a time for resolutions, a lot of people make.

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And I think it is a good time to reflect on the year that's gone, that's passed, and to think about the year to come.

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You know, I know there's certainly some things that I need to change personally, some of the areas that I need to grow in.

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And, you know, it's a good time to maybe write some of those down, maybe to go to the

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Lord in prayer about that and to ask His guidance, to ask for wisdom.

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You know, I mean, what's that, you know, one of my favorite verses always like what James says, you know, that if anyone asks or anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach.

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You know, you and I are called to go to God and ask for wisdom. I mean, that's a great thing.

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You know, He gives that. He doesn't just give it, He gives it generously. That's what James tells us. So I think that's certainly something that I need to do.

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And that's something that I, by God's grace, I plan on doing.

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So you can hold me accountable for that. Maybe next year you can sit and ask me if I've been doing that.

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And have I been praying for wisdom? Have I been praying for God's guidance?

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Have I been praying to grow in areas that I need to grow in?

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You know, those are things that I know that I need to do. And I know that He's been with me this past year too, you know, the

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Lord has, and He has blessed me, and I'm thankful for that. So anyway, that's really about all that I had here.

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I didn't have a super long program here today. I didn't really feel like getting into all of the weeds as far as commentary.

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There's a lot that can be said, and Lord willing, we'll have opportunities to do that in the future podcast, and in future articles, blog posts.

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Oh, you know, one thing too, I don't know if you follow my blog, Luke Solicit, I have started doing something, or tried doing something here over the past couple weeks that's new.

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And that is I'm actually posting some stories that I find that I think are of interest, and I think that fit in with some commentary that I've either done here on the podcast or on the blog.

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And just post some links to some stories, maybe with a short paragraph commentary on it.

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And anyway, if you haven't had a chance to check those out, I think there's just so many interesting stories that are out there, and sometimes, you know, it's good to just post something short and let people read that.

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So anyway, that's something I've been trying to do in addition to doing my weekly blog post as well.

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So we'll see how that works out. And as I said, I invite you to check it out. I think maybe you might find some interesting stories there.

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So anyway, that's about all I have here for today. Again, I wish you all a very happy and blessed 2024.

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And I look forward to seeing you again, I hope, here on a more frequent basis here, starting in 2024 as well.

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So with all that, I just like to say may the spirit of truth guide you in all truth as you read and study