Latest / Fire on the Earth / Fire on the Earth - September 8, 2026 - Pete Burak contrasts the “story of the world” with the “story of God”.

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Fire on the Earth - September 8, 2026 - Pete Burak contrasts the “story of the world” with the “story of God”. · Fire on the Earth

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  SPEAKER_01: Ave Maria Radio and Renewal Ministries presents Fire on the Earth,
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  SPEAKER_01: a compelling look at the new evangelization through inspiring teachings,
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  SPEAKER_01: interviews, and testimonies.
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  SPEAKER_02: Welcome friends,
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  SPEAKER_02: this is Peter Herbeck,
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  SPEAKER_02: your host,
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  SPEAKER_02: and I'm delighted to welcome back to the program our guest Peter Burak this week.
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  SPEAKER_02: If you didn't have a chance to tune into the program yesterday,
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  SPEAKER_02: Peter was with us and just sharing Some of what the Lord's been giving him to speak
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  SPEAKER_02: and to preach on.
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  SPEAKER_02: Peter's the vice president of Renewal Ministries here.
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  SPEAKER_02: He's a really critically important part of our team.
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  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord's been deploying him all over the place, domestically, internationally.
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  SPEAKER_02: And he's a young voice that's emerged in the church.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's bringing it on to life and vision, I think, in many different places in the church.
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  SPEAKER_02: So welcome, Peter.
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  SPEAKER_02: Hey, good to be back.
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  SPEAKER_02: Great to have you back.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we talked yesterday about really new life in the Holy Spirit and how
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  SPEAKER_02: the Holy Spirit drives the mission of the church.
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  SPEAKER_02: And the church is on mission when the church is yielded to the Holy Spirit,
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  SPEAKER_02: whether it's the Pope or whether it's way down at the bottom where you and I are
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  SPEAKER_02: and everything in between.
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  SPEAKER_02: We just want to,
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  SPEAKER_02: we surrender ourselves knowing as Catholics that As Christians,
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  SPEAKER_02: we're baptized into Christ in the Holy Spirit.
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  SPEAKER_02: Everyone has been personally sent.
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  SPEAKER_02: We're apostles, small a.
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  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
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  SPEAKER_02: We're an apostolic people.
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  SPEAKER_02: So we all get deployed by the Lord in whatever way, if we're tentative.
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  SPEAKER_02: You know, we don't all become priests.
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  SPEAKER_02: We don't all become religious and we don't become professional Christians in terms
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  SPEAKER_02: of but everybody's actually called to it.
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  SPEAKER_02: So that was a good foundation, I think, to just begin our discussion this week.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I know that you've also talked about some big picture stuff kind of
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  SPEAKER_02: that I think has been very helpful for people.
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  SPEAKER_02: So why don't you share with us some of the some of what you've been up to there?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one of the things the Holy Spirit does for those,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: who are open and asking and listening and probably for particular anointings in
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  SPEAKER_00: the mission is to give a sense of like what's going on in the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: kind of a reading of the signs of the times so as to not...
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to be aware of how
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  SPEAKER_00: the gospel often doesn't accommodate maybe, or where the clash is.
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  SPEAKER_00: These eternal truths of the faith are just in radical opposition to the rest of the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is the whole fallen world that we're in that because of sin and darkness
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  SPEAKER_00: and death that like we're just there is a conflict here.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yet what I've noticed is that especially speaking at different parishes and
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  SPEAKER_00: in different places that and even in my own heart, there's a desire.
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  SPEAKER_00: To try to bring together what I call the story of the world and the story of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: Try to find common ground.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's a desire in us to hope that there might be some way that we can mix the two.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because there's things about what this world offers that are really appealing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's some things that are really attractive.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then there's certainly things about the faith that we're trying to uphold.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I think a lot of us can sometimes think that actually I'm living
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  SPEAKER_00: the way God would want me to live,
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  SPEAKER_00: but our minds are actually formed more by what the world says about life,
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  SPEAKER_00: about who we are, what we're made for, and where we're going.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then we live kind of in this weird tension of wondering why the promises
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  SPEAKER_00: of God aren't being fulfilled in our life, but we're actually living...
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  SPEAKER_00: We're actually thinking like a pagan,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we're ascribing all these things to the Lord instead of to their actual source,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is not of Him.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so it can be very helpful to take a step back and just say,
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  SPEAKER_00: okay, what does the world say about everything?
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  SPEAKER_00: And what does God say about everything?
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  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at it that way, you realize they're not the same.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they really don't mix.
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  SPEAKER_00: They start in different places,
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  SPEAKER_00: they end in different places,
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  SPEAKER_00: they have different characters along the story,
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  SPEAKER_00: they have different promises, and they just are not, they're oil and water.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so often we try to have one foot in the kingdom of the world and one foot in
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  SPEAKER_00: the kingdom of God because we think that's maybe a safer place to be or
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  SPEAKER_00: a more comfortable place to be.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's just not what it means to be a disciple.
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  SPEAKER_00: To be a disciple is fully in the kingdom of God.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, give us some examples of what you're talking about,
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  SPEAKER_02: kind of contextualize it a little bit,
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  SPEAKER_02: because we keep thinking in my mind as you're talking,
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  SPEAKER_02: you know, Jesus said, the Bible says, be in the world, But not of the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_02: And that's right around what you're talking about too.
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  SPEAKER_02: It would be nice to just open this up a little bit.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not hard to be in the world because that's called living, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: We're all in the world at some level.
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  SPEAKER_00: The tricky part is what does it mean to avoid being of it, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: And so an example of this would be a big part of what the story of
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  SPEAKER_00: the world is based on is this idea that we were made good.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're intrinsically good.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like we were born into this world just by our very nature, we're good.
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  SPEAKER_02: Tabula rasa.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I don't know what that means, but I'll agree with that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds really good.
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  SPEAKER_00: This idea that we don't need a savior,
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  SPEAKER_00: we don't need to be saved from anything,
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  SPEAKER_00: because just the human being is inherently good,
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  SPEAKER_00: just by our nature, by the fact that we exist.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you press on it, it's like, why are we good?
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, just because, because we are.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's because of that,
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  SPEAKER_00: then, it means that our feelings and our desires and our passions are trustworthy.
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  SPEAKER_00: This idea that The world then says, okay,
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  SPEAKER_00: so because you're inherently good and the goal of life is to be happy,
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  SPEAKER_00: but in order to be happy, you need to be free.
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  SPEAKER_00: In order to be free, you need to be able to determine for yourself what life is all about.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in order to know what life is all about, it's not to look external to yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not to look at any sort of science or philosophy or theology or any sort
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  SPEAKER_00: of rational reason.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not really,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you want to,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can't,
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  SPEAKER_00: but ultimately the way you're going to know The truth that is going to lead
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  SPEAKER_00: to your happiness is to go deep into your own heart,
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  SPEAKER_00: into yourself, and to discover your authentic self, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: You've heard this, people talk about this all the time, living your authentic self.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what is your authentic self?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's defined by what you feel about yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel it deeply enough, it makes it true.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so the project of life is to discover that authentic self that you will know,
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  SPEAKER_00: you will see because it's based on feelings.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel it deeply enough, it means it's true.
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  SPEAKER_00: It means that's who you really are.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the project of life is to bring that authentic self out into the world
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  SPEAKER_00: and live in harmony with that authentic self.
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  SPEAKER_00: And make sure that everyone can see it, celebrate it and affirm it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you follow that pathway,
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  SPEAKER_00: then that will lead to happiness and that will lead to fulfillment.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so anything that gets in the way of that,
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  SPEAKER_00: any sort of science or reason or objection to that process is not based in any sort
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  SPEAKER_00: of rational understanding of life.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's The only explanation for why somebody would want to stymie that process
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  SPEAKER_00: in you is what must be because they hate you, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because what kind of person would want to get in the way of somebody's happiness?
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  SPEAKER_00: And so if the story of the world is all about individual expression
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  SPEAKER_00: and personal kind of discovery and living that authentic self,
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  SPEAKER_00: knowing that you're ultimately good unto yourself and that you have the capacity
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  SPEAKER_00: within yourself to be the best you can be,
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  SPEAKER_00: you don't need anything external,
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  SPEAKER_00: and anything that gets in the way of that,
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  SPEAKER_00: again, that process is The problem is with it, not with you.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if governments or religion or society norms or whatever are getting in the way of
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  SPEAKER_00: that process of self-discovery and freedom,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're the victim in that scenario,
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  SPEAKER_00: and they need to be changed, canceled, shut down, or whatever.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so this is just like a fundamental thing, especially that young people have...
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  SPEAKER_00: Bought hook, lion,
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  SPEAKER_00: sinker is that it's not I think therefore I am, it's really I feel therefore I am.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I feel it deeply enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: it makes it true, and that's my pathway to an authentic, fulfilled, happy life.
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  SPEAKER_02: And so then that's kind of the current worldview that's in play quite a bit in
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  SPEAKER_02: the West, just a taste of it anyway.
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  SPEAKER_02: So then the biblical worldview...
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  SPEAKER_00: Pretty different.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so describe that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, the biblical worldview is, yeah, okay, we were designed and fashioned very good.
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  SPEAKER_00: But because of sin, what was designed very good became very bad.
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  SPEAKER_00: How's that for deep theological language, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Very good to very bad.
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  SPEAKER_02: You're right there with Aquinas.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Took a master's degree to get that one, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: But that's the reality, is what does Scripture say?
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  SPEAKER_00: That actually all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the wages of sin is death,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that St. Paul goes as far as to call us a people under a curse.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are born into this world as sons and daughters of wrath.
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  SPEAKER_00: And because of that fundamental identity,
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  SPEAKER_00: that brokenness within us because of sin,
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  SPEAKER_00: In rebellion and disobedience and pride,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're born in this world with a problem that we can't solve.
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  SPEAKER_00: That we have a, you say it all the time, the sin problem that leads to the death problem.
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  SPEAKER_00: That our identity as sons and daughters of wrath means that our relationship
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  SPEAKER_00: with God kind of by entry into the world is ruptured.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's broken.
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  SPEAKER_00: So our identity as sons and daughters of wrath,
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  SPEAKER_00: our relationship with God is ruptured,
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  SPEAKER_00: and therefore our destiny without a change,
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  SPEAKER_00: without a savior, is condemnation, is damnation.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's the pathway.
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  SPEAKER_02: That's the biblical worldview.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's the biblical worldview.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then that's the bad news, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: But then we know there's really,
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  SPEAKER_00: really good news that God wasn't satisfied with this arrangement,
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  SPEAKER_00: that he sends his son,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that John 3, 16,
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  SPEAKER_00: that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,
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  SPEAKER_00: that whoever should believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life,
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  SPEAKER_00: that God does something that Jesus comes into our experience, into our existence.
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  SPEAKER_00: He takes on human flesh.
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  SPEAKER_00: And because of his death and resurrection,
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  SPEAKER_00: now all of a sudden our identity,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was sons and daughters of wrath,
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  SPEAKER_00: now have the potential to be through baptism and through faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sons and daughters of wrath become sons and daughters of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And our relationship with God is no longer fractured and distant, but intimate.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he comes and makes a home in us.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit comes and dwells in us.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist,
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  SPEAKER_00: we are united with him in the best way possible, this side of heaven.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then now,
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  SPEAKER_00: because of everything I just described,
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  SPEAKER_00: our destiny, which was damnation, has now become salvation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so, but the fundamental shift there is that in the story of the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're the protagonist, we're the hero, and we don't need a savior.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the story of God, he's the protagonist, he's the hero, and we absolutely need a savior.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful,
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  SPEAKER_00: unbelievable gift that's extended to us is through humility and through repentance
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  SPEAKER_00: and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we actually are grafted into his life.
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  SPEAKER_00: And his glory becomes our glory.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both here, we experience it as a down payment of his spirit here, but then for all eternity.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so they're just two fundamentally different ways of understanding life.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they don't really have a common overlap.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we know this because when the church is fully alive in this reality,
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  SPEAKER_00: she is a gadfly to the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: The salt is very salty and the light is very bright.
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  SPEAKER_00: And those who have ears to hear respond in repentance.
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  SPEAKER_00: But those who don't say, golly, like we need to Stop this.
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  SPEAKER_00: This message is not what we want to hear.
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  SPEAKER_02: What you began with,
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  SPEAKER_02: talking about how many people in the world read the human heart as sort of
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  SPEAKER_02: a pure thing that I must pay attention to the movements that are in my heart
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  SPEAKER_02: and respond to them.
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  SPEAKER_02: And that never, never need to be on guard, so to speak, that it might not reveal...
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  SPEAKER_02: What looks like truth may not be truth.
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  SPEAKER_02: So I've been so surprised by that.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's ironic because it's one of the clearest things in Scripture and the teaching of
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  SPEAKER_02: the church that is so,
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  SPEAKER_02: and of course the words of Jesus,
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  SPEAKER_02: his diagnosis of the human heart when they said,
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  SPEAKER_02: if we eat this food, Rabbi, are we going to defile ourselves?
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  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus, that's not the issue.
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  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the issue is look at your heart.
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  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
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  SPEAKER_02: The problem is your heart is defiled.
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  SPEAKER_02: Luke gives this incredible diagnosis, which is irrefutable.
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  SPEAKER_02: I look at it.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's my heart, Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_02: Anger, bitterness, rivalry, lust, hatred, all the stuff that's in there.
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  SPEAKER_02: How did that get in there?
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  SPEAKER_02: And it's universal.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's universal.
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  SPEAKER_02: So it really confirms so vividly the teaching of the church and just
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  SPEAKER_02: the biblical understanding of the human person.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's such a gift, but you can't live with sanity and order and peace if you don't Grasp that.
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  SPEAKER_02: You start affirming that whatever assertions or whatever truths are floating around
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  SPEAKER_02: in your heart is reality,
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  SPEAKER_02: as you were saying earlier,
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  SPEAKER_02: and it becomes truth and everybody needs to recognize it.
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  SPEAKER_02: And there's the conflict.
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  SPEAKER_02: We can't come back together anymore to build a way of life and a culture.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is the struggle that we're in.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we have this unbelievable proliferation of anxiety and restlessness and distress
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  SPEAKER_00: and mental health crisis that we're in right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons I think is this disconnect, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: I think people inherently understand that they do things they shouldn't do.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they don't know why.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they're like,
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  SPEAKER_00: why do I have these desires to hurt or to gossip or to steal or to fornicate,
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  SPEAKER_00: like any number of things.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think most hearts through natural law.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, you could say every heart has an inherent kind of sense of like, this isn't right.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yet my desire says, I want to do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then everyone around me is like, if you feel it, you should do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's like this dissonance in that of like,
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  SPEAKER_00: well, why do I feel it so strongly if it's not good?
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  SPEAKER_00: But I don't, it doesn't feel good.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't seem to, and that whole mixture is a real problem.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think it produces this kind of latent anxiety of, I just, I don't feel right.
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  SPEAKER_02: I mean, no matter how strongly people assert that they know thyself, they know their heart.
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  SPEAKER_02: If you don't know the things Jesus described about the human heart, you don't know yourself.
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  SPEAKER_02: You actually don't know yourself.
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  SPEAKER_02: You know some of what's there.
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  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, we're living in denial.
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  SPEAKER_02: We're suppressing the truth about what's really going on in the human heart.
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  SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, wow, time flies.
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  SPEAKER_02: Peter, thanks for being with us.
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  SPEAKER_02: You're going to be with us again tomorrow?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we're going to continue this conversation, friends.
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  SPEAKER_02: I hope you're enjoying it, being built up by it.
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  SPEAKER_02: And ask your friends to tune in until tomorrow.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is Peter Herbeck and Peter Burak saying God bless you.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Have a wonderful day.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Each program of Fire on the Earth with Peter Herbeck can be downloaded
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: at AveMariaRadio.net and RenewalMinistries.net.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Fire on the Earth is a production of Ave Maria Radio.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Friends, I'd like to offer you my new booklet, Does God Judge?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, what a question, but it's a relevant question.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Scripture says we were all appointed to die once and then the judgment.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: We know for sure each one of us has an appointment in our future,
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  SPEAKER_02: and it takes Scripture Pastor Catechism and the Saints to help us understand
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• 14:21
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