289: Pastor Plek is joined by Machine Gun Nick and John Milton to explore the raw power of confession and the restorative embrace of prayer, drawing from the deep wells of James 5:16 and 1 John 1:9. Prepare to be moved by tales of vulnerability within Pastor Plek's men's group, where the act of laying bare one's struggles invites a communal healing.
Got questions? Text us at 737-231-0605!
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289: Pastor Plek is joined by Machine Gun Nick and John Milton to explore the raw power of confession and the restorative embrace of prayer, drawing from the deep wells of James 5:16 and 1 John 1:9. Prepare to be moved by tales of vulnerability within Pastor Plek's men's group, where the act of laying bare one's struggles invites a communal healing.
Got questions? Text us at 737-231-0605!
Like, share, and subscribe! We love seeing and responding to your reviews and comments.
Support the show: https://wbcc.churchcenter.com/giving
And welcome back to pastor flex podcast. I'm your host, pastor Plex, and joining with me today is none other than John Milton. Hello, it's me tallest man at our church.
Speaker 3:That's that's not true, I don't know anybody else is tall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I haven't been around but I don't even know his name. But he's got a kid he's.
Speaker 3:Nathan Pro oh yeah oh yeah, the kind of like whoa, all right, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations that you're at least second All right, what about machine gun? Nick, welcome back. Yeah how you feeling Pretty good looking for a job. Yep, how's that going?
Speaker 3:Rough.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, we got some questions. Oh, hopefully make it more lighter for you, or smoother, might be the better way. All right, here it is first one. I think this is one that you both have actually had some great practice in. You guys are both part of the pastor Plex men's group, which I really appreciate. If anybody wants to come to, that's on Tuesday nights, my house, so just Text in and we'll give you the address 30 pm 7 30 pm Civilian time yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Or 1930 for all you true warriors, that's right. So here's a question. I really want you to think about this and give me a good answer. In reference to James 516 and first John 1, 9, when it comes To our need to confess to God and his forgiveness to us, is it okay to simply ask for forgiveness such as God Forgive me for being lustful. And that count is both confession and asking for forgiveness because I am mentioning my sin. Is this being too legalistic, or should it be two separate things? First off, do you understand the question?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you understand, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:You know first so.
Speaker 3:I'm conflicted in a yes and a no. I think it's a good starting point to say, hey God, I'm sorry, forgive me for what I just did. And I think, as my, as I mature in my Walk with Christ, I do that to myself more often. But I also feel that it helps a lot if you're struggling with that, like over and over and over again, to bring it up to a group and have prayer brought over you, that's kind of like.
Speaker 1:So there's two separate things here, and I think that's this is important to talk about. So first, john 1 9 talks about your confession to God, which is private, you and God alone, okay, and I think in that, in that circumstance, saying hey, god, forgive me for being lustful, is completely okay it's confession and asking for forgiveness at the same time Okay, that's totally fine. I think what it's confusing because he's kind of convoluted, or at least the person asking questions convoluted. The two first, john 1 9, is If we confess our sins, god's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from unrighteousness, confession to God equals forgiveness. When we confess to God, we're saying God, I'm sorry for this thing, and it's implied You're asking for forgiveness with that, okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Now James 5 16 says confess your sins one to another and pray for each other that you may be healed. So watch this it's confession as your part, then Then prayer is the other person's part results in healing, mm-hmm. So I think that this is where we struggle, because this is the part that the church in general struggles with, and I think We've been intentional about trying to do this well at our church, not that we have ever Even thought of arriving. But it goes like you know, we've talked about that's at our, at the men's group, where you would confess your sin and then we would pray over you, literally pray the gospel, god. Thank you so much for John's confession of whatever.
Speaker 1:Jesus you died on the cross for that sin. That sin was that bad that it deserved hell. But, jesus, you went to hell for John and then you rose from the dead, holy Spirit and power John to go forth and sin no more. That that's kind of how that that works. And again, I don't want to make it like it's a formula because I know that's kind of a scary words, but there is sort of a reality of understanding that when I take my sins to God, there's true forgiveness, but the healing comes by the body of Christ praying the gospel over me for me to be emotionally, physically, whatever healed from, whatever the thing was, spiritually healed as well. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of power in that. Yeah, I have felt that time and time again From what we've done at the group right and it is. It's very healing, I find it, john. What about you?
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's the sort of healing you don't expect. Tell me about that. You can like you can write it down in a book that's very, very old and very, very correct all the time and Still harbor that.
Speaker 1:I should.
Speaker 2:I don't want to call attention to myself. I don't write. I'll do it next week and I get around to it and the healing is very profound and meaningful and necessary and every time I go I should have done it sooner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wild. One of the things that happened at our group to the night, which I thought was really cool, or a couple weeks ago, do you? Remember when Eric Uh, it was three weeks ago it was wild. He's like guys. I just I really can't. I'm feeling like a fog fog and I was. I didn't really understand what he was talking about, but I was like, alright, let's pray. I was like at the time, everything. Is this a time where we pray over?
Speaker 2:him. I wasn't really sure.
Speaker 1:And it was a physical experience that he was having.
Speaker 1:So he shared his experience and we asked him if there are any sins and then he, I think he confessed whatever it was, and then we prayed over and then he started crying immediately after we prayed over him going God, I felt this is the first time in months that I feel like the fog is gone from my brain and it was one of those moments where we looked at him like because I didn't feel like any special powers, like nothing. Like you know, I wasn't zapping him or whatever it just I prayed a simple prayer and then something happened that I can't explain. I think that's the power of God and I think that's how God works. I think a lot of times we kind of, I think Pastor Mo a sermon recently. It was, like you know, whenever Jesus is praying or when everyone's praying, he doesn't have to have a whole lot of commotion, a whole lot of, you know, emotion going into it. It's a simple trustee in faith that my prayer is going to be heard by God and believing bam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no special effects.
Speaker 1:There's no special effects, it just happens, and so I think we've seen that happen a lot at our group, where people have walked away in complete freedom, which has been really encouraging for me. So I think the short answer to this question is confession. Confession to God is personal and private, and that's for forgiveness. The healing aspect comes from confession to others and then them praying over you equals the healing part, and that's what. Those are two separate things and hopefully that.
Speaker 3:May I convey something? Yeah, and this is anyways. So I was like at least once a day look at porn. You know, especially after the divorce and everything that was a problem in the second marriage, a person like it was like yeah, we got to, we got to do this to go to sleep. Right, I no longer have that, I don't look at it anymore.
Speaker 1:That's wild.
Speaker 3:And like it is gone, the drive to look at it is I. Even if I bring it up like I'm like, ah, maybe just a little peak, I'm like no, can't do it.
Speaker 1:So so would you attribute that to like that Do?
Speaker 3:we pray over you. You prayed over me before. It was like that. I even brought that up that one day and and it's been over a year, wow, and yeah, it's, it's gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I said, like I don't even remember praying that, yeah, but it's like amazing. It's amazing that like that for you was so powerful. So it's not dependent upon the feeling, it's dependent upon the trusting in the Lord to do and remember. It's a super vulnerable thing to say like here's the thing I'm struggling with. Yeah, will you pray over me? And that's why I think there's so much healing there. Right Is?
Speaker 1:It's like you see the weight of your sin and how awful it is, and it's no longer secret. Secrets weigh down people. If you are carrying a burden, you're carrying a secret, and I think here's what can happen. Here's what can happen in a negative way. You can share that burden and everyone goes yeah, me too and then that's all that. It is that will leave you in greater misery, because now misery loves company.
Speaker 1:Now you have a special group of friends that you share that sin with, but nothing happens. No one goes. That's awful, that is. And at the same time, you don't want to go to a place where, like well, you're the worst person ever and you need to. You know, xyz, remember the prescription that God's word gives is that you confess your sin one to another and pray for each other that you may be healed, and so you bring the sin. Then you ask for the healing and you ask for God, through the Gospel word, to remind the person that that sin was that bad. But God, you are that good, and so therefore, you took the sin and gave back righteousness.
Speaker 2:So any other thoughts on that yeah, with that variable specifically, it's written on a lot of our hearts to expect shame and disgrace when we share it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's why we take forever to share it.
Speaker 1:And can I be honest with like for me, like now that I'm a pastor and I've been a pastor for over 10 years there's a part of me that doesn't want to confess a small thing because it seems dumb or it would seem like, okay, you're now bragging over there with your small sins. You know, you just confess that you cheated on your wife or you've been stuck at porn or you didn't get an alcoholic to slap your kid or something Like you know, like the ple-, like that would be. Oh, that's worthy of confession. I think what has to happen is that you're so sensitive to sin that you confess it. Sure, that you confess it all the time. This is why I have- what is that part?
Speaker 3:There's something about bringing the darkness into the light. Right, and when we share our sin, that's what we're doing we're taking that darkness and we're showing it to the light. Nice, exposing it to the light and then it loses power.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like bacteria or whatever in the light is killed.
Speaker 1:And I think that there's a spiritual corruption that's constantly kind of getting on us and happening to us, which is one of the things that the elders do in our weekly meeting and then in our accountability group. Accountability meeting with just another one of the elders is we go through our list of accountability questions and we pray the gospel of each other and there's never a time where you don't confess something, because if you don't confess something, that means you're self-deceived, and so at the very least, you're gonna be like I'm self-deceived today because I'm suppressing the truth that I don't want to know, that there's some darkness in my heart that I don't want revealed, and then you have somebody pray over for that. So any time that you're sitting down with somebody, you should be going like take an inventory and go what do I need to confess? And I think you know when we talk about deliverance ministry, of like delivering people, helping to heal them from spiritual darkness or past trauma or whatever the deal is like, I think that's the same remedy. It's like confess that sin of the past that happened to you or that you committed or whatever you're in a physical year 12, 13, 14 and pray the gospel of it. When I do that with couples. I do that regularly with couples and the amount of healing that happens over the period of their marriages, of going all the way back, is wild.
Speaker 1:And I think the same is true of going back to like when you're a kid and you're eight years old and you got angry or you looked at porn or you did whatever. Like going back to that moment and asking God to forgive you for that. Even it's so far in the past, remember. It's not like sin does have a what's it called when, a compound effect over time. And if you can get back to root struggles and stuff and ask God to forgive you for stuff from a long time ago, whether it was this week or from a long time ago. It's not like time heals sin. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:But Jesus does and I'm not saying he doesn't cover it, remember, he's forgiven. You came to him when you, when Jesus died on the cross for you and rose to the dead and you believed in it. He covered all your sins, past, present, future. You're forgiven. But the healing part happens when you're able to bring that stuff up from the darkness of your past and then walk through and say Jesus, heal me. Here's the stuff I'm going to bring up from when I was eight, nine, 10, 11, 15, whatever, and I need healing from that. I know I'm forgiven from it, but I need healing from it because it's still affecting me. I mean, how many people do you know are still affected by bad decisions they made in their teenage years, or maybe earlier than that, and they are struggling or things that?
Speaker 1:they had no control over Exactly Things that happened to you I think one of the things that happened to Adrian we've talked about a lot is that she was molested as a little kid and then, as a little kid, molested other people. That was a thing and she had to for her to bring that up and have that gospel kind of center on that. There's freedom in that, Because there's a lot of ickiness involved in that part of the darkness of heart.
Speaker 3:Is that person still around? We can take care of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. Well, I don't know 30 years ago.
Speaker 3:35 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's wild, right, yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 3:Man, I don't know how people do that, because I hear about that. Gosh, if I could wreak vengeance on four of them.
Speaker 1:How do you want them played?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, are we talking paper or plastic here? Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, but I appreciate the justice that rides up in you, it hurts, it does hurt. I feel that pain for them and I know that's not the right answer and I know God has the vengeance for them and that you don't want to go into world and take your own vengeance on those persons.
Speaker 1:I saw that in scripture, for God will avenge you, and he could do it way worse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he sure can.
Speaker 1:Or better.
Speaker 3:A person had once told me there's worse than death, and that was the first ex-father-in-law. He was right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So All right.
Speaker 1:All right, moving on to the next question, we have this up. The next question is I heard an ex-fangelical say that Christianity teaches that, according to God, we humans are somehow simultaneously worthy of love and also eternal torment at the same time. How can we combat this? Flip this statement on its head with scripture?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:First off, do you know what an ex-fangelical is?
Speaker 2:I do not. What is that?
Speaker 1:Okay, so have you ever heard of an evangelical yeah?
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:So do you know what an evangelical is? A tough one, because many people don't know what that is. It just feels like a political party or something. An evangelical is someone who is believes in the power of the resurrection of Christ and is outwardly sharing their faith. So it's not one denomination that I guess you know. Southern Baptist would be like that. The PCA Presbyterian Church of America would be that Our churches, that Bible churches are that in general, mainline denominational churches are not like that. Like you know, keep your faith to yourself and Calvinists probably.
Speaker 3:Lutherans.
Speaker 1:No, we're Calvinists too.
Speaker 3:Well, no more your Lutherans, your Catholics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so some Lutherans are. So yeah it's a weird mix.
Speaker 3:That's why the Mormons definitely are.
Speaker 1:Well, the Mormons are different right. They're outside the. Orthodox Christianity.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, that is so anyway. Evangelical has a broad definition, which means a lot of things to different people, but when an ex-vangelical says that, what their meaning is like? I used to be one of those born again types and I've given up. I've deconstructed my faith and I no longer believe in the traditional view of Jesus and the Bible. I and usually what they'd say is I believe in a gay affirming Jesus, I believe in a. You know, everyone goes to heaven Jesus. I believe in a, and so I have. You know, the evangelical movement has done so much harm to people by telling them that there's a heaven and a hell.
Speaker 2:And do they believe there's no sin? Yeah, that's a tricky one that is a tricky one.
Speaker 1:They would believe that sin would be something that is subjective, and I think that's the part that's difficult, right?
Speaker 3:Or do they go on the line that there is sin but you're always forgiven for it?
Speaker 1:So yeah, so the hard thing about an ex-vangelical it's just as hard as evangelical. There isn't a really good specific definition for it, but it's just generally people who had a born again experience that have walked away from it. That's the general way. So then this person is saying the ex-vangelical is accusing Christians of believing that humans are somehow Simultaneously worthy of love and also turn eternal torment at the same time. And then this person is saying like how can I combat that? Well, first off, we're not. So it's impossible To be somehow simultaneously worthy of love and also turn toward. There is no Bible verse that says that, no, anywhere. But there are Bible verses, say for Romans 3, 20s, before we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, romans 6, 23 says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1:Okay and then God demonstrates love for us in this, though I was still sinners, christ died for us, and if you confess to him out Jesus Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him Dead, you'll be saved. So there is a you saved from what? What are you saved from? You're saved from eternal conscious torment. Yes, that's what you're saved from. So you no longer worthy of of Eternal conscious torment. You are now worthy of eternal love. Right, and that is why we believe in the perseverance of the saints. We believe, when, once you regenerate, you don't go back, that you are forever and ever and ever worthy of God's unbelievable, amazing love.
Speaker 1:Not separation from him right, yeah, and that would be the eternal conscious torment is separated from God, because I meant in your whole heart, being in soul, and this world either numbs you from the reality of like you were meant for God in some way or Accentuates it, that the fact that you need God, and through pain and suffering and all that. So I think that there's a part of this that I Don't. I would, I would challenge the person. I would say show me the Bible verse that says that we are Simultaneously worthy of love and also eternal torment at the same time. We are. I will say, we are a saint who is worthy of love, but we also are a sinner who is Sinning, yeah, and, and the actions might be worthy of hell. However, jesus took those on the cross.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the statement in this question is is convoluted to the point that it assumes Multiple verses are written at once. Right, and they're not. It also assumes that you can arrive Right assumes that there's an endpoint or a stopping point, right or it seems like a back and forthness right.
Speaker 3:I see a duality when, on one end, like the, the gospel says you know you're to be loved and then, on the other end, the gold testament is if you don't, you know, complete the covenant like this, it's gonna hurt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even then, if you believe you know, did so. For example, moses disobey God, sure right. Clearly Moses is in heaven, like that's where in the New Testament, he is with God, standing on the Mount Transfiguration.
Speaker 3:He just said couldn't go in the city.
Speaker 1:He didn't he didn't go to the promised land. Yeah, yeah, he stood on Mount Nebo, looked across promised land. There it is, and God killed him. All right, like that was it.
Speaker 2:You're done Okay so.
Speaker 1:So I think what happened is, or what happens is, that we have a tendency To look at the Old Testament, god of wrath, as different from the God of New Testament, you know same.
Speaker 1:God same. That which is why I went going through Exodus. What I tried to do was sort of show that when Jesus said you've heard it said love your neighbor, hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for them. Well, he's going back the Old Testament saying you were literally supposed to love your enemy. When your neighbor's ox Got out and he was an enemy of yours who was trying to sue you in court, you're supposed to go take his oxback because you're trusting that the God of the universe has put these judges in place. That's gonna make the situation fair. And that that's wild.
Speaker 1:Because I mean, think about, like, imagine being commanded to take care of Somebody who just screwed you on a job, like you had a. Let's say you're about to go do a job and the person said, hey, I'm not, you know what, I don't need you anymore. And he jumps out of your truck and then he goes and does the job on himself by himself and leaves you out of it. And now you're like, well, what am I gonna do for money? And that becomes a problem, right? So you got to say what am I gonna do in that situation? And then also, let's say you have his Tools in your truck, you go and bring them back to him because you trust that God is sovereign over that whole situation.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's all I can say is okay right now. That's good.
Speaker 1:Alright, so I think that that is an important aspect to kind of see that.
Speaker 3:Well, the other thing I want to bring up to people who haven't maybe there's some other people out there like me that who just caught on that the whole Old Testament is talking about the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:It's going to happen, because that's what happened when we're going through Exodus. It was like this revelation to me that, oh my gosh, yeah, so Jesus. They talked about him coming this whole entire book, and then he gets here and they're like, hey, you're not the right.
Speaker 2:You're not him at all, right.
Speaker 3:How many miracles does he have to perform? Right? But I just, I just caught on to that and I was like it was an epiphany.
Speaker 1:Here's a seminary phrase for you the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:Old Testament tees it up.
Speaker 1:It does, and I think that that's important. So back to this remember, all human beings were created perfect and then Adam and Eve blew it and then, therefore, we inherited their sin, which is not fair.
Speaker 3:Well, what if you say, like how can we really put it on Adam? Like Eve kind of deceived him right, Sure, but he just didn't mean to be deceived.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not like he wasn't there yeah, he was. Like. It's like he was complicit yeah, how many guys do that? Oh boy, Passive central time.
Speaker 3:So, if you haven't caught on yet, what I'm talking about is you have principles, you meet a lady and then suddenly you lose your principles. Yeah, the reason I'm talking about this, because I'm guilty of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're as we all are. I think that's the struggle, right, we were all guilty in some form, fashion or manner. Yes, of being passive when it comes to women, because our culture and what's interesting?
Speaker 1:like 70 years ago you would make fun of women as being dumb. Now you make fun of men. Men is being dumb, and it's a pendulum swing. You're about to see. I know I've been telling this for saying this for about the past couple years we're about to see a cultural shift back toward men, and I'm not saying it's a good thing. It is a good thing, but it's not a Christian thing. I just think the culture is going to flip because there's going to be a desire for men to take lead. What's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1:The church used to be a place for women.
Speaker 1:In fact, from the very beginning, when there was a female infanticide, or really infanticide like killing of babies usually you kill the female child because it wasn't going to be worth anything when it grew up.
Speaker 1:And so what you saw for a long time is just that is, women sort of being belittled, women being sort of destroyed, women sort of held down, held back. And then something happened the only ones that brought women's suffrage or women's rights to the forefront were Christians. Because the women flocked to the church, because it was the one place where they were seen, the one place where their rights and their abilities were seen as really great, noble and awesome and unbelievably valued. And then something happened where that somehow became draconian and then men were somehow seen as this toxic, masculine, bad, awful people, and so therefore, they were sort of pushed down, and the only place now that sort of reveres men and calls men to lead is the church so of course the church is going to see a pouring on of men in this sort of season and the culture, I think, is going to respond to that in a cool way.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, I think it's going to go way too far and we'll probably end up back where we were, because the culture goes back and forth over and over again.
Speaker 3:That's kind of my philosophy on the term equal. Everybody wants equal. Or they claim to want equal. But if you take a realist approach because I did take a what is that called international relations class and a realist approach is there's set amount of resources, there's a set amount of places where people can lead right, sure, and we say, oh, equal, equal, equal. Well, once your group starts getting toward the equal pendulum, then they're like no, we're more equal. Yeah, what we really mean is we want, we want it all.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And I can see that happening again. So equality is this like thing that we all like, we want it, but every time somebody moves the pendulum, Anytime you enforce equality with a gun, it's not equality, sure yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, also right.
Speaker 1:I mean, like when you're telling somebody you'll be equal or else Right and so I'm going to take your resources and give to this person, right, I mean? We usually call that theft.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I think that's or communism or socialism.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean whatever you, whatever you want to call it, and I'm not saying a form of government is not evil or bad in and of itself. It's the people that are the problem, and so you constantly need to have checks and balances to any sort of governmental system. And now we're. I don't know how we even got a governmental system, but anyway, like that's another hole, that's a rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:We're not going down that way. Anyway, I just want to make sure we kind of hammered those two questions because I think those are those are big questions of the ex-vangelical world. I think there's a lot like ex-vangelicals usually are really upset about toxic masculinity, sexuality being defined as between a man and woman taking care of the poor, which is which is actually great. Taking care of the poor is a great thing.
Speaker 3:But in Romans 8, it is Romans 8, I believe okay says well, correct me if I'm wrong. Somewhere in Romans he's talking about men no men, women no women.
Speaker 1:That's Romans one. Oh, that's Romans one. Yeah, there you go, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I got to reread Romans.
Speaker 1:Romans 8 is a very encouraging chapter.
Speaker 3:Romans one says that this makes God mad, so how can you?
Speaker 1:The wrath of God is being revealed against mankind because of it's just men no men and women no women. Well, no, it's so. That is because men have exchanged the glory of God for to worship human beings or creatures. God gave them over to passions lusts. So homosexuality is a consequence of our sin of rejecting God.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so it's not.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously you could say like it is clearly against God's law and the way he's designed people, but when you see people acting out in such the way that that it's so grotesque and all over the place, that's God's judgment on a culture.
Speaker 2:Powerful. That's what men no men is supposed to mean.
Speaker 1:So let me read it for you, because it can get confusing if you don't understand the context, but please let me pull it up here. So Romans one. I think we're gonna start at verse 18. It was just preceded by I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's God's power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteous of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as written. The righteous will live by faith, for the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them, for his invisible atreus and his eternal power, divine nature, have been clearly preceded, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
Speaker 1:So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and images and birds and animals and creepy things. Therefore, god gave them up, in the lusts of their hearts, to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever Amen. For this reason, god gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women, exchanged naturalations for those that are contrary to nature.
Speaker 1:And the men, likewise, gave up naturalations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their perversion, the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, god gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covenants, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Pretty wild right.
Speaker 3:Doesn't that sound a little bit like what we're going through right now? It totally does. It sounds really similar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's wild, I mean when you look at the darkness that is within the culture and now here's what I used to think.
Speaker 1:Can I just be honest? I used to think our culture was so bad and before, back in some other golden era, it was great, Perfect, yeah, it's always been bad, Always. So a couple weeks ago, shoot, last week, we took a trip like a vacation to San Antonio, went to San Antonio Museum of Art and I guess the boys were their favorite part of the trip SeaWorld, the zoo, Alamo, Riverwalk what was their favorite? They're like the Museum of Art and they go. Why they go? Look at all the naked people. Because all the museum it's like naked people. Now, all of their genitalia were broken off. It was wild, Because I guess over time, people just thought that'd be funny, which, I mean, isn't that what you would do? That?
Speaker 2:is funny, it is funny.
Speaker 1:All right. So what happens? They love that part because it was like all these broken off penises were everywhere, or like bodies without the penis were broken off, and it made me think I was like. I was like. I was like read the little history of this and like this, you know, showed this emperor's penis here, because it showed how powerful he was and I was sitting there going like.
Speaker 1:This is a person that made a statue of himself, that went out into public, that had his naked genitalia exposed for everybody so that he could show how powerful and I was. Like nothing has changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We maybe we've clothed it a little bit, but now it's just exposed. The darkness is exposed in different ways. Yeah, when men are transitioning to women, when women are transitioning to men. You're seeing that kind of thing happen and it's not. It's not like people are worse now, it's just there's worse. They've always been. Sure, You're just now seeing it, I think, because maybe you're as a kid, you're not exposed to that, I'm sure. And like, if you're to look at racism back, you know 50, 60 years ago, that's an evil dark evil.
Speaker 2:It's just a different evil. Now, right, that's exposed. It's a. It's a different. It's just wearing different clothes, right or not at all. It's the same evil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you look the way that people debased other people and like half a population was complete slave labor, you know, you just. You see all that and you're like things are not worse, they're just not better.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the interesting part too, is that if you're going to take a dark and hard of man and say I know how to solve this evil, I did it. Yeah, with more evil Right. That's very human. The book says that over and over again.
Speaker 1:Right and even, like you know, and I love Abraham Lincoln, great American, but even he said if I could keep slavery and maintain the unity of the nation, or if I could get rid of, you know, emancipate all the slaves to keep the unity of the nation, I'd do it. My main concern is keeping the unity of the nation. And you're just like, huh, that's a weird thing to say, abe, because I thought you know, slaves are a bad thing. That's not good. The way that we're treating people here is not good, not good at all. So I think there's again.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, we got to look at Abraham Lincoln, the time when he in slavery is wrong, the time in which he was president, the 19th century. It was going on during that time. And then you also have to look at his philosophy, which was basically that we should just take the slaves and send them back to Africa not right not bring them into society, which is crazy, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, so you could have a million different solutions. The problem is you're going to be stuck with the evil of man, like as much as you want to sort of like. What we do is we glorify certain men and then we have to later on cancel them because you know they also were sinners and it's like of course they were said. They've always been sinners. I'm a sinner, you're a sinner. It's just that their sins were exposed on a historical paperback and your sins are hidden, which we've talked about, that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, all that to say. My main point of that is it's not like the world has gotten worse. It's just as bad as it's always been and it's not getting better. The only way you know the culture changes in different ways is where you see the mark of Christianity on a culture. Where there's a mark of Christianity on a culture, you're going to see it get exponentially better, which is why you know, as you watch, like Europe sort of decay. Well, that's because Christianity is gone. And you know, you kind of think things in America are kind of like status quo. That's because it's status quo Christianity when things in China are blowing up. We're the greatest number of Christians in the world, china.
Speaker 1:You know that's wild to think about because it's the worst living conditions or no, or it's just the greatest number of population, so anyway all both yeah or both, right. I mean, christianity flourishes when it's persecuted.
Speaker 2:Wait, you know, that's true.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it's just something, something to think about. All right, man, I know we went way longer on that than I expect those two questions. Any other final thoughts as we wrap up?
Speaker 2:The dark heart of man is is as permanent as God. Yeah. Well, you can decide to walk a different path you can, but every five seconds you're going to get challenged again.
Speaker 1:And remember you. Apart from God, you can. This kind of goes back to that question. Apart from God, you cannot do the right thing.
Speaker 1:No you have no desire to none, the best you can do is for the sake of your own, saving your own skin, do the right thing for the right reason. But for what Jesus does is he literally changes the heart to make you unworthy of torment and make you worthy of love. Hey, listen. Thanks so much for watching. If you want to send in some more questions, go to pastorplekcom or send us a text at 737-231-0605. We would love to hear from you, from our house to yours. Have an awesome week of reading.