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John The Baptist · Urantia Radio

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  Welcome to the Urantia Radio Podcast.
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  It's good to have you back. So let's get right to it.
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  This is the program about the 5th epical revelation that I
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  fondly referred to as the Urantia Book, along with about a
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  million other people on the planet and I ran across.
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  We're going to talk about a few things.
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  One is an upcoming project that I'm I'm developing out and I'm
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  going to ask for your assistance with it and we'll get to that in
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  a little bit. I think you'll be blown away by
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  it. I think I am profoundly driven
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  to get this done and I've already started the process and
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  I'll share that with you in a little while and I know you're
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  going to get excited about it. The other thing too is I, I ran
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  across a really cool video. I wanted to see what your
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  rancher book readers were doing online.
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  This guy, Michael Hanna, he did a great presentation at the RVML
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  Resource Center in Ashland, OR, and I guess this was when not
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  long ago because I hadn't seen it before.
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  Anyway, he was at the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library in
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  Ashland. Rogue Valley.
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  It's really pretty place actually.
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  Michael's got a great YouTube out.
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  It's called What is the Urantia book?
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  Michael Hanna and I want to play a clip from it.
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  This is just a little bit of him talking about the book.
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  This is This is Michael Hanna and a little bit about his
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  introduction to the Urantia book.
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  No human takes credit for writing the book, and after you
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  look at it, you could see that it would be impossible for
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  somebody to say they wrote this book.
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  Not just the exquisite language itself, but the coordination of
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  science, philosophy, religion and integrated really a treasury
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  of spiritual truth, intellectual wisdom, and an enhanced point of
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  view perspective on who we are, why we're here, where we're
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  going, the big the big questions.
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  Now I'll say that's a little snippet we might play a little
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  bit more Michael Hanna. Hanna, what is the Urantia book
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  presentation that is up on YouTube and getting some good
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  response too. And again, maybe one day we
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  could have Michael on the program and he could talk about
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  his experiences as well. And Speaking of which, I want
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  to, I want to plug the folks over at CFU Center for Unity.
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  They're doing some incredible things with the Urantia book.
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  I was on with Rick Lyon, who's part of the team, along with
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  Gabriel and a whole slew of wonderful people that have come
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  on this program to talk about their projects.
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  And they've got some exciting projects underway.
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  And I really feel like they, they have struck a note with
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  taking the Urantia book and, and trying to move it a little bit
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  closer to mainstream through their efforts and the harnessing
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  of social media. I, I love, I love what I'm
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  seeing. It's just nice, you know,
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  because 20 years ago you didn't see anything.
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  There was no social media. So if there's one thing that's
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  good about social media and the Internet is that it works as a
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  great delivery system for the Urantia book.
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  As as someone said to me yesterday, while traditional and
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  mainstream religion is taking a hit a little bit, the people are
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  still looking for meaning in their life.
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  And they get it by learning about Christ and they, and they
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  get it about the Urantia book and what the Urantia book
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  message is, which is that we're not alone.
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  And, and angels and God and all of those agencies that we don't
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  see are behind the scenes working on our behalf.
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  And it's for their benefit as well.
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  We're all working for Michael, as Diane Labrecque would say,
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  team Jesus. It's all about team Jesus,
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  right? But it's Jesus from a whole new
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  perspective. In fact, I, I want to, I want to
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  read to you something from the paper that I read this week that
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  was somewhat profound and I want to share with you.
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  So it's from it's when Jesus is first talking.
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  The the Apostolic core had just been formed, 1212 men now
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  surrounding Jesus as he begins his public tour.
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  But prior to that he's training them on on on the new vision of
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  the Kingdom. And the quote is as follows.
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  On the day of the week, January 19th 8027, Jesus and the 12
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  apostles made ready to depart from their headquarters at
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  Bethsaida. The 12 knew nothing of their
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  Masters plans except that they were going to go up to Jerusalem
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  to attend the Passover feast in April and that that was the
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  intention to journey by way of the Jordan Valley.
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  They did not get away from Zebedee's house until near noon
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  because the families of the apostles and others of the
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  disciples had come to say goodbye and wish them well and
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  the new work they were about to begin.
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  Just before leaving, the apostles missed the Master, and
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  Andrew went out to find him. After a brief search, he found
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  Jesus sitting on a boat down at the beach, and he was weeping.
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  The 12 had often seen their Master when he seemed to grieve,
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  and they beheld his brief seasons of serious preoccupation
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  of mind, but none of them had ever seen him weep.
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  Andrew was somewhat startled to see the Master thus affected on
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  the eve of their departure for Jerusalem, and he ventured to
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  approach Jesus and ask On this great day, Master, when we are
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  to depart for Jerusalem to proclaim the Father's Kingdom,
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  why is it that you weep? Which of us has offended you?
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  And Jesus? Going back with Andrew to join
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  the 12 answered him. No one of you has grieved me.
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  I am saddened only because none of my family, my father Joseph's
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  family, have remembered to come over to bid us Godspeed.
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  At this time, Ruth was on her visit to visit visit her brother
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  and brother Joseph at Nazareth. And this time Ruth was on a
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  visit to her brother Joseph at Nazareth.
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  Other members of his family were kept away by pride,
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  disappointment, misunderstanding, and petty
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  resentments indulged as a result of hurt feelings.
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  It's an interest, interesting, personal, dynamic Jesus having
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  and expressing. But think about the Son of Man,
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  the Son of Man weeping because of a very personal feeling, the
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  feeling of abandonment by family, even his mother and I
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  just that just kind of caught my eye because the what gets lost
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  sometimes is we forget about the human Jesus.
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  The other thing that's striking about this paragraph because
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  it's again right at the beginning of the public
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  preaching, John the Apostle asked Jesus, master, what is the
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  Kingdom of heaven? And Jesus answered, the Kingdom
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  of heaven consists in three essentials.
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  First, recognition of the fact of the sovereignty of God.
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  Second, belief in the truth of sonship with God.
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  And 3rd, faith in the effectiveness of the supreme
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  human desire to do the will of God to be like God.
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  And this is the good news of the gospel, that by faith every
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  mortal may have all of these essentials of salvation.
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  And now the week of waiting was over, and they prepared to
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  depart on the Morrow for Jerusalem.
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  So that's from Paper 140. So some anecdotes I read today
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  in the thought to ponder that still the greatest thing that a
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  human being can observe is the life and teachings of Jesus
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  while still in the flesh. So there's a project on my mind
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  and I'm debating whether or not I'm, I'm going to trust that I'm
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  going to do the right thing by sharing it with you.
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  And what I hope I get out of this is feedback, because I
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  think this could be something that's been noodling around in
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  my mind for quite a few years, actually.
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  And it's about John the Baptist. John the Baptist is a hero in my
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  opinion, but yet he is not really much of A figure either
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  in Scripture or in the Gospels. They hardly ever mention him,
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  but his is the essential story of faith by fire.
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  He unlike most human beings, in fact almost every human being
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  ever born on this planet. Of all of those human beings,
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  you could argue that John was the only human being where his
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  life was predestined. It was preordained even six
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  months before he was born. He was still a fetus inside the
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  womb of Elizabeth who was advanced in age and probably
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  shouldn't have been having a child by any normal
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  circumstances. It is described in the Urantia
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  book as a holy natural event that there was nothing
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  supernatural about his birth other than the fact that it came
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  about by natural circumstances through Zacharias, who himself
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  was advanced in age, and his wife.
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  And it was why Zacharias was so doubtful when his wife told him
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  that she had been told she was going to be giving birth to a
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  son of Promise, a great son of promise.
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  And he was told Jack Zacharias by Elizabeth, that Gabriel, the
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  Angel had visited her and and told her and she didn't know
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  what to do. She was beside herself.
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  It's a great story, Zacharias. Nah, this can't be.
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  But I love my wife. There's no reason why she would
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  lie to me. And then he has this horrific
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  dream and he becomes convinced in the dream that yes, that she
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  is going to have a son and this son is going to be of great
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  promise and he is going to pave the way for the Son of Man to
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  bring light to the world. So even before he gasped his
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  first breath, John the Baptist had his life planned for him.
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  But it was not going to be an easy life.
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  It was going to be one of the most difficult lives.
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  But he met it with such courage. And the defining character of
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  John the Baptist was his courage.
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  I mean, he was a brave man. At a very young age.
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  They grew up poor. They had a little farm out on
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  the outskirts of the city of Judah.
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  His father, this the village was so small that the father was
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  sort of like the rabbi of the village, even though he wasn't
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  himself an ordained rabbi. He was actually a Nazarene, I
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  believe. And Nazarenes are just below the
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  the rabbis or the rulers, I don't know.
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  They still have it Nazarenes today.
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  So Zacharias Nazarene lived only on the support of the the small
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  group of people that attended his church.
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  Or what do they call those Jewish Shabbats?
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  I guess it'd be what what? Let me ask Siri.
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  Hey, Siri, what do you call a Jewish church synagogue?
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  OK. Yeah.
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  So he so Zacharias lived off the, the whatever the nearby
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  poor people of that age could give.
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  So they lived a pretty paltry position.
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  And then at the age of 14, they couldn't or they couldn't ordain
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  their son John because he didn't have the proper education, but
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  he did take the vows of the of the Nazarene priesthood.
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  And at the age of 18, he left home and he went to live and
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  Getty, which is along the the riverfront of one of the
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  offsprings or the, the tributaries of the river Jordan.
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  And, and incidentally, there's a lot of hint dropping of the Dead
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  Sea Scrolls which were found in this same area.
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  And, and they made mention of the, of the scrolls that these
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  Nazarenes studied. And, and So what did, what did
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  John do? He had always in the back of his
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  mind that he was a child of promise, and he knew that Jesus
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  was also that child of promise as well.
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  But he couldn't quite figure out how to correlate what he read in
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  Scripture with Elijah from the book of Enoch, I presume, and
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  also Daniel and some of the other prophets, Samuel.
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  And he studied all of these old scriptural accounts of what was
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  to happen in the end times. And he was convinced, John was
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  that those were the end times, that they were living in the
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  deterioration of Rome. He noticed that it was becoming
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  immoral. I mean, it almost sounded like
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  modern day America in a way. He just looked at it and saw the
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  corruptness. He hated the fact that the the
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  Romans were ruling. And he felt, and he actually
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  felt in all of his studies that he was going to help herald in
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  the new and the old was to pass away.
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  And he believed in Jesus and he he felt that Jesus was that
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  deliverer, but it didn't mesh with his concepts of the
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  Messiah. And so this is just a brief
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  story of this man who is got a whole chapter dedicated to him
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  in the Urantia book from from birth to death.
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  And he died horrifically, but he never lost his faith.
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  And I think that's a story that people could really appreciate.
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  And I think seeing it on the screen would have such an
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  impact. And I think it could be as
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  important to the discussion #1 Introduces the Urantia Book to
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  the mainstream #2 it tells an incredible story of a man who
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  was preordained. They didn't really have a
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  choice. Oh, I mean, he could choose not
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  to do it. But then, then what?
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  And fortunately for us, John the Baptist did pave the way for the
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  reception of of Jesus when Jesus would appear later.
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  But it was a great test of faith.
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  And what do we know in the Urantia Book about the what
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  happened to John? John sits at the table of the 24
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  elders that are depicted in the New Testament 4 and 20 elders.
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  He is actually the head of that Commission and that Commission
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  is looked upon by all worlds. In fact, the four and 20 elders
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  were appointed by Christ. Michael.
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  That was one of the effects that we talked about after the
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  resurrection. So this is sort of a sort of a
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  encapsulated view and, and I just want to get your opinion.
• 16:21
  Do you think that this, by the way, I've already got the
• 16:24
  screenplay written and I'm creating, I'm in the process of
• 16:28
  creating a storyboard and, and as I get closer, I'll start to
• 16:34
  show you more stuff that you can see online.
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  But for now, I think I, I just, these are the stories I think
• 16:41
  that are going to capture people and get them to see that the
• 16:47
  Urantia book is an incredible document and worth all the study
• 16:52
  that we can give toward it. And just one of many, many
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  stories. And I know that other groups are
• 16:58
  also doing these kinds of these things, Urantia films and some
• 17:02
  others, and they do great work. And I'd like to invite you in on
• 17:07
  the process. And I think I could set up some
• 17:10
  sort of a situation where if you want to help fund the production
• 17:16
  of a demo reel and there are people in Hollywood that I could
• 17:21
  approach, I think we can make it happen.
• 17:25
  And I, and I think in today's atmosphere, people would be
• 17:29
  looking for something like this, not just science fiction.
• 17:35
  I mean, Dune is such a great movie because it carries a lot
• 17:39
  of the, you know, the fact that there are multiple worlds and
• 17:42
  multiple societies and that there's great technology and,
• 17:47
  and I think that captures the imagination of young people and
• 17:51
  it gives them hope and this idea that there is life everywhere,
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  that we're not just the only people.
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  And so chew on that and let me know what you think.
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  And in the meantime, I would just encourage you to read John
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  the Baptist, The story. It's an incredible story and
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  it's so rich and full of inspiring moments, truly.
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  In the meantime, thank you again.
• 18:18
  Share this podcast with your fellow Truth Seeker friends.
• 18:23
  There are some big events coming up.
• 18:25
  There are two events of note that I want to share with you.
• 18:28
  One and there's also an event in Africa that's going on later in
• 18:32
  the year if you go to urantia.org or Center for
• 18:37
  unity.org or the fellowship, urantiabook.com and there's very
• 18:46
  or go to my website. I've got some links up there
• 18:48
  too, your rancherradio.org. But there's a lot of stuff going
• 18:53
  on. There's an event in Monterey
• 18:55
  which is going to be a great event.
• 18:58
  There's the foundation is sponsoring a Zoom event in
• 19:01
  November. The scientific symposium is
• 19:04
  coming together. We had Trudy Cooper on a few
• 19:06
  weeks ago. We could talk to her about the
• 19:09
  event out in in Colorado. I mean, I'm sorry, Monterey, CA
• 19:15
  and and so just stay engaged. There's a lot going on in the
• 19:19
  world today and people are looking for answers and you'd be
• 19:25
  surprised and maybe even in your life, you've got some people
• 19:29
  that you're thinking, huh, I wonder if that person is, are
• 19:33
  they are they open to the truths of the Urantia book?
• 19:37
  You know, there's a couple of groups that there was an article
• 19:40
  written in the fellowship, the mini messenger about how
• 19:45
  Christians today could really benefit from the Urantia book.
• 19:48
  And I'll and I'll tell you why, because a lot of the Christian
• 19:52
  baggage is is coming home to roost.
• 19:55
  And what I mean by that is that while Christianity itself
• 20:00
  remains a progressive, truly the most progressive religion.
• 20:06
  There are a lot of, well, it just has a lot of baggage.
• 20:10
  There are a lot of things within Christianity.
• 20:11
  They're just not consistent. And in many ways the evangelical
• 20:16
  movement has is ended. I think people are not going to
• 20:20
  be pulled back. They're not going to be
• 20:23
  answering the trumpet call to the middle, you know, the Middle
• 20:26
  Ages. Religion has to be
• 20:28
  all-encompassing scientifically. It has to make sense.
• 20:33
  And trust me, the idea of an organized universe is more
• 20:39
  scientific than Mystic because it it would make sense.
• 20:45
  And scientists are starting to realize that there's some
• 20:48
  amazing consistencies that indicate intelligent design
• 20:51
  right in front of us, and we just have to pay attention to
• 20:54
  that. And today's religion, if it's
• 20:57
  going to appeal to the human heart, has to has to be
• 21:01
  intellectually consistent and it has to involve science.
• 21:08
  It has to make sense to the scientist.
• 21:10
  And I know that's a tall order, but I believe that the Urantia
• 21:13
  book answers that call. And This is why the November, I
• 21:18
  think it's November 18th or 19th and it's going to be a Zoom
• 21:21
  call. And I believe the foundation is
• 21:22
  sponsoring it. So just go to urantia.org.
• 21:26
  Till next time I've made the spirit, keep your driving
• 21:29
  forward and we'll do it all again.
• 21:30
  Follow me on Spotify and I heart and another.
• 21:35
  Or you can just go to yourrancherradio.org.
• 21:37
  Until then, thanks again for stopping by.
• 21:40
  What is real? What is the meaning of life?
• 21:43
  What about Jesus? What did he have to say?
• 21:46
  Also the Is there life after death?
• 21:49
  Everybody wants to know these questions, and those questions
• 21:53
  plus many, many more are addressed in the book in full
• 21:57
  and replete ways. I in this study, in this talk,
• 22:01
  will only just touch on the surface ray on the ocean,
• 22:05
  because there's immense depth.