Mass Murder in Sri Lanka and Some cannot Identify the Victims

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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And when we look at the way Christ describes the church and the way Stephen Furtick describes the church.

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The church is for believers to be equipped for every good work to go out of the church and then share the gospel with the lost so they may be converted and come into the body of Christ.

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Steve Furtick has it backwards. Welcome to the

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Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is the ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church go to strivingforeternity .org.

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Okay, we are going to be tackling some topics in the media today.

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If you have not had your head in the sand, you have heard about what happened in Sri Lanka, we're going to talk about that, give hopefully a biblical view on this, but also what we want to do is not only give a biblical view for this, but we want to basically discuss what we see going on in the media.

01:17

Who is the we? Well, I brought on with me someone who has a city named after him.

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It's Omaha. Look, people on the east and west coast don't understand that flyover country stuff. Right, right, right, right.

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We don't, we don't even matter. And I mean, see, so I've, I've got, I've got Hollywood Harrison DeBlaine.

01:38

That's right. Because he's given me the moniker Omaha and now that's what I'm known as. And so people fly over this.

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In fact, here's, here's, here's something funny for you, Andrew. I was listening to James White the other day on the dividing line and when, when he mentioned you, well, he, he mentioned, you know, a tweet that, that, uh, that, that Daryl had had posted, which

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I thought was great. I mentioned a bunch of people. He mentioned all first and last name and he said, and Omaha.

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And I went, you don't even know my name. I thought that was great.

02:15

I heard that. I would laugh as well. I went, wow. No mention of Virgil Walker. Just Omaha. Just Omaha.

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Just Omaha. That was great. So for folks who don't know, uh, Virgil Walker is the cohost on Just Thinking with Hollywood dangerous

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Daryl Harrison. Um, his name is Daryl Harrison, but since he's given nicknames out, it's only fitting that he has some.

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So some people have called him dangerous Daryl, uh, but Phil Johnson referred to him as Hollywood Harrison.

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So I'm sticking with that one. No, that's a good one. That's a good Hollywood Harrison. That's, that's a, that's a nice one.

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He, he, he, when we talked about it on the show, he said, you know, if, if that sticks, it will.

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And he's not, you know, he's, he's not, doesn't prefer one or the other, but I recognize my role.

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I am, he, he is a, I am B he is Batman. I am Robin. And so I don't give out the, uh, the nicknames.

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I, I, I take the nicknames and so I'm just kind of, kind of playing my role. I did leverage, you know, when you, when you mentioned it,

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I, I leveraged you and I kind of threw Phil under the bus as well for, for mentioning the Hollywood piece.

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But, uh, but yeah, that's kind of how it works on just thinking. So yeah. So we got to get everyone referring to him as Hollywood Harrison.

03:29

I did enjoy the fact that I was out in Hollywood, Florida, taking pictures of everyone where there's a Hollywood sign tagging him.

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And then the next day someone else started doing the same thing. It was great. Right, right, right. That was good.

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No, man. It's, it's a joy to be a part of just thinking and, uh, and to get some of the, some of the attention and love that we're getting from, from folks from all over the place.

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It's been a blessing. And then, you know, get a chance to meet you and get a chance to be on, uh, on here on the rap report.

03:54

I was listening to the intro, man. I, I, I kind of was, was checking it out. You kind of, you kind of had a, had kind of a slang look, kind of hip hop this into the rap report.

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I was like, wait a minute. You got a little sauce to him. What's up with that? That isn't me. That's a John Wilkinson that does that.

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Okay. So yeah, he put that together and he thought with the rap, since everyone was thinking it was rap music in the early, the first, when we first started doing it.

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So he thought it'd have a little bit of a rap sound to it. Uh, so yeah,

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I said, I've never heard, I've never heard Andrew sound like that, but okay. I mean, yeah, that's why, because I still don't sound like that.

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You don't, you don't want to hear me trying to do some hip hop or beat box or, or that. No, no.

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I, I, I would, I would make a really good YouTube video if I did it.

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I mean, we'd be ones where everyone's just laughing at me. Like there's a guy who can't do it.

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Doesn't know he's shouldn't be doing it. Right. Gotcha. So, so we had less last

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Sunday. This is a, by the time that this drops, uh, it'll be a week, um, since these killings in Sri Lanka.

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And first off for both Virgil and I, our hearts go out to the families of those who were murdered.

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This is a senseless killing, but there is some things we do see here that have biblical ramifications and things for Christians to think through properly.

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There's a lot of people I think who react to these things, Virgil, that are reacting politically. They'll have a political bent toward it and how's this going to affect, you know, the

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Republican party or something like that and the conservatives. As Christians, I think we have to recognize that we, as Peter would say, we are not citizens of this earth.

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We're sojourners. We're passing through. We're looking for our citizenship, which is in heaven, our heavenly citizenship.

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That's where we belong in eternity. This is just, we're passing through here. And there's people who think, man, justice just isn't happening.

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Justice doesn't happen in our timeframe. There will be justice for everyone. It's just not going to be in our timeframe.

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It's going to be in God's. Yeah. Now, now you're, you're pressing into, you know, something we, we teed up as we were kind of repairing with regard to two things, one,

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God's, God's sovereignty, right? And the providence of God and what takes place in time and space and how we, how we respond to it.

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And I think you're spot on. We've got to recognize that we're not, we're not the arbiters of total justice, that that's ultimately

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God's and we need to trust him for that. Absolutely. So there were over 300 people that were killed in Sri Lanka.

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They were targeted because they were Christian. Now and you and I talked about this before we started recording,

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I mean, we have to address this issue. There are so many people that are saying, no, no, no, they're not Christian. They are

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Catholic. And let's be honest, most of the churches that were targeted and people are targeted, they were, they were

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Catholic. But do these Muslims understand the difference? Right.

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You know, this may be a thing, Virgil, for a lot of people to have a hard time to understand that if they grew up in Christian circles, they understand all the different denominations and specifics of the theology within Catholicism versus Lutheranism versus, you know,

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Protestants or Baptists or whoever. But when you're an outsider, someone who like myself growing up Jewish, I didn't understand all this.

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It was, they're all Catholic. I just viewed every Christian as Catholic. I didn't,

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I vaguely understood that there was different branches of Catholicism, Baptist and Lutheran and things, but that's how

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I viewed it because I didn't have that history. I didn't come from that. And these Muslims are going to be the same thing.

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They're not coming from a Western mindset of Christianity. So I first want to start off with this because I've made some comments online and people were quick to criticize me for saying that this was an attack on Christians because they were

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Roman Catholic and they weren't Christian. I understand that. The issue that I have is that these

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Muslims that did this, did this not because they were Roman Catholic. They did this because they were

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Christian. They were not making a distinction between Catholicism and genuine faith like we would do.

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And so this was, as our President Trump said, and Mike Pence was quick to say, this was an attack on Christianity.

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I was glad to see that at least they mentioned Christian. We'll get to that in a bit.

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But one of the things I find really interesting was a couple things. One, the supposed group that is taking claim for this, this

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Muslim group that's taking claim for this, is saying that this was an attack in retaliation for New Zealand, in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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Now folks remember in Christchurch, New Zealand, you had someone who went into a mosque and killed people.

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And the media was so quick to say he was a Christian. And yet,

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I actually had a friend of mine that was able to grab that, I think it was like 76 page memoir that the guy put out there.

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The media took that down pretty quick. He was able to get a copy. He got it early. He was able to read through it.

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And he said in there that this guy says he's not a Christian. And yet all the media was, I mean, just so quick to say this was a

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Christian because that's what they assume. This is a Christian who went into a mosque and did this. And they wanted that to be true.

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And they didn't care about the facts. And yet this guy says he wasn't a Christian. He doesn't believe in the things of Christianity.

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So he wouldn't be a Christian by his own claims. Yet the media was so quick to say he was a

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Christian. Well, if this was a retaliation for New Zealand, Virgil, can we blame the media for the attack that occurred in Sri Lanka?

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Since if this is retaliation against Christians, when it's only the media that made it a

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Christian, would it be fair to blame the media for this retaliation? Wow.

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You know, I would say I would not lay the actions of an individual at the feet of the media.

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The rule of law with regard to an incite to violence, I don't think this would weigh heavy enough in a court of law for that to be the case.

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I do see the dots that you're connecting from a standpoint of saying, you know, they, the media identified this individual as, quote unquote,

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Christian. And those who intended to do harm because of that claim looked for what they believed to be

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Christian places of worship in an effort to retaliate. While I wouldn't lay that at their feet,

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I do see, you know, the dots you're connecting there. And I think that what

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I think what it really speaks to is the nature of the media, their motivation and the one and I don't want to give away kind of where we're going to go with this, but their motivation and being quick to identify poor behavior, bad behavior, violent behavior, their readiness and willingness to identify that as Christian, the rapid pace by which they're willing to make that assertion, even though the facts say absolutely the opposite.

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Whereas in a different instance, and we'll get to that in a bit, there's not a desire to label and identify

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Christian when it seems that the victim in that instance is indeed Christian.

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Yes, we are going to get there. But you're right. This is the thing that we always say.

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We blame the individuals for what the individual does. We don't blame groups of people for something they didn't do.

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But this is what the media does. But how quickly... I think we do that differently, don't we?

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Yeah, we do. We operate from a different worldview. Yeah. Now, how quickly would the media be upset if we started blaming them? If we did this, if we started saying that this is the media's fault, how quick do you think they would be to say, hey, hey, hey, this was these individual people's fault?

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But they wanted to blame almost all Christianity for everything wrong that gets done. So this is a case where we see

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Christians that were attacked. Maybe not Christians in the biblical sense, but from the Muslim mindset, these were

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Christians that were attacked in Sri Lanka. I think that the count is now over 300.

12:59

Yeah. And what bothered me, and I put out some posts about this, was how quickly some people came out to ask for sympathy.

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Whenever we see this happen, it's amazing to watch the politicians. There's guns involved.

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They're very quick to want to rush to gun control. Now I do find it interesting that if there's a gun involved, it's the right time to bring up gun control.

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But if it's something that works against liberals, now's not the time to discuss it.

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Right. Right? It's very interesting. I mean, I know Dr. Silvestro got in a lot of hot water from people.

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A lot of people weren't happy when he mentioned in Notre Dame burning that all these relics are burning that can't save them.

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And people are like, now's not the time to discuss that. Right. Right. Right. And so I asked one of these guys that's going after him.

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I said, let me ask you a question. After all these attacks with guns, did you think it wasn't the appropriate time to discuss gun control either?

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Yeah. Right. Right. Just have a consistency, please. And they were quick to respond, right?

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Do you know, how long was it in you listening to stuff before you heard it actually confirmed that it was a

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Muslim terrorist group that took credit for all of these coordinating bombings? Yeah, that took some time to come out.

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Did it not? I mean, as the information was kind of unfolding, it took some time to figure out who and who wanted to take credit for it.

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I also want to speak, I want to kind of circle back to speak to something that you, an issue you raised earlier with regard to the

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Muslim mindset about what is indeed Christian. Because what it made me think of immediately was the manner in which the

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Koran talks about Jesus and actually identifies,

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I actually found the reference in Surah 4, 171, where the Koran discusses, it says, the old people of the scripture do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah, except the truth, says the

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Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary was but the messenger of Allah. And it talks about not saying that he was, that there were three, right?

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And whenever they bring up three, they say Allah, Jesus, and Mary, the view of Muslims is that the

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Trinity, the Trinity that we hold dear has to do with God, Mary, and Jesus.

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And so it could very well be the case that Muslims thought when they were attacking Catholics that they were indeed attacking

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Orthodox Christians, right? From a, you know, a reformed view, from a view that, a biblical, traditional biblical view with regard to Christianity.

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So I just wanted to add some validation to the point that you made earlier about, you know, those

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Muslims who were attacking us definitely had a mindset based upon the teachings that are in their own books that they were indeed attacking true

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Christians. So that's the one thing, but indeed it did take some time for us to identify and find out who was, you know, who were involved, who was responsible, and what those efforts were that they were coordinated, that it was purposed, and that they had an agenda with regard to that.

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That was slow in coming for sure. It was, I think, about 24 hours. The media said they wanted to wait for confirmation from the authorities in Sri Lanka.

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Right. And those in Sri Lanka were waiting to get someone that said that they did it.

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And now I think Sri Lanka, if I remember correctly, is mostly, it's either Hindu or Buddhist.

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It's not a Muslim country, but it was interesting that the prime minister there had recently, prior to this attack, had been talking about trying to put a stop to all these

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Christians that were coming in because they were sharing the gospel and things like that, and it was upsetting their

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Hinduism. And so I do find that kind of interesting, that they weren't friends of Christians.

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They weren't favoring Christians. And here's the thing that I found. So after these attacks, we start seeing politicians and people responding.

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Now they're not responding and naming the perpetrator. Now in New Zealand, they were very quick to claim the guy was a

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Christian. Very quick. I mean, that was the first thing that I saw mentioned was a Christian attacked, goes into mosques.

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Right. Before they had all the facts. Before they had the facts. Right. And when the facts were available,

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Facebook's like, nope, we're taking this down, Twitter's like, we're taking this down, you can't read it, because we don't want anyone to read what he said.

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Okay, so then you really aren't allowing anyone to read that paper where he says he's not a

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Christian. And now that news isn't getting out. So what's the thing that's getting out? A Christian attacked

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Muslims. And then we have this. Barack Obama was one of the first.

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And he responded with his sympathy. And he said, quote, he put this tweet out, quote, the attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity.

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On a day devoted to love, redemption and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka, unquote.

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Now, the first thing I see as problematic here is Easter worshippers.

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I mean, what is the term for an Easter worshipper? Well, there isn't one because no one worships Easter. Okay, we celebrate

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Resurrection Sunday. You want to call it Easter fine, but it's Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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It is not a day for devotion to love and redemption and renewal the way he's saying it.

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It is a day to celebrate the risen Jesus Christ, the risen God.

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That's what it's a day for. When he proved that he would be that sacrifice of sin on our behalf, and he vindicated it by raising himself from the dead.

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We celebrate the resurrection. We don't worship it. We worship Christ. But what

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I found interesting is how many others were quick to follow on with Easter worshippers.

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Right. We had Barack Obama did it. Shortly after him, there was a medical doctor,

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Amy Biara. Then we had a mayor, Brian Bowman, and then

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Jared Paulus, then Greg Stanton, Representative Dan Keldy. Then we had

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Julian Castro, and then Hillary Clinton weighed in and said, quote, she tweeted out this, quote, on this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence.

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I'm praying for everyone affected by the horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka, unquote.

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Again, all those people I mentioned are referred to attacks on Easter worshippers, not on Christians.

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They don't want to say Christian. I think that some people said it well. I was pointing out the fact when this was happening that there is a concerted effort by the leftists in the world that want to, because their hatred for Christianity, and that's why

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I find this so interesting that Hillary wants to talk about all the many faiths and that we should be united against hatred and violence.

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Well, Hillary, how about you stand up and name the people that were victimized here. These are

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Christians. You know, Joe Austin on my Facebook page said it well, he said, they cannot humanize

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Christians because then they become an object of human sympathy, and that's the whole thing.

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They don't want us being seen as victims because they keep trying to portray us as the enemy.

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We're the bad people who are going after everybody, and we're the ones that are victimizing everybody else in their worldview that they want to project.

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But if we actually are the victims, then that's a problem. I can't remember if it was Ben Shapiro, who by the way is

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Jewish, not a Christian, or Al Mueller, one of them, mentioned the fact that there was a Pew poll that showed that Christians are the number one religious group that is persecuted around the world, and yet they can't bring themselves to admit that.

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I think this is so appalling, because here's the group that wants to blame

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Christians for everything, and when Christians are being legitimately attacked, now I understand folks,

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I understand for us believers, we're making a distinction between Catholic and Christian. I totally agree with that.

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My point here is that the Muslims don't make that. The Muslims were attacking Christians in their mind.

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We would understand the difference, but they would not. Their attack was against Christianity, what they saw as Christianity, and so they're going after us.

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But if we are ever to be the victims, then guess what? The socialists, the

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LGBTQ group, I mean every leftist group that needs to blame

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Christians for what they do won't be able to do that if the truth comes out that we're the ones being oppressed, we're the ones that are being sued and to lose our jobs.

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We just had the guy in Colorado, the baker, finally Colorado dropped their second or third suit going after the guy.

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I said, they should pay him back, they destroyed his business, they tried to put him out of business because he didn't agree with their view.

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What's going on with Chick -fil -A? Chick -fil -A is not allowed to have a Chick -fil -A in now two airports because they're openly against homosexuals, no, no, just because they don't believe it's biblical.

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Because the owners don't believe that's biblical, therefore they can't be in business. Based upon a worldview.

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Here's the thing that I find incredibly interesting, and I think you nailed it, it's twofold. One is, the position on the left is they leverage on a daily basis on social media platforms within the media arenas that they hold, they leverage the idea of victimhood.

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They have cornered the market, everything that they do is based upon a false narrative of their victimhood, but yet victimhood nonetheless.

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They're winning the Victim Olympic Awards, they're handing them out by the dozens.

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One of the things that they cannot allow to have happen is for true victims, and in this instance they're twofold, they're two categories of people that cannot be mentioned in the same vein as being a victim when in fact there's legitimate victimhood at stake, which is like what we're talking about in Sri Lanka, and that is

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Christians, on the one hand, because they have got to be vilified as homophobic, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, all the, those are the haters.

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So the Christians, you can never mention the word Christian in line with something that was truly victimizing like we saw in Sri Lanka.

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The other category are white men, and so those are two categories of people that you cannot mention in the same vein, in the same lines as those being victimized, because it is based upon the leftist worldview.

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It is absolutely okay to victimize those groups. They've been seen historically as oppressive and as oppressors.

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They're the ones who brought about invalidated slavery. They're the ones who brought about invalidated, you know, all of the patriarchy that we see in our country.

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And so it is okay for Christians and white men in particular to be victimized, to be, for actual violence to take place against them and for us to not say a word, which is why

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I think the language, as you point out, was interesting in this case, because we couldn't use the term

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Christian to identify true victims, because we had to kind of turn a blind eye, turn away and recast that.

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I think the other thing that's incredibly telling, Andrew, is how many people began to parrot the language.

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That's the thing that's mind blowing to me with all of this, is language is used and then it's parroted by all of these other people.

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I had a brother, a dear friend of mine by the name of LG Hamilton. I told him

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I wanted to quote him because he made the statement. I think he posted it on a social media platform.

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He made the statement that the only collusion that is out there is in the term

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Eastern worshiper, right? Eastern worshiper. What they're doing is incredible.

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You see this time and time again in the media where a word or a phrase is constantly used over and over and over again on a number of different media outlets in an effort to really beat the drum of a certain and specific narrative that we should accept.

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I think it's important that you bring out the issue, highlight it and amplify it, though some may think, oh, that's not a big deal.

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Let's press on. I think every time it happens, it's important for us to make note of, to notice so that we're not caught off guard.

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It's kind of the analogy of the frog that's in the boiling water. The water's turning up, the heat's turning up so slow you never really notice.

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The same is true with language. If you're not paying attention to the language, you're in that boiling water that eventually deadens you to what's taking place.

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This is where you see this in a word. I've never heard Christians referred to as Easter worshipers.

27:31

It's all of a sudden, it's everywhere. Everyone's using that term. How does that happen?

27:36

Okay, now all of a sudden we've all got the talking points. I'm sure that what it is is many of them didn't know how to respond.

27:42

They see someone like Barack Obama respond and they all copy that. There's going to be some of that, but I do think there's some where they're trying to figure out how do we do this because we can't explain this and say that Christians were actually killed because they're the ones we want to blame.

27:58

It really does put them in an interesting ... You bring up some of the political issues I think that's going to be almost entertaining this next political season in the

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Democrat party when they try to decide who is going to be their candidate. You have a guy like Joe Biden, old white guy, that is bashing old white guys.

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I mean, it's like old white guys are the problem.

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Do you think we don't recognize you're an old white guy? Yeah, said by the old white guy. This intersectionality, they're all trying to play the victim every which way since Sunday and they all want to have,

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I'm more of a victim than you, I'm more of a victim than you, and none of them are willing to look at what real victims are like.

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Now, these guys in Sri Lanka, they're not getting less salary.

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They're not being told they're not having to sit in a back of the bus or that they won't be able to get a promotion.

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They're being killed. There's a slight difference here when it comes to levels of persecution.

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You know, it's like when I hear Christians in America saying they're being persecuted. No, you're not. We don't know it yet.

29:19

Yeah, this is, I mean, there is, yeah, for Americans, when I went on with that cake baker in Colorado, yeah, that's a persecution.

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And it was not easy to go through, I'm sure. Absolutely. And as much as that is persecution, it's nowhere near the level of persecution as the

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Christians who are being put in cages and burned alive. There is a difference in the level of persecution.

29:47

So we want to recognize that and recognize that there is some differences there. But the thing that I see is that these folks who are so quick to call

29:57

Christians bigots over every little thing cannot recognize when

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Christians are being victimized, when Christians are being treated by bigots, by people who are targeting them for not agreeing with their belief system.

30:13

And this is what is really an issue here. Yeah, I think what it exposes is the selective fake rage that's out there.

30:26

It's selective. I mean, if you have a genuine concern for hatred, if you have a genuine concern for bigotry, if you have a genuine concern for intolerance, you don't care who it's aimed at.

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And you have no problem pointing out that it was aimed at a particular group in a particular way for a very specific reason.

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And in this instance, it's that they were Christians. It wasn't that they were Easter worshipers. Easter worshipers weren't targeted,

30:53

Christians were the ones who were targeted. And saying so is something that if you truly hold to the view that you claim, which is you hate hatred, you hate violence, and that you're against those things, you have no problem identifying who the true victims are in those instances.

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But the reality is, these are selective, this is selective rage.

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It's victimology that's at play. It doesn't fit their narrative. And so they run away from that thought process, that idea, and they begin to expose the hypocritical nature of the position that they actually hold.

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And you said, you nailed it, it is a fake rage. It's a fake rage for political agenda, because they're looking to gain something from it.

31:42

But the reality is, I'm sorry, but this is a form of terrorism as well. When they're constantly getting

31:49

Christians to feel they're afraid to say that they're a Christian, which is the goal. You have economic terrorism with what they do, with Chick -fil -A,

31:57

Hobby Lobby, where they're trying to basically say, we have to not allow you to do business if you don't agree with our agenda.

32:04

Well, that's not free speech, folks. I mean, you don't have to agree with everything everyone else in the country says and believes.

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That used to be what made America great, was that we could have our differences and still get along.

32:19

But nowadays, it seems like, no, we're not allowed to have differences. You have to all agree and toe the line of what a few, a minority of people believe.

32:30

Everyone has to toe the line. And if you don't, they're going to put you out of business, they're going to threaten you, all this sort of stuff.

32:38

And this is the concern that I see, because we have too many people who would rather put their heads in the sand and not do what needs to be done in speaking the truth in love.

32:52

And I want to show you, in the next segment, I want to talk about an example.

32:57

We want to go through an example of why the church is probably so anemic to this culture, why it is not having the effect that we would want to see it have.

33:09

I want to deal with that right after this break. Can you answer the following questions for your children or for the person to whom you are witnessing?

33:18

Number one, is the New Testament reliable? Two, can you explain the Trinity to me?

33:24

Three, how is Jesus both God and man? And a slew of other questions you will be able to answer if you get

33:31

Andrew Rappaport's new book, What Do We Believe? It will help you a ton.

33:36

And to get your copy at whatdowebelievebook .com, whatdowebelievebook .com.

33:42

The good news is, Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.

33:53

That's right, the art and science of interpreting scripture. The bad news is, somebody attending might be really upset to discover

33:59

Jeremiah 2911 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org

34:06

to host a Bible Interpretation Made Easy Seminar in your area. Well, you know, there is somebody who could definitely use our

34:16

Bible Interpretation Made Easy Seminar, and it is the next person we're going to talk about. Instead of us talking about this next person and mentioning his name, you know,

34:26

I recently had Todd Friel on my podcast, and I asked him a question, let's see what he thinks about the person that we're going to speak of next.

34:34

What would you want to see changed in evangelicalism? Stephen Furtick. There you go. If Todd Friel could change one thing in evangelicalism, it is

34:44

Stephen Furtick. Why? I want to play this clip, and I want Virgil and I to be able to go through this and talk through this with you guys.

34:51

It's only about a minute and 50 seconds. This is Stephen Furtick giving you the purpose of the church, and anyone that knows the scripture is going to be pulling their hair out, because if there is a way to get the definition of the church 180 % wrong, this is it.

35:08

If you get my book, What Do We Believe?, I have a chapter on the church and what the church is. I go through the history of the church and show how through history it has changed in meaning to be more and more specific.

35:21

But one thing it isn't is what Stephen Furtick says it is. Let's listen to,

35:26

I can't even call him pastor, so we'll just call him Stephen Furtick. I want Elevation Church to be a church for the overlooked, for the unloved.

35:33

Not for us to have as many different varieties of Bible studies. We got Beth Moore and K. Arthur and Joyce Meyer.

35:39

No. You know what we got? We got Jesus. We preach him. We preach so that people can come to faith in Christ, and we want them to get in a small group and serve so that other people can meet

35:47

Christ. Okay, let's stop there. That's pretty good right there, right? Mm -hmm. I mean, and this is the thing to always recognize with a false teacher.

35:53

Right. They have just enough truth to bring you in, and they usually tell you the truth up front, and so you're like, oh yeah, that sounds good.

36:00

Sounds good. I like it. Yep. And then, then we get this.

36:05

If you know Jesus, I am sorry to break it to you. This church is not for you.

36:12

Yeah, but I just gave my life to Christ last week at Elevation. Last week was the last week that Elevation Church existed for you.

36:19

Wow. You're in the army now. Okay. We got more here, but I just got to stop there.

36:26

So the church is not for believers. Right. The church is for who, according to Stephen Furtick? Non -believers.

36:32

Non -believers. Non -believers. I mean, so I guess all those passages in the

36:39

Bible were spoken to the church and it calls brothers. Right. I guess that wasn't really for the church, right?

36:46

Or they made a profession of faith in Christ and they were added to the church.

36:53

Yeah, well, they were added to the army is what it says, right? Isn't that Acts chapter 2? 2 ,000 were added to the army that day.

37:01

Gotcha. Gotcha. It must be according to him. It's a different version. Right, right, right. Right. I mean, this is the whole thing.

37:07

This is a fundamental problem of why so many churches in America have a problem is exactly what Stephen Furtick is saying.

37:13

That he thinks the church is for the unbeliever, not for the believer. All right, so let's listen more.

37:21

We got to try to make it through. There's only a minute and 50 seconds. Before you move on,

37:29

I think there's a couple more things that we need to add to this aspect of it. And that is, this view that he holds is not an uncommon one.

37:40

And it has had tremendous impact on not only ecclesiology, what the church actually is and does, but two, on missiology, how we go about sharing our faith with others, what we do in the way of being missional, going out and exhorting, sharing our faith.

38:02

It is totally what he is preaching right now has had an impact on that in a massive, major way.

38:11

And I'll mention one, because I know there's a bunch of things we need to do with this. And that is, what it sets up is a situation where believers now are thinking that their role, rather than being equipped, as Matthew 28 would tell us, to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

38:30

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey the commands. What we now believe is that the

38:35

Great Commission becomes an effort to get someone to church, an effort to get the non -believer to the church, rather than saints of God being equipped at church for the works of ministry.

38:51

We're now just told all we need to do is to have the church be inviting, exciting, enticing, draw the people to the church for the professionals to do the job that all of us have been commissioned to go out and do.

39:07

I mean, that's just one aspect of the impact of this kind of teaching. And this came about because of the whole church growth movement and things that went on there.

39:16

Next week in my episode, next week I'll have Dr. Danny Purvis on and we talk about that. We talk about what happened in the 80s, we talk about church, and how that really damaged a lot of the church.

39:28

But this is the problem. People wanted to try to make the church more appealing to the world, and now the world doesn't see any difference between the church and the world.

39:39

There's nothing. And so that's why I think the church has become so anemic. That's why people feel they can go after the church and try to victimize the church while making them be the victims, because the church is actually playing along with it.

39:53

You deal with this so often on your podcast, Just Thinking, you and Daryl, dealing with this whole social justice issue.

39:59

How much of it is people that are just trying to placate the left by giving in to them, thinking that they'll lay off.

40:09

They won't lay off. They're happy that you're giving up the fight, and they'll be happy to say, thank you, we'll mull you over next.

40:20

But Stephen Furt has it backwards. The church is not for the unbeliever.

40:27

The church is for the believer. The unbeliever shouldn't feel comfortable in church. Now I understand his sentiment that the church should be about the business of sharing the gospel.

40:37

We should be missionaries. We should be out there sharing the gospel so that unbelievers hear the gospel and get saved.

40:42

I agree with that. But that happens outside of the church. The church is where the body of Christ is.

40:50

The church is called the body of Christ. The bride of Christ. Is he telling me that the unbelievers are going to be married to Christ?

40:58

That makes no sense. And when we look at the way Christ describes the church, and the way

41:03

Stephen Furt describes the church. The church is for believers to be equipped for every good work to go out of the church and then share the gospel with the lost so they may be converted and come into the body of Christ.

41:21

Stephen Furtick has it backwards. Let's keep listening. We do one thing.

41:28

We preach Jesus so people far from God can know Jesus. And then we train them up so that others can know

41:33

Jesus. It's called kingdom multiplication. It's what Elevation Church is all about.

41:38

And over 500 people have given their lives to Jesus for the first time in this church in the last five months.

41:46

That's over 100 per month. Okay. Now, and by the way,

41:51

I should make it clear that for folks who know who Kofi is,

41:57

I blame Kofi for this, for me seeing this video. This is Kofi's fault. Kofi, if you're listening, it's all your fault.

42:04

Kofi wrote a blog article at strivingforeternity .org about discipleship and asking the question, do we really need discipleship?

42:13

And he had this clip in it. And I saw this clip and went, ugh. Now, behind Stephen Furtick is a sign that says, confessions of a pastor tell all.

42:26

That was this sermon series. Okay. And yet you listen to him and he's saying that the only purpose is sharing the gospel.

42:36

That's not what we see so much of the scriptures about. Stephen Furtick, how could you be able to speak against what happened in Sri Lanka, the way

42:46

Virgil and I did, with your mindset? You can't do that in church. Right. Because the church is only about sharing the gospel to him.

42:53

It's just telling people they're lost and need Christ. Right. And then once they know Christ, then what, the training stops there.

43:00

He then hands them over to say, now you've got to go in the army and you've got to tell others. Well, where are they going to get the training if they're not in the church?

43:08

And most people, unfortunately, have no idea what the gospel is.

43:15

And just to be fair, I mean, walk into your average church, your average

43:20

Sunday morning church, I'd argue this, I've never been to Elevation, but I would argue that if you walked in, if it's like your average church and you were to ask someone, what is the gospel?

43:35

I guarantee you, most of them might get so far as to say, it's the good news. A handful of them might say, it's

43:43

Jesus. And I would argue that the vast majority, and my basis for saying this,

43:50

I mean, I know you've seen some of the Ligonier studies that look at the state of the

43:56

Christian faith, the state of religion, the state of our confessions, looking at what

44:02

Christians actually believe. And when you assess those, whether it's

44:07

Pew, whether it's Barna, whether it's a Ligonier study, what you find is most of us,

44:13

A, don't hold biblical worldviews. The vast majority who claim to be Christian don't hold biblical worldviews. And a lot of them hold views that are antithetical to what the

44:21

Bible actually states and teaches. So if the thought process is they come in, they had a good time, and they were just simply asked how many of you want to go to heaven?

44:30

They raised their hands and said, yes, I do. And they count that as someone who's made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

44:37

I don't know that they're equipped enough to go back out and share their faith in a way, to share the faith in a way that's evangelical, that's going to draw someone in.

44:51

It's gospel -less, right? It doesn't really hold the full measure and weight and breadth and depth of the gospel, which is indeed the power of God unto salvation.

44:59

If we're not talking about the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin and our need as fallen humanity to be reconnected to a holy

45:11

God, we don't have the gospel. The need for repentance, the need for placing faith in the finished work of Christ, if those elements aren't in the conversation, we're not sharing the gospel.

45:24

Most people have the tendency to believe that their testimony is indeed the gospel. You and I both know that that's so far from the truth, it's unbelievable.

45:33

Most people, if they get past the gospel as the good news, if they get past the gospel as Jesus, they might get so far as to say, you know what,

45:42

I was down on my luck. Maybe I had a divorce and I came to church and I feel better.

45:51

That's their gospel proclamation. That's their gospel message to someone. If you want to feel better like I did, then you need to go to church.

46:00

That's the extent of their equipping, unfortunately. I talk to people on the streets. They say they're a Christian.

46:06

Explain to me how to go to heaven. And they can't. Believe in Jesus. And I'll turn to them and say, I was raised believing that's

46:12

Hitler's God. I don't want anything to do with Jesus. Tell me how to go to heaven. They don't know anything else but to say, believe in Jesus.

46:19

The demons believe in Jesus, but they tremble. Right. So belief in Jesus is not the answer.

46:28

It's what do you believe about Jesus? You got to get that right. Stephen Furtick is telling them to go out, but where are they going to get the training,

46:37

Stephen? Where are they going to get the training to go out and share and answer questions?

46:43

All right, let's try to get through this. 40 seconds. Let's see if we can do it. If that doesn't get you excited and you need the doctrines of grace as defined by John Calvin to excite you, you're in the wrong church.

46:55

I agree with him on that. Because if you understand that God is sovereign, not man, you don't want to go to that church.

47:03

Because you want to go to a church that lifts God up on high, where it's God's church, not man's church, about doing man's things.

47:13

Notice how he does it. He's got his axe to grind against the doctrines of grace. Here's the thing.

47:19

You listen to what he's saying. He's making excuses for things that, you know,

47:26

Elevation Church, according to him, is about making, getting people saved. Right. Stephen Furtick, you can't save anyone.

47:37

God does it. And if you want to belittle the sovereignty of God and then think you're doing

47:43

God's work? Sorry, but dude, I don't think so. I think this is pretty typical, though.

47:50

I mean, when, what's taking place in this instance? I think,

47:56

I believe, Andrew, you know I come from more of a charismatic background. Well, so do I.

48:01

I don't know if you know that. I didn't know that. Yes. I didn't know that. Well, then you'll identify with everything that I'm about to say.

48:08

In those backgrounds, what would take place when we get off of the pages of Scripture? And that's exactly what we're doing with regard to this.

48:16

Furtick is not using a biblical framework for what is the church.

48:21

He's using his own ideas, his own thoughts, his own church growth mechanisms in order to make this a big deal.

48:31

And so when that takes place, when you're off the pages of Scripture, you have to minimize doctrine.

48:39

You have to minimize theology. You have to minimize what Scripture says.

48:44

And you have to maximize your newfangled idea. And so that's what's actually taking place there.

48:51

I mean, in our formerly charismatic, I call them charismania circles that I was a part of, you know, they never wanted you to be too high -minded, right?

49:02

Or you were no earthly good. They never wanted you to be too doctrinally sound or you weren't able to feel the move of the

49:10

Spirit, right? And all of that was an effort to have, so that you were devoid of anything by which to make a proper assessment of whether or not what they were saying was actually accurate, correct and true.

49:21

So they would take your Bible away from you, amplify their newfangled idea as the word from the

49:28

Lord and tell you that if you desire some biblical truth, some biblical standard, well, there's another church you can go to, this ain't it.

49:37

And they would amplify what they had just said. And that's all that's taking place here with that.

49:42

Yeah, correct. Let's listen to more. 30 seconds. We'll see if we can do it. We get a phone book.

49:47

There are 720 churches in Charlotte. I'm sure we can find one where you can stuff your face until you're so obese spiritually that you can't even move.

49:56

This is a church that wants to get you on the field, playing the game, changing lives, looking for an opportunity to impact.

50:02

It's what we're all about. We're focused like a laser. We're not perfect, but we know what we came to do. Luke 19, 10, seek and save that which is lost.

50:10

It's the mission of Jesus. It's the mission of Elevation Church. And may we never become a church of front row spectators who judge the deeds being done more than we care about the people that Jesus wants to save.

50:21

Okay, so that is the, that's the clip. The thing that I find so amazing with that is the fact that you listen to what he says at the end.

50:29

You and I who like studying theology, we're just, we're just being obese spiritually. We're so fat.

50:34

We're of no good. Right? Isn't that what you do every week when you're at the abortion clinic? You're just sitting there like a fat old guy.

50:41

Well, actually you've been working out, dude. I've been seeing some pics. Dude, I got to start running before we get to Truth Matters conference because you and Daryl are looking mean.

50:51

I don't know, man. But when you're at the abortion clinics every week, sharing the gospel with people, do you think you're going to see

51:00

Stephen Furtick out at an abortion clinic? No. No. No. I doubt it. I think he's trying to encourage the folks to go evangelize.

51:08

I would love to see Stephen Furtick explain how many of those people that he, all those people he said are coming to Christ, how many of those people did he actually speak to?

51:17

Or is it just that they raised their hand and said a prayer? You know, well, I came into church and I felt good leaving, so I must be a

51:25

Christian now. Right. Right. I want more of this. That's a part of the problem with this type of approach.

51:32

It ends up forcing believers, or forcing, let me say this, it ends up forcing church attenders at your church to be excited about your church, to go out to tell someone to come to church, to hear whatever message that's being delivered from the platform, which may or may not include an accurate gospel presentation, right?

51:57

And so you're excited about the church. Maybe you felt good that day and you thought, Hey, yeah,

52:02

I want a piece of this. And you're asked to raise your hand at the end if you agree with what was said.

52:08

And you're like, Yeah, sure. I agree. And there's a little celebration. They send you back to a room to get your gift bag and you're good to go.

52:15

And they count you on the rolls again. Here's the other piece of this. I don't want to completely minimize what

52:21

Furtick is saying, because I do believe there's some value in it, but it's missing all of the proper elements in this way.

52:28

I do believe that there are churches full of Christians who aren't out doing the work of ministry, right?

52:36

Who aren't out engaged in the things that we, that you and I just talked about. And then all of us, myself included, can be encouraged to do more with regard to sharing the message of the gospel.

52:47

And every week I'm thinking about what it looks like for me to push forward a gospel message to someone that I encountered that week.

52:56

Every single week that is at the forefront of my mind, who do I share the gospel with? Where do I go?

53:02

Are there some weeks where I'm more on than off? Absolutely. Are there weeks where I'm more off than on? Absolutely.

53:07

And can we all be encouraged to do more? Absolutely, we can be. But to act as if that that needs to be devoid of any kind of theological education or equipping or training, and that there's this dichotomy of I'm either getting theologically educated and trained so I'm fat, dumb, and happy, or I'm out doing this visionary mission that Furtick believes

53:31

I need to be doing, that's just a false dichotomy. It really is, and it's not, it's definitely not a biblical model for how to evangelize the law.

53:41

No, and the problem is it diminishes the purpose of the church, totally changes it, and therefore

53:49

I'm arguing in what we talked about in the first half of this podcast, it makes the church anemic to answer the world's problems.

53:57

And that's the problem I have with it. Because he may be patting himself on the back all day long, but there are people who are struggling with answering life's problems.

54:09

They're seeing these things go on around the world, and they don't have answers. And Stephen Furtick is not the guy that's going to give it to them, because he can't.

54:17

Because all he's going to do is say, go share the gospel with someone. That's all he can do, according to what he's saying.

54:25

Even at that, it's going to be less than that. It's not going to be the gospel, yes. It's not going to be the gospel, and what's going to happen is someone's going to get whatever bitter piece of the quote -unquote gospel that they're given.

54:38

And then they're told that's all the gospel is designed to do. The only thing that it's designed to do is to get you to the church, get you to raise your hand, and you're good to go.

54:51

Whereas you and I both know, we've got to preach the gospel to ourselves as believers who have been believers, followers of Christ, for a very long time, man.

54:59

I'm constantly encouraged by the message of the gospel. Every day

55:04

I'm preaching the gospel to myself. I'm reading about the gospel so that my soul can be fed and I can live a life in accord with the manner in which

55:15

God designed me to walk, being conformed, Scripture says, being conformed into the image of his

55:21

Son. That is the gospel's impact in the life of the believer, not just the person who wasn't saved one day, got saved the next day, and that's all that they need, now go tell somebody else.

55:35

I need the gospel in my life every day, to the point you're making, to deal with all of the issues of life that come our way.

55:43

And the thing that you see here is that when you and I go out and share the gospel, which we both do, we're sharing a gospel of how great

55:54

God is and how meaningless we are. Yes, amen. We are wretched sinners who don't deserve his goodness, and almighty

56:04

God who created everything out of nothing, became a man, came to earth to die on a cross, to be a payment of sin, that when he who knew no sin became sin, that you and I might be the righteousness of God.

56:20

That's not the gospel Stephen Furtick is preaching. He's preaching, hey, life will get better, that's your best life now.

56:27

Well, that's a different guy like him. This is not my best life. This is as bad as life is going to get for the believer.

56:36

If this is your best life now, then you're going to hell when you die. The reality is

56:41

Stephen Furtick doesn't have the answers to the things that people are really going to struggle with.

56:48

I mean, you said it well. He's going to be lacking. It may make people feel good.

56:54

The question is, we need to preach truth. We talked about the folks in Sri Lanka.

57:00

We talked about how people are using it for political gain. We keep seeing that. There's a reason they're doing that.

57:08

After this commercial, I want to talk about, it's not really a name that fallacy, but it is a technique that's used, and I'm going to give you a technique that explains what we were saying earlier today with these people that are using things for political gains.

57:24

I'm going to explain that all after this. You're listening to the Things Above Roundtable from the writers at ThingsAbove .us.

57:31

Am I on? Do I get to talk? Was I too soon? Yeah, you're too soon. Sorry, keep going.

57:36

You're listening to the Things Above Us Roundtable from the writers at ThingsAbove .us.

57:42

If you have a heart for biblical evangelism, missions, and theology, you've come to the right place, and they talk about sports, too, go

57:50

Cubs. So subscribe to them on your favorite podcast app, and give them a rating and review, and tell them

57:56

Phil sent you. Wow, you actually sounded like that announcer guy in Grace to You when you did that. He's lousy, isn't he?

58:06

This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV. What Phil said. All right, so go check out

58:13

Things Above Roundtable. It's a good podcast done by some friends of mine over there, Michael Coghlan, a guy who you got used to work with here at Striving for Eternity.

58:22

Before we get to the thing that I said, I was going to tell you to explain everything of what we're talking about in that first part of this podcast.

58:30

Virgil, we got a review. Now, you don't go doing this on Just Thinking. You don't read the reviews. Let me read your review we got.

58:37

Maybe this is from you. Oh, wait, no, it's not. I forgot. You haven't written a review for us, okay.

58:48

I would write a review for Just Thinking once you do one, I'm just saying. Just saying, not just thinking. I'll work on it.

58:53

I'll work on it. I don't know. I probably did do one for you. But here's a review. We got a five -star review, and it just says

58:59

Humble, and it is by Brandon's Mama 15. All right.

59:04

So, Brandon's Mama 15 says, I heard about this man through Wretched Radio's Todd Friel after listening to an episode.

59:14

I was hooked. Andrew does not need any fancy music or any gimmicks to hook you.

59:20

I love that he is humble enough to read even the not -so -very -nice reviews on his podcast.

59:27

Highly recommend this podcast. We got a review for our Christian Podcast Community, and this person said, great material.

59:36

He said, very solid material from a collection of individuals. The willingness to teach and equip is there from everyone involved with this community.

59:46

So we are appreciative of those reviews. Folks, if you write a review, just know that it does absolutely nothing to get us in a higher ranking in iTunes.

59:56

You hear all the podcasters say it does. They just don't know it doesn't. But you know what it does do?

01:00:02

Boy, is it encouraging to read even those negative ones. Yes, I even read those. It's encouraging to know that what we're doing here behind this microphone,

01:00:10

I can't even see Virgil right now, which may be a good thing for him because he can't see me.

01:00:17

But you know, it's just me and a microphone, and I only know the impact this has on you guys when you write a review.

01:00:25

When you email us at info at strivingforeternity .org. That's when we know how this is helping you.

01:00:32

We need to hear from you. Let us know. I should let you know that for the month of April, we are going to be giving away two copies of The Marriage Pyramid from Dr.

01:00:45

Danny Purvis. He'll be my guest next week. But his book on marriage, we have two copies we're going to give away.

01:00:52

If you share any episode of The Rap Report and put hashtag rap report, you will be entered to win a copy of The Marriage Pyramid.

01:01:01

We have two copies that we will give away. For folks who listened last week,

01:01:07

Virgil, I don't know if you heard, we did a giveaway of Alan Nelson's book. Did you hear about this?

01:01:13

No, uh -uh. Alan Nelson entered the giveaway for his own book. He won.

01:01:24

So if Danny Purvis enters to win this and wins, it's going to be a real problem.

01:01:31

I'm going to have to start saying the authors are excluded from entering. I wonder if Alan resold the book.

01:01:41

All right. So in Danny's case, he gave it to us. So folks, enter, share this episode, share any other episodes you want, and just put hashtag rap report, rap with 2P, so we can find it.

01:01:55

That would be appreciated. So here's the thing that I want to talk about in our next segment.

01:02:02

Let me play our music for that. Now it's time for Name That Fallacy.

01:02:13

Okay, so this is the time we take a logical fallacy and we name it and give examples.

01:02:19

This one's not so much a technically a fallacy, but it is a tactic that kind of fits in this.

01:02:26

This is a term called gaslighting. If you're not familiar, its origins come from a movie.

01:02:32

I forget how far back the movie is. It's a black and white one, so it's probably old, but it's an older movie.

01:02:38

I'm trying to look up on the internet right now. 1938 British stage play, so there you go, called

01:02:45

Gaslight. So that's where it gets the name, but this is going to explain what we were talking about with these people who continue to say

01:02:55

Christians are victimizing everybody and to excuse away when Christians are actually victimized. Gaslighting is an elaborate and insidious technique of deception and psychological manipulation usually practiced by a single deceiver or gaslighter on a single victim over an extended period.

01:03:15

Its effect is to gradually undermine the victim's confidence in his own ability to distinguish truth from error, right from wrong, reality from fantasy, thereby rendering him pathologically dependent on the gaslighter in his thinking or feelings.

01:03:35

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what the media has been doing for generations now.

01:03:42

They have been gaslighting. They have been telling people false things long enough that people actually believe they're true.

01:03:48

They cannot discern truth from error anymore. They cannot seem to use common sense.

01:03:54

We know what the people who were being killed in Sri Lanka were killed for. They were being killed because they claimed to be

01:04:02

Christian, and yet we can't say that they're Christian. Oh, no. They have to be Eastern worshipers, and Eastern worshipers just follow.

01:04:11

Everyone grabs that name, and now they're all doing it. All of that same group. Now, it's typically, as it says, it's practiced usually by a single deceiver with a single victim, but what we see in the media is not a single deceiver to a single victim.

01:04:24

This is a mass group thinking to try to create a whole new thinking in people to get them to not be able to discern right from wrong.

01:04:33

We saw this another time in recent history in Nazi Germany. What allows a person to say that it's okay to kill another human being just because you claim they're not human, they're just Jewish, so they're not fully human, and therefore you make exception?

01:04:52

This is no different than what happened when people would say that they can enslave blacks and say, well, they're not fully human, so it's okay to do that.

01:04:59

It took taking people and messing them up so much that they cannot discern truth from error any longer.

01:05:07

They can't figure out right from wrong. What you end up having is this happening again, and lest you think that's only with the slaveries or the

01:05:16

Nazis, I hate to disappoint you, America is killing more of their own people claiming they're not humans than any of those others that I mentioned.

01:05:27

We murder millions of babies in the womb, and we have a whole society trying to say that's a good thing.

01:05:35

That's just a choice. It is a choice. It's a choice to murder. It's not something that we should be choosing.

01:05:43

It's something we should stand up against. We have this same thing here with what we were talking about earlier, where we have so many people that want to keep convincing people that in this deception that Christians are the ones attacking everyone, and they're never being attacked.

01:05:59

This is what gaslighting is, and this is what we see the media doing. And Christians, if you give in and just play along so you can build your big churches like Stephen Furtick, or so that maybe you won't have people coming after you and doing what you think is persecution, the light persecution.

01:06:19

You can't even handle the light persecution. What are you going to do when the serious persecution comes that we see around the world in Christians in many other nations?

01:06:28

You're not going to be able to handle it. Many of these churches, Stephen Furtick's church is going to be emptied when real persecution comes because they're not coming for Christ.

01:06:36

They're coming for a good feeling because they're not being taught about Christ. As soon as they claim to Christ, they're done with being the church.

01:06:43

So the reality is we need to stand up because we have the truth.

01:06:50

You know what it is when people are gaslighting a whole generation of people?

01:06:55

You know what we need to do? We need to stand up with God's word and say, this is the truth, and hold it up and proclaim it until people hear the truth and recognize that's truth and start believing.

01:07:09

That's what we must do. I was reading in Deuteronomy, I know that's that Old Testament part of the book most

01:07:15

Christians kind of avoid. Yes, but if you're doing the year through the Bible, that's about where you stop. No, no, no, no.

01:07:21

Usually you stop long before that. You get through Exodus, you get to Leviticus, and it's like, you know, you're done.

01:07:27

Most people, they do their devotions and it's, you know, it's Genesis, Exodus, and then you jump right to Psalms.

01:07:38

Gotcha. Gotcha. So the super Christians get to Deuteronomy then, the super Christians.

01:07:45

Yeah. Gotcha. We're just Jewish people. You know, it was interesting, but I was in Deuteronomy chapter four, and very interesting what you see there.

01:07:58

And hold on, for your co -host's sake, you know, let me, let me, let me turn some pages here,

01:08:06

Daryl. The only thing that'll make it better is if you get... I know what you want to say, and I'm going to say it,

01:08:13

I'm going to say it. And Daryl, for you, what you're hearing is the turning pages in my beautifully, nice, gold -skinned, elect -standard version.

01:08:25

Oh, nice work! That's right. And for folks who don't know that, you don't listen to Just Thinking.

01:08:32

But Daryl and Virgil have a back and forth on their versions. I happen to agree with Virgil in the better translation.

01:08:42

I mean, truthfully, I prefer the Holman, but they don't make that anymore. But here's the thing I found so interesting when

01:08:48

I was reading through this. The purpose of the law was so that when they go into the foreign lands, everyone's going to look at the law of God and say,

01:08:56

God must have given that. That must come from God. So this is the thing I find so interesting. We have the truth.

01:09:01

We have God's word. We should be holding it up because it's true, and people will recognize the truth.

01:09:08

Because 2 Corinthians 13 says, you can do nothing against the truth, but by the truth. So if we hold up the truth, we will have something that the world will recognize, even though they may not want to.

01:09:18

They're being gaslighted right now. We need to stand up with double effort to stand up with the truth and proclaim it from the housetops.

01:09:27

That's needed. Folks, don't sit here and complain, oh, what happened in Sri Lanka is horrible.

01:09:33

That's going to happen here soon. It really will. If we're going to have the Stephen Furtick's of the world out there, they're not going to stop it.

01:09:40

You see from what the media is doing and all these politicians, they're more than happy to continue with it.

01:09:47

Brothers and sisters, those of you who claim to know Jesus Christ, it is time to stand up for the truth of God's word.

01:09:55

You have the truth. Now proclaim it everywhere. Don't bow down to the world just because they want to make you feel like you shouldn't speak out.

01:10:05

I know so many people that are afraid to say what they believe at their workplace.

01:10:11

And there's people that they work with that have no problem saying what they believe, criticizing Christianity and Christians that won't stand up and correct it because they're too afraid

01:10:19

I might lose my job. Right now you're worried about losing your job later and maybe you're losing your life because this isn't going to stop.

01:10:26

They can't stop. If they stop, they lose the power that they're trying to create. So we need to get the true gospel out there.

01:10:34

We need to proclaim the truth. Now both Virgil and I, our hearts go out, as we said at the beginning, our hearts go out for these people at Sri Lanka.

01:10:43

We realize that many of those who died were Roman Catholic, and if they believed in Roman Catholic doctrine, then today they're going to be spending the rest of eternity in hell.

01:10:53

That is tragic. And some people are going to say, how dare I say that? No, I say that because that's what

01:10:59

God says. That's reality, folks. It's not something we should shy away from. We need to say the truth because you know what?

01:11:06

There were only 300 plus people that died in Sri Lanka, but there are 160 ,000 people that are going to die today and another 160 ,000 tomorrow.

01:11:17

We need to stand up for the truth and we need to get the gospel out because these people are dying and going to hell.

01:11:23

We're not going to save them, but God says we have to preach so that they can hear, so God could do that work.

01:11:29

God could do it without us if he wants to, but he wants to use us. We need to step up and do it.

01:11:35

So with that, next week, I said I'll have Dr. Danny Purvis on. I always am blessed when

01:11:40

Brother Virgil comes in here, Omaha. So he is without his sidekick,

01:11:49

Hollywood, we just call him Hollywood, not even Hollywood Harrison anymore.

01:11:54

He's just Hollywood. Hollywood. Okay. I'll let him know. We record on Sunday.

01:12:01

I'm looking forward to that as well. So I'll let him know. It's no longer Hollywood Harrison, no longer

01:12:07

Dangerous Darrell, it's just Hollywood. Just Hollywood. Got it. And he's going to go, but I don't live near Hollywood. Everyone out there thinks that when you come to the

01:12:14

West Coast, it's all Hollywood. No we don't. Your last name started with an H. It worked.

01:12:21

Right. Right. Right. So it worked. No doubt. I'll definitely let him know. And by the way, it was

01:12:26

Phil Johnson and he's from California now. He's been there long enough. That's right. So he knows, he knows his way around.

01:12:33

He knows what's up. Are we going to question the great mind of Phil Johnson? I'm not even going to come close to touching that.

01:12:40

Exactly. So if he says you're Hollywood, you're Hollywood. I'm with it. I'm with it. So until next week, strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

01:12:48

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

01:12:57

All right. Till next week. Remember and strive to make today a glorious day for the...

01:13:03

I've totally messed that up. I'm going to edit that part out. Okay. Oh. And I didn't mess anything else up?