Latest / Gospel Talks Podcast / #90 - None Seek After God?!?!? The Truth About Human Desire.

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#90 - None Seek After God?!?!? The Truth About Human Desire. · Gospel Talks Podcast

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So the Bible says nobody seeks after God.
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And yet we meet people all the time in churches and Christians who claim they're searching for him, or non b non-Christians, non-believers who claim they're searching for him.
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Is the Bible contradicting reality?
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Are we misunderstanding what it means to seek after God?
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Today we're diving into one of Christianity's most fascinating questions.
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If no one seeks God naturally, why does anybody seek?
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Or seem to be searching for him.
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You guys in the audience, a lot of you, I would think all of you, are thoughtful Christians who want to understand why some people come to Christ while others reject him
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and what that means for evangelism, prayer, and assurance.
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Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks Podcast, where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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My name is George Binoco, and with me today is Jeff Musgrave.
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He's the author and founder of the exchange and we're excited to jump into this deep topic series with you today.
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Hey Jeff, how you doing?
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I'm doing good.
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It's good to be back into the steep digital studio.
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I've been ha having to do our podcast from home a couple of last last couple of times, so it's kinda fun.
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And I think we got a little bit of an upgrade.
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So some new equipment, some new lighting, good stuff.
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Very appreciative of Jonathan and his ministry to the exchange.
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It's it I I can actually read my notes very easily, so
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Brand new teleprompter.
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Those things are awesome.
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well, I think we're gonna call this episode Nobody Seeks After God.
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Yet some to be seem to be seeking, which is this backwards thing.
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We're kind of getting into that, some of that sticky theology of, you know, election or predestination and God drawing people and that kind of thing.
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And so there's some some very complicated stuff.
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I am genuinely curious on this topic.
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It's gonna be a great series, I believe.
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Um, but why don't we just go ahead and start with this?
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I mean, as you prepare to answer some of the questions for you, what's the big idea here in your mind?
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What's the thing we're focused on?
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Yeah, I I think we're actually looking at the the inner workings of the human heart.
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How d how does it actually work?
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And what what prompts desire inside the human heart?
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you know, our our desire is is naturally for the the things of this world.
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And frankly, the Bible says we're all born sinners.
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Our natural desire is towards sin.
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his natural desire, God's natural desire, the the f the heart of the Father, is for us to live in uh a living, loving relationship with him.
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And and so I think that's really the issue of where we're gonna go with all of this.
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I this episode, if I understand it, we're actually going to try to figure out what what goes on with the unregenerate human heart?
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What is the what do we know
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about how that works and and maybe a little bit about how the Holy Spirit interacts with that and and enters into uh the natural proclivity of the human heart.
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Hmm.
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So b jumping right off on that, okay, w what you just said there, scripture says nobody seeks for God.
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What does that actually mean?
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Why don't people seek God?
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Yeah.
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Well, I I think i any time you're going to try to r understand a concept that you get from scripture, you have to kind of look at the whole.
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And so I thought it it's it's a bit of a long passage, but I thought it would be wise for us to just look at the whole passage where that concept is taken from.
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So it's it's basically from Romans chapter three, uh, and uh it starts in verse ten and it's quoting from the old testament, as it is written, none
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is righteous know not one.
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No one understands.
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No one seeks for God.
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And that's the direct quote that you brought out.
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And then it goes on and it says, all have turned aside.
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Together they have become worthless.
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No one does good, not even one.
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Now you have you have to kind of stop and ask this question.
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Well, wait a minute, I know people that that do good things, but the question mark is
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Number one, why are they doing good things?
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And number two, i is it all good?
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And the answer is no.
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There there is clearly sin mixed with good.
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Even those of us who know Jesus as savior are not perfected yet and we're still s living sinful lives.
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Sin is still present in our members.
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And here it goes on and describes the unregenerate man, their feet are swift, and I'm gonna skip a few verses.
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in their paths are ruin and misery.
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So literally our natural proclivity as a human without Jesus is to run swiftly into ruin and misery through sin.
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The way of peace they've not known.
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There's no fear of God in their eyes.
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And then it interrupts the thought because it's giving us the solution as well as the problem.
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We're not going to look at the solution.
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This uh
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moment we're answering the question why do people not seek after God?
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But the the uh intro or the intra interruption that we see here in the passage is showing us the purpose of the law and letting us recognize there is a righteousness found outside
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the law.
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So we can kind of stop and put a hold on everything we're thinking and recognize
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The reason we can be righteous is because there is a righteousness outside of the legal requirements from the law.
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And then it goes on and gives us the final reason why people don't seek after God.
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And it's it says, for all have sinned.
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We've all come short, fallen short of the glory of God.
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And so
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the question, Mark, is you know, why don't people seek God?
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And the but the answer is because we are born sinners.
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David said it this way, in sin did my mother conceive me.
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And the the idea is that through the bloodline of Adam, every single human was born with a proclivity to sin.
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Um when I'm teaching young
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High school students, I will ask them, uh, does everybody in here remember the day that your that your mother set you down and said, today I'm gonna teach you how to steal your
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brother's toys?
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Uh, you know, it n nobody taught us how to do that.
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It just it it came naturally because we were born sinners.
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And the the fact is, every human is born a sinner, born astray and a apart from God.
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And literally the Bible says that no one is looking for God.
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All of our feet are swift to run to destruction and misery.
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There's no fear of God in our eyes.
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Uh that and this is this is the word that I think is really important for us.
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Together they have become worthless.
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the idea is that we we are not worthy of.
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a relationship with God and specifically heaven because our hearts are full of sinfulness.
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So going right off of that, we've said many times on this podcast, me and you both have said, and I think believe, there we find people that are just open, searching for meaning,
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searching for purpose, spirituality, you know, they've got those deep soul questions.
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How do we reconcile that, you know, the visual uh evidence, you could say.
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With what you're just talking about right here in the Bible that no one seeks after God.
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I mean it's definitely there.
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yeah, yeah.
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I th I think that the real issue here is what what what do we mean by seeking after God and and what does the Bible mean.
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Romans eight, seven, it's actually after a person is saved and it's kind of giving us a picture of what our life was like before we knew Jesus and what our life is like now.
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It's a it's a really awesome portion of the book of Romans.
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But he tells us something about the sin nature in humans.
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And he says, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
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Uh it it and then it goes on and says, For it does not submit to God's law, indeed cannot.
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And I think that's a real important thing for us to recognize is
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Our unregenerate hearts are hostile towards God.
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we literally are not willing to submit.
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That's really the issue.
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and I do think that some people recognize the emptiness of their own hearts.
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we've also said this: that God uh put eternity into the heart of men.
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And so there are there there's it's almost like we could say there's this empty place.
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inside of the human soul.
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And God it's it's like a he he put a place in our hearts for himself.
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And because of our sin nature, uh we're not willing to pursue him.
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In fact we're we're hostile to God, we're rebellious against his commands to us.
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and so we recognize there's something that we need but
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We we don't know what it is.
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And and when we find people searching, and we say they're searching for God, uh, the reality is that that they are searching for something, frankly, something else, something
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they can control, something they can this desire from their human fleshly side to that would satisfy them.
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What they're looking for.
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is something that would satisfy the deep soul need of their heart.
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But we know that really what they need is God.
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So when we say people are seeking after God, that's really what we're saying is they're they're looking for something to satisfy that need, and they don't even know that it's God
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yet.
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Hmm.
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So, I mean, one of the things you hear a lot in the United States right now is the decline of religion.
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Kind of playing off what you've just said there, is the problem that people basically lack religion?
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Is is it a different problem altogether?
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are they resistant towards the idea of God?
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What do you believe is the core problem driving?
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that lack of natural desire to seek.
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Yeah, well, they are seeking.
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They're just typically seeking in all the wrong places.
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And quite frankly, George, religion is one of the wrong places that people look.
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false religion is either a human creation or in some respects, I believe it's a demonic creation designed to meet the needs of the human soul without God.
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And that that's that's really the the issue.
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Tim Keller said it this way.
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Idols of the heart refer to internalized forms of idolatry.
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Sometimes we call it idols of the heart, where the heart becomes the seat of false worship and misplaced devotions.
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Unlike physical idols, they're not tangible objects, but anything that absorbs our thoughts, energy, and emotions more than God does, such as wealth.
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Relationships, ambitions, personal achievements, those are all idols.
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They're false worship.
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it goes on in the quote that I was reading.
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Essentially, an idol is anything that promises fulfillment or security apart from God.
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It becomes the controlling focus of life.
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So that's
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That's literally what's happening.
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If when people do search for God in religion, they're looking for something that can fill that need that isn't the Lord.
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I mean, that's really the word Lord is a is a very essential word.
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it is the natural hostility toward God and r rebellion against his commands.
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those those hostilities, those refusal to bow the knee, so to speak.
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What we want is something that will satisfy the need, but not make me bow my knee.
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Hmm.
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So the the issue there then is human desire.
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as you've studied scripture, how I mean, where do you go to f answer the question how has sin affected human desire at its core?
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Obviously we're we're we come out bent.
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Like you said, mom doesn't have to sit down and tell you how to steal your siblings' toys.
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But
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And what specifically how has sp specifically sin affected human desire?
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Well, I think that the the key, I mean, e everybody will admit I'm a sinner.
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Everybody admits that.
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I mean I've I really have never talked to anyone who has not eventually recognized their own bent to sinfulness.
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Um I'm it's just human.
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In fact, people will say, Well, you know, of course.
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I mean, everybody does that.
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It's you know, we're all human.
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I mean that that those are
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it's almost like sinfulness and human fit in the same mind space in our brains.
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But the Bible tells us that God is holy and that his holiness and our sinfulness separate us.
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And that's the I think when we're talking about you know w how has sin affected us at a c at our core, the taint of sin
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is ultimately, and in fact I think this is the the key taint is separation from God.
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Um the Bible says that God is of pure eyes, can't behold evil, and literally can't let it be in his presence.
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And so because sin by definition of scripture is lawlessness or rebellion against God and his law, our sin
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i estranges us from him so e it it it's kind of like a fish doesn't really recognize water because he lives in it.
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We don't really recognize uh our our sinfulness because we live in it.
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but but God cannot have a relationship with someone who has sin in their lives.
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it sometimes people say well that's a little picky isn't it well
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think about this.
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When the Bible says you shall not commit adultery, that's one of the laws that we we have a tendency to rebel against.
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Um and and the reason I say tendency to rebel against it is because there's not a human on earth that hasn't had adulterous thoughts and sometimes even steps of actions in their
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lives.
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And we we totally get the relational side of that.
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When a man commits adultery against his wife, he offends her.
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And and a a good wife is going to to react to that.
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it also offends God.
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In fact, God wrote that law because of his nature.
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His nature is a nature of of loyalty, of faithfulness.
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and and so this devotion from God demands that we live lives.
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of devotion.
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And so when when a man commits adultery, not only does he offend his wife and breaks that relationship, but he actually has offended God and breaks that relationship.
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That's that's the real core taint or damage to the human soul.
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Let me just kind of go one more from that because I think adultery may be a reach because people think, yeah, well I've I've never done that.
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I've never cheated on my wife or whatever.
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you know, the in the same set of laws, God says you should not lie.
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And that's one of those places, well, yeah, everybody does that.
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I mean, what's the big deal about that?
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Well, the the the big deal is, I mean, we're talking about the the the taint or the core damage to the human soul.
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God is truth, and every time I lie, I separate myself from God and His truth.
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And that's the big deal.
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Sin is
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Our sin separates us.
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So, you know, the the question was, uh, what is the the effect on on human desire?
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Well, it it breaks our relationship with God.
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And frankly, I meet people all the time.
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It says, it seems to me like if there really was a God, I would know it.
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I mean, I would feel it, I would sense it.
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But but our our sinfulness has literally separated us so far that
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That we don't even sense his presence anymore.
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Does that make sense?
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Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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So would it be fair to say then, listening to you, that apart from Christ, I mean it's not just people they're not just neutral towards God, because there's a lot of talk out there.
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I mean, there's a lot of people who posture themselves like, no, no, I'm not I'm not against God.
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I'm not against r you know, church and the Bible.
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but but I mean, apart from Christ, people are actually hostile towards God.
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Yeah.
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And in fact, Jesus said that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
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And then he r likened himself to light.
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And he said, When I came into the world, I shone light onto their sinfulness and they hated me.
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That really was the core of why the majority of humans during Christ's time
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came to the conclusion we have to crucify him, we have to kill him, we have to get rid of him.
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And he said the reason they hate me is because I've shown light into their lives.
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So that that really is it is fair to say that no one is neutral towards God.
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In fact, here is a another place where it gives us a picture of the human soul apart from God.
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It's in Ephesians chapter two.
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Ephesians chapter two it says
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You were dead in trespasses in sin, and uh in which you walked and you followed the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
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work in the sons of disobedience.
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So this we haven't even talked about this, but th there are there is another enemy in this world.
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Sin is is fueled by that enemy.
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And it is Satan himself, and Satan uses sin to control those desires of a human heart.
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He says, among whom we all once lived in the passion of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of
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mankind.
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So that
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That's a description of who we are apart from Jesus.
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I I I do think we need to put a little bit of hope in this discussion.
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And the very next words in verse four are, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us.
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And I I just love I I feel like I need to praise the Lord for this contrasting conjunction, but
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There this is who I am apart from Jesus, but God in his rich mercy and in his great love reaches out.
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And that's why, I mean, we're the original question was, you know, drawing men, God drawling, what is going on with this?
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And that that's that's the hope we have to look to.
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Hm.
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That's amazing.
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I mean, at this point, I mean, if I were to advocate for the listeners, there's probably somebody wondering right now, why is any of this talking about man's sinful desires, how
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we're bent, why is any of that essential to understanding the gospel?
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I mean, shouldn't we just make a beeline for the cross?
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Isn't that, you know, something Spurgeon said?
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Yeah.
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Well, I I I'm I'm I'm got some notes up in front of this.
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I'm just gonna s skip off uh some of those and and head to your question.
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it it is interesting when Jesus dealt with people, he knew the specifics of their hearts.
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I mean he so in other words, he knew what
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idols they had stuffed in that spot.
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He he he knew what they were trying to do to satisfy.
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He knew what hungers they recognized they still had.
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I mean he knew all of this.
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And so he could deal with individuals and we've talked about this before.
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Uh he dealt with individuals differently and he just went straight at the heart of the issue because he already knew all of that.
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We aren't God.
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And we can't see into the hearts of the people we uh meet.
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But we do have God's word.
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And we do have the ability to recognize that every human soul was built for eternity, but is empty without God.
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And so I er when I get ready to talk to someone that doesn't know Jesus, there's stuff I know about them that they don't know I know about them, because not because I know them,
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but because I know what God said about them.
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And so I I can I can know.
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That every single person without Jesus, no matter how satisfied they look, no matter how satisfied they sound, there's an empty spot inside of them that was built for eternity.
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And unless they know God, it's still empty.
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Yeah, um you know, a lot of what you're saying is hitting me because I'm working through the book of Luke and Jesus the first time he debuts his message in Galilee, the area of
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Israel where he's from, he does so in a synagogue and they try to push him off a cliff.
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The second time that Jesus launches off in Galilee's in Capernaum, which becomes his ministry hub.
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The first place he goes to preach his message is a synagogue, which is his routine.
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And what he finds there is a demon-possessed, unclean demon possessing a man.
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And we often think of these places of religion as the fortresses, spiritual fortresses of the world.
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Yet the place where Jesus almost every conversation went wrong and became a confrontation six times in the book of Luke.
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was always a place of religion.
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Yeah.
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I just I find that interesting.
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Yeah.
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And I think that um I think that when people are how do I say this?
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If we know that they're looking and sometimes just showing up at church shows us that they're looking.
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There's all different kinds of things that give us that picture.
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e everybody kind of demonstrates that differently.
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Does that make sense?
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I mean
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And frankly, everybody looks at it different for it different in different places.
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Some people try to stuff sex and alcohol and drugs.
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I mean, they're they're they're looking for the same thing everybody else is looking for.
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They're just you looking for it in different places.
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some people are going to look for it at at religious places.
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It feels like I need something and I think I should do that.
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since we know the real need of every single human, I believe.
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This is where we can strategically aim our conversations deeper so that we begin to give them room and space to to talk about what's going on in there, to show us their fears,
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their emptiness, their longings, their pursuits.
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And as they begin to reveal their hearts and we begin to discover their souls, then
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we can introduce them to the rescuer.
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I I think if we're just meeting people and we think, I know their need, they need Jesus.
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I'm going to introduce them to the rescuer.
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And and we don't kind of walk that path to get to the place where we can recognize their need and help them to see how the rescuer can deliver them from that.
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That that then sometimes we've missed a step and they don't get the connection.
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Yeah, you know, we just finished this series with Divine Appointments.
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And now we're talking about nobody's really seeking.
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And I gotta tell you, some of this theology is just scary to me because I already I already sometimes look at the world a little bit discouraged and it feels a little the
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outlook feels bleak.
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There's that him, forget the Christian artist.
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his first name is Chris.
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I forget his last name, but he writes, do you feel the world is broken?
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Uh do you feel Yeah, yeah.
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And and so we're going from talking about divine appointments that people are coming to saying, Well, they don't r they're not really seeking.
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And the next question we're gonna ask, and I think we're gonna ask it in the next episode, is Is God drawing them?
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What does that look like?
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Because
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A lot of us believers are hanging on to that truth for dear life.
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Because we hate to see people die and go to a place called hell.
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we'd much rather see them in heaven.
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And this can be scary theology, frustrating theology, but it's so important the stuff you're taking us through.
24:48
Um, and I think you masterfully took us through biblically the scariest stuff.
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For me, this is that was one of the scarier
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you know, parts of this whole series.
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Um
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real scary part of it is it's it's true, and there's literally nothing I can do to change that.
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But God in his rich mercy.
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I mean, that's that's where we're going.
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This is this is a reality that God is still in the saving business.
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He's still in the world, searching soul for souls and wooing souls to himself.
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And so that's the hope of where we'll go next week.
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Yep.
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Well, thank you guys so much for listening.
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26:34
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God is drawing, but the laborers are few.
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And so uh let's uh let's look forward to that next episode in this series.
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We love you guys, and we'll see you next week.