Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 358 - Humanism Exposed: When Man Tries to Play God

Transcript

Ep. 358 - Humanism Exposed: When Man Tries to Play God · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: We have been since the beginning trying to dethrone God and put ourselves on the throne because we we we worship the idea of self, uh self-authenticity, self-salvation, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, uh the kicker about all of this is that uh it's important to recognize when we're talking about secular humanism and atheism is that we're not replacing religion and belief with reason and logic.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: You're simply replacing one belief with another system of beliefs.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: And John Gray, who's an atheist and a humanist, admits this.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: This is a quote from him.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: He says, humanism is not a science, but a religion.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: The post-Christian faith that humans can make a world better than any in which they have so far lived.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: He's confessing this is this idea of humanism isn't logic and reason, it is an act of worship, a worship of self.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_06: I snore.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_06: I know.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_06: And contrary to how many people approach snoring, I've learned to embrace my snoring.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_06: I'm proud of my snoring.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_06: Because I mean, why not?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_06: You can either be ashamed and hang your head in miserable embarrassment, or you can say, I embrace it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, you look scared.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, I'm just thinking all your neighbors say a similar thing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_06: Well, you know, we have a microphone and speakers at top of my house.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_06: So I snore.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_06: I've embraced it.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's evidence that man evolved from the pig.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's true.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_06: Ken Ham.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_06: So I I snore, I enjoy my snoring, I embrace my snoring.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_06: But recently I realized that there's something that bothers me very deeply.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_06: So obviously, Rachel's my wife, for you guys that don't know.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_06: She lives in my home.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, we should have a home.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: My home?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: So there's an o' my home.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's your home too now?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_06: Hostile father-in-law taking over my house.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so there's something that I do often, you know, because Rachel, when I'm snoring, communicates to me.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_06: She says something to me.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_06: Shut up.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_06: And there's there's there's irritation and agitation that's been going on.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_05: And you sound mean to me when I'm trying to tell you something when you're snoring at night, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_06: So we have this argument because finally it clicked.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_06: I realized what it is.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_06: When I'm snoring, Rachel will turn to me, as gentle as she may try to say it, and she'll tell me, roll over.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_06: Roll over.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, that does that remind you of anything?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_06: Like down, roll over.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_06: Stop mocking.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_06: And by the way, Rachel is here in the studio, and what a joy that she cannot defend herself.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_06: She's feet, feet away from me.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_06: Excuse me?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_06: No one will hear her.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna defend her because I have heard your snoring.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: We traveled together in Israel.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: When I were preached open here in Galilee, you were asleep.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: I came back and your feet were exposed at the end of the bed.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I went to cover your feet up with you.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: You yelled, you yelled out, no, no.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: It was crazy.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: You have number one in night terrors.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's the Arab Jew war still going on.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_06: Between the night terrors and the snoring, I don't know how Rachel gets any sleep.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_06: I don't either, but um I love my snoring.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_06: I embrace it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_06: But but you see that, right?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_06: Roll over.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_06: Is that nice to say to your husband?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a good character.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_06: I don't mind her telling me to turn the other way.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_06: But I know that's what it comes to mind.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_06: Sit, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_06: Sit, roll over, play dead.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_06: Play dead.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_06: At that moment, that's probably what she really wants.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_06: But but don't you think it's more polite to say turn over?
• 4:46
  unknown: No.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_06: In your case.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: No, but you don't tell a person to roll over.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you say to a dog.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think if someone's making the noise like a pig, you're quite legitimate to say.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I knew I wasn't gonna get any help from you, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna intensify the snoring now.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_06: Anyhow.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_05: Hi, Rachel.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_06: I don't think you could.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Rachel, roll over.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_06: All right, friends.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, by the way, we had a wonderful little visitor pop into the ministry, our friend Neeland.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_06: Neilon Armstrong.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_06: So much fun.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_06: Neilan and his dad Charlie popped in, and uh, they're big fans of the ministry.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_06: His wife, Lindsay, had uh had reached out to Rachel and she follows her on Joyful Mothers.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_06: And wasn't that cool, Oscar?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: What a what a joy.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we get to celebrate his ninth birthday with him.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: So he loved the ministry and he came.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: They flew out particularly just to say hi and do a tour of the ministry.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: For his birthday.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: They brought us very, very thoughtful gifts.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Mine in particular, a t-shirt that said chicken whisperer.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_06: Love it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_06: And a cool hat.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_06: For Lucy.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, for Lucy.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: I wore the hat and I thought this is so small.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, but oh, what a blessing that was.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_06: And he he he they wrote us letters.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_06: And Neilin's letters just, you know, his heart for the Lord at that age.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_06: I haven't read it yet.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_06: I haven't read it yet.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_06: It's really good.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, what?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_06: You read it in the DJ.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_06: Where are you?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_06: I have them.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_06: I have them.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_06: Anyhow, they gave us gifts, and here are a couple of mine.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_06: Exceptional, bad dad, exceptionally bad dad jokes.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_06: So frighteningly awful yet wonderfully spliffing.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: Is there one can give us a sample?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah, let me see here.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_06: This is a random sample.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, a random sample here.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_06: Let's see.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_06: What is Beethoven's favorite fruit?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_06: Bananana.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_06: Bananaman.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_06: And then Neilan also gave me this awesome thing, my little button that I'm going to have on here a lot when someone says something that's a good thing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_06: Hold it close to your microphone.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: So when Ray says something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I love it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_06: So, anyhow, uh, Neilan, Charlie, and Lindsay, thank you guys so much.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_06: It was such a blessing to have you here.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_06: We've met them before they came out for one of our premieres, I think last year.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, but to see a young man love the Lord like that, and it was his birthday, and he asked for his birthday to come to Living Water.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_06: So his dad flew out with him from Texas.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_06: They came, we had lunch, celebrated his birthday.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_06: And uh, what a joy, you know.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_06: And and his wife, Lindsay, got saved through randomly coming across one of your videos, Ray, and and then she ended up coming to the Lord after she started to watch different things.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_06: And what we love is they're on fire for the Lord.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, they're they're out there sharing the gospel, and Charlie's a paramedic, and he's telling us about sharing the gospel with you know people inside uh his ambulance and stuff.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, what happened?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone could be a paramedic.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_06: Oh no.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: Special people.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Ray, you would kill people.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_06: I just instantly back up the truck.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_05: All right, friends.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_05: There you have it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_05: So would you just roll over and get on with it?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_06: Roll over.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_06: Time for a cool classy comment.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_06: This is from Just 17, United States.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_06: Easy, you ruined my life.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_06: Hey, y'all.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_06: Every time I listen to an episode, my family peeks around the corner as soon as they hear Easy's beautiful voice.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_06: They now consider me quite weird, but I'm glad to be persecuted in such a way, just for you, Easy.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you, Easy Ray, Mark, and Oscar, for your faithful exposition of scripture and your detailed outlining of the true gospel.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_06: You guys have been such a blessing in my walk with Christ and have convicted me to step out and sharing Christ.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_06: I was recently invited by a friend to go evangelizing in our local mall.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_06: I looked for every excuse to get out of it, but soon realized I needed to do it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_06: I hated almost every second of the three hours we stayed there, but I walked out on fire to do it again.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_06: Wow, that awesome.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_06: Dragging feet, yeah, clicking heels.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_06: That's right.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_06: Almost every encounter seemed to fail, but just before we left, we noticed a kid standing by himself near the entrance.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_06: My friend and I witnessed to him, and though he didn't accept Christ, I could see that something changed and he was deeply convicted.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_06: Please be praying for Jaden.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks for ruining my reputation with my family, guys.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_06: I've tried to prove to people that you guys are serious too, but they never get past the first 10 minutes of utter insanity.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_06: P.S.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_06: I have three short coworkers and I reuse all your short jokes.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_06: Three short co-workers?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_06: We're gonna have to come up with more jokes to give them more ammo.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_06: All right, for hands.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, by the way, thank you so much, just US17 United States.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_06: You're gonna give us your name.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_06: All right, and now a radically revolutionary resource.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_06: This podcast is brought to you by Ray's favorite.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_06: Four question survey.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: My favorite?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, you hate it?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_06: No, don't get it, friends.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_05: Ray can't stand it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, what is it?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_06: Four question survey.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's four questions.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_06: In a survey.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: In a survey, yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: What are the questions?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'd forgotten.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_06: Mark, you know better than for Ray to remember this stuff like that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_06: Of course, that's why he asked.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it comes up with it and just moves on.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, but check it out.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_06: It's really cool.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_06: It is cool.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_06: What is it, Ray?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_06: Seriously, it helps you.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: Four questions in a survey form.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_06: You walk up to people, you use it to uh open doors for the gospel.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think the first one is do you think there's an afterlife?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: I think.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's coming back.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I love about it is that I feel like it's a next step.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So for a long time, you know, people preaching the gospel, proclaiming the gospel on a street in a one-on-one setting, that's a big leap for them.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so some people start with just handing out gospel tracts.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Praise the Lord.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's a faithful way to proclaim the gospel.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: That next step from being someone who's handing a gospel tract to having a conversation, like I said, is a big leap.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like the four question survey is a great bridge between those two things.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: And when they do the survey, they get a free Ten Commandments coin and a million dollar bill.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's only four questions, so it's easy for people to do.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Mark's got them here.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Go, Mark.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And a trip to Hawaii at their own expense.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Beardless Mark.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is there life after death?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is the first question.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get to heaven by being a good person?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Number two.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, have you broken any of the Ten Commandments?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, number four is Easy's voice annoying on the podcast.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_06: And by the way, friends, you're hearing lovely laughter in the background.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_06: For me only, of course.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_06: Don't know if they're laughing with me or at me.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_06: But we have friends here.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_06: We have Garrett from San Diego.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_06: And then we have from Torrance, Tanya, Alexia, Sophia, and Julie.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_06: Welcome.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome yourselves.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_06: Great to have you guys with us.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much for uh for being here.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, don't forget uh the Living Waters mug, the Evidence Study Bible, uh, Living Waters TV, all that.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_06: Living Watersh dot com.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_06: Where's the snore?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_06: I'm sorry.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_06: There you go.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_06: And don't forget the podcast YouTube channel.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_06: Oscar, it's growing.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're approaching 20,000 subscribers, and it's a pretty young new starting channel.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're super excited about that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Check it out if you haven't yet.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we put up little snippets and clips.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can just you can go there not only to hear the ridiculousness, but see it at the same time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, see it all happen here.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_06: All right, friends.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_06: Today we're dealing with humanism exposed when man tries to play God.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, you remember that guy?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I am the Lord my God.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_06: What's your name?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Larry.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_06: One of the best moments of my life.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_06: I've got so many.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: Third Street Promenade, which is a beautiful tourist attraction.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, destroyed.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_06: That's just a good idea.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Gavin News.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_06: Ray and I saw an article we were I sent it to him recently.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_06: It's uh Third Street Promenade's like dilapidated now.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_06: It's dying.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_06: Really?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_06: Remember, Mark, how alive it was.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's really bad.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the LGBTQ community is huge there.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: The last time I was there, they had a booth set up every 10 feet with something LGBT related all the way through.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was just taken back because we were there for what three plus years.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, opening everybody.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every Friday night.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every Friday night.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's like, man, I don't want to bring my wife, I don't want to bring my kids there.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_06: And it was, I mean, it was really you had celebrities.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's where we ran into Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_06: And I mean, you had celebrities.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_06: I told him it was a wimp.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_06: Clean, wimpy.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_06: Uh wimpy Arnold.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_06: So anyway, uh, yeah.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_06: So today, uh humanism exposed, when man tries to play God.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_06: So, you know, when you hear humanism, I think the immediate inner lawyer goes, What's your problem?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_06: Right?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_06: Humanism, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_06: We hear someone say, Yeah, he's a he's a humanist in a sense, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_06: As a parallel, yeah, it's a good thing, you know?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_06: But but I want us to get down to the nitty-gritty and uh the nitty-gritty.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_06: See certain things you just you can't help, but nitty-gritty.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_06: So let's get down to it and define uh humanism.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_06: Oscar, take it away.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Alrighty.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, what is humanism?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: So humanism is essentially a way in which uh agnostics and especially atheists would view the world, and they see essentially that religion holds them back from the potential of creating a utopia.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Utopia is another terminology for simply saying heaven on earth.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they think all religious forms is just a restrictive way of holding us back, and that in and of ourselves, the human being is capable of pursuing utopia, a world without death, a dismay, without sin, and violence.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: They think through technology and effort that they can bring about heaven on earth.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's an important way of persp uh perspective because in some senses humanism started sort of in the 15th, 16th century.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a it's a lie that we find in scriptures.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Mark, you've been talking often about how we go to go back to scripture.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And when we go back to scripture, we see there's nothing new under the sun.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: The first humanists tried to build a tower to heaven.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what they were doing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: They were trying to build utopia.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: They said we can reach heaven without God.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And ever since then, whether it was Russia through communism or humanist in Silicon Valley, essentially what they're trying to do is reach heaven without God, bring a utopia here on earth.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, we know through the scriptures that heaven comes through the work of Christ alone.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: What they long for can only ever be found to be true and complete in the work of Christ.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: So would you call yourself a humanist when you're an atheist in the world?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I absolutely would.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had attended a Burning Man type thing.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Burning Man is a very popular desert festival, and some people hear about it as like music and fun, but it is a humanistic gathering.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's a way in which you celebrate no restraint.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I had attended festivals like that and uh embraced the idea of humanism.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: We can do this, we we can do this without God.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And did you always have a love for reading even before you became a Christian?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because you read a lot right now.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like every philosophical book that comes your way, every atheistic book, you go, Oh, I read that.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Read that 20 years ago.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we just got the most obscure book, Sentos from Eddie, you know, for Turkey, and you said, Oh, yeah, I read that book 20 years ago.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what have you not read?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're always a lover of reading, and why would that have been?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Why was I a lover of reading?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, I think my love for reading started with fiction and just the the enjoyment of storytelling.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then from there, I don't know.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: I have a very I'm I'm like incessantly curious.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like if someone says, uh, whatever, if somebody makes a truth claim, for me, I'm like, wow, that's really interesting, but is it true?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then I have to obsess over figuring out whether it's true or not.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's like a an obscene, it's not ever a it's not always a good thing.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: There's something wonderful about being lost in a good book where you really don't want to put it, can't wait to pick it up again.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like that with Judy Bloom.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a kid's author.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I didn't know you're onto that now.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um so it's gone from Dr.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss, Marcus graduated.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: As a humanist, wanting to see heaven on earth, were you ever disillusioned?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: Because things aren't getting better, they're getting worse.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you're disillusioned by the potential that we have in ourselves.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll actually hear this now in Silicon Valley, like most people who are in charge of some of the greatest technology in the world, whether it's AI or robotics or social media, if you hear the undertone, um was the founder of Apple, his name was Steve Jobs, he was a secular humanist.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: The idea here is that they can build a utopia.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Elon Musk is the same thing.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: When he starts talking about universal income and AI taking over for us, essentially they believe that through technology and human willpower, we can get rid of suffering.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: So why would you want to go on Mars when the Earth's gonna be utopia?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, he wants to escape to Mars.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: He the the idea of Mars is building a new new utopia.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly why they want to go to Mars, is try to build a utopia there as well.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_06: Do that as just the thought of that, like when people talk about going to Mars and those that are volunteering to go, they realize it's like a forever journey.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, they're gonna live in a red, rocky, dusty, dirty place where you're spending.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: The Apostle Paul's already been there, Book of Acts.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_06: That's right.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Miles Hill, yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: Miles Hill.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Just to shift it a little bit from definition to problem, which is which is this is that what's interesting about secular humanism is that they make Christian claims, but they don't have the reasoning to back them up.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you listen to secular humanism, they believe in equality and justice.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: But what is equality and justice if not a distinctly Christian ideal?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and they admit that.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: You've all uh Herreri, he wrote a book called Sapiens.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I did read it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and in Sapiens, he says this human rights, like God and heaven, are just a story that we've invented.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're not an objective reality, they are only in our imagination, they are not inscribed in the laws of physics.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: And a Ted talks, he talks about how if you cut a person open, you look inside and you'll see blood, you'll see a heart, you'll see a liver, but you will not find human rights.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so the danger of secular humanism is that if you have no standard above yourself, and you talk about this all the time, Mark, if we have no moral standard above ourselves, right now, today, the secular humanists would say that we're all created equal.
• 19:33
  unknown: Uh-uh.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: But in the near future, they may not say that.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I'll put a contingency contingency on that, which is secular humanism does not believe we're all equal.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Peter Singer quote killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Very often it's not wrong at all.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: He's a secular humanist that is now redefined.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: He's Australian.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's Australian.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: God, he's basically saying, yeah, a disabled infant does not, does not deserve life.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Man, he should be arrested for that sort of yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: He in fact he believes that uh infanticide should be legal after 29 days after a child is born.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_06: It's it is.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_06: And Oscar, I I'm I'm glad you you gave that quote, right?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_06: Because once in a while we get a glimpse into the heart and mind of an atheist or of a humanist, and they'll get candid.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_06: Because a lot of times these guys will dance around the issue and they'll him and ha.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_06: But when someone says, Yep, nope, there is none.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_06: There are no standards of equality, there's no standards of morality.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_06: But guys like this will insert a however to then try to say, but we should live by some standard or whatever.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_06: But what you get with some of the dictators of old is the absence of the however.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_06: It's and now, right?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_06: There are no morals, there are no absolute standards of truth, morality, righteousness, whatever.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_06: And now we're going to live that out.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_06: And so you have the slaughter of millions, and you've got the subjugation of the weaker.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_06: Because as we've talked about before, right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that is part and parcel with what?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_06: Survival of the fittest.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's right at the heart of it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_06: So don't ever talk down on Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_06: They were living out the worldview that you espouse.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_06: And where do you justify the however?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_06: You cannot, right, Mark?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_06: They're again borrowing from the Christian worldview.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it becomes more of an intellectual talking point than a personal preference, right?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because you'll never have somebody who is a true humanist who says there is no right, there's no wrong, there's no good, there's no bad, there's no sacred, there's no secular.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: They don't go to the Megan's Law Registry to find a babysitter, right?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: They don't go there to go, hey, you know what, I want to hire somebody to take care of my finances.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand that he spent 20 years in prison for fraud, you know, and for stealing and embezzlement.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it becomes this intellectual talking point.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like we know what we're doing.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And personally, I'm not going to live like that, is what they'll say.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's no right, there's no wrong.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, men is basically good.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to lean one way or the other, men is basically good.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they wouldn't throw their wallet down on the sidewalk with their address in it with a hundred dollars in there, thinking that they're going to get that thing returned back to them.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work out that way.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_06: Mark, that's a good spot to camp out.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, you remember when we did that experiment?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_06: You remember that?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_06: Were you thinking the same thing?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_06: But we did it in another country, too, I thought Hungary.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_06: So so talk about that.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_06: And and what did the people say, right, when you busted them?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I had these very, very cool looking glasses.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_06: Oh no.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_06: Did you though?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_05: Like a giant Vegas on his face.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: It was when they first came out.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: They weren't sophisticated at all.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: I come leaned down because they were so heavy.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: But I put them on, we went to Venice Beach, and we dropped a wallet with money in it at Venice Beach, and I stood there with my very cool-looking glasses with the cameras rolling, and a guy comes past on a skateboard, he turns around, he picks it up, and he goes like a bat out of heaven.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I chased him as fast as I could, caught him, and I said, Did you pick up a wallet?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: And we are filming him.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: He says we've actually got it on camera.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: And if you if you tell me you did, I'll let you keep the money that was in the wallet and it came clean.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: So how'd you feel when you picked it up?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Was your conscience speaking to you?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: And it was really interesting.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: We did the same thing in uh Hungary.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: We dropped a wallet and filmed people walking over it and some people had stopped.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: I've been using the wallet thing just recently, last Saturday.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: I said to people, if you found a wallet with$100 in it, will you return it to the owner?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yes, absolutely.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: What say you're homeless and they had$10,000 and$100 bills?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: That changes everything.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: So they're a thief, but they just got to get the price right.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_06: No, it's so true, you know, when you probe into human nature.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_06: And that's you know, that's why I I'm often mystified by man's reasoning when it comes to certain things like that, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_06: Like in one sense, they'll tell us, oh, you know, the universe is so big, it's so vast, that how could there be a God?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_06: Or what significance do we have, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_06: Like we're nothing.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_06: We're I mean, it's like Horton Here's a Who, you know, it's a it's this little thing floating around and there's this world in it, but it's nothing.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_05: Horton is Horton Horton Hill Here's a Who?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_05: I've never read Dr.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_05: Zuzma, well no, the next week.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_06: Maybe not watching the animation, Horton Hears a Who?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_06: No, it's not.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_06: It's all you gotta watch it.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_06: It's actually pretty good.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_06: So anyway.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_06: Looks like Ray.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_06: So, but my my point is, you know, they'll they'll basically argue human beings into irrelevance.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_06: Like the universe is so massively vast.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_06: We're nothing.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_06: We're we're not even we're we're smaller than a speck of does.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_06: But then at the same time, they'll make so much of man.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, look at us, look at what we've created and what we've done.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_06: Wait, what happened to like this microscopic, tiny, insignificant thing, you know?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_06: So I wish that they would see the vastness of the universe and then pause to recognize wow, how great God must be.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_06: You know, and that He's given us the capacity to contemplate that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_06: Like to me, that's one of the greatest evidences of the fact that we were designed by a transcendent God that we can contemplate.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_06: Like that we can look and recognize that we are, and then from that extrapolate to wow.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the heavens declare the glory of God.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been to the planetarium at the uh in Kentucky at the Answers?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: What is it, the creation?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Creation Museum, yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jason Lyle did such an amazing job in the midst of that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's where it just takes you on a journey all throughout the universe and it shows you how small man really is.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the arguments that you were making, right?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: That an atheist comes along and says, Well, listen, even the earth is not at the center of the universe, thinking that man should be at the center of the universe because we ourselves are at the center of our own universe.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: We think that this conversation is always all about me.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've often said, right, that the only time I want to stop talking about me is when I hear my name on your lips, because that is the way my life revolves.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in love with Mark.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't have as many mirrors as EZ does inside of his room.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: He should love me.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love me.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I you love you.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who does.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh John Calvin, man's nature, right?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a perpetual factory of idols that we are always trying to fan the flame to make us better and looking for that fountain of youth so that we don't lose what we think we have.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, we don't have anything that hasn't been given to us already.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Life is so quick.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: We need to bow to uh him who's in control.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, would you say ultimately humanism has as its root the pursuit of autonomy?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like ultimately, humanism has as its root the pursuit of autonomy.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: Very good, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: How did I do?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: Very good.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_05: But it goes back to Eden, doesn't it, Ray?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it certainly does.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: And um, one thing I think a lot about is the arrogance of the teenage years when young people think they know better than their parents, and all their parents are trying to do is say, don't go here because it's going to cause you pain.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, etc.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the kids know better.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what the book of Proverbs starts with a warning to youth, a warning to youth.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: And humanism is exactly the same.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thinks it can do everything, thinks it can do everything without God, like a rebellious, dumb teenager.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: And all they're doing is get themselves into a terrible mess.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: Remember years ago, a friend of mine uh named Greg Ansley, he was fixing his motorbike, so I went to help him.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Bad idea.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: He took it, he took it to pieces and just putting it together again.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we ended up with three nuts left over.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we went for a rider on the block with three nuts left over with this motorbike they had put back together, and I helped him, obviously.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: But that's what you meant.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly I've actually I've actually got that written here too much.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you read it, you brat.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_05: It didn't even get it.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: Ray, you should know better.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: You should have that divider you put up in your head between between your marks.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yeah.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: So you did well in school, Mark?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Genesis.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't finished the analogy.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Please do.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead and go ahead and get the analogy is uh oh boy.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Pray for me.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um instructions.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: I cannot stand instructions.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: When I get in an appliance and it's written in like eight-point writing and it's from Korea, and they really don't speak English, and they say, move this here.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: I just can't stand it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: And we get together, finish the, and there's it's just then we read the instructions after it doesn't work.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: And that's exactly what the whole of humanity has done.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's turned its back on God's instruction book, the Bible, and the world's in a mess simply because of that.
• 28:43
  unknown: Wow.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: And it's an arrogance, it's a pride.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: Oscar.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, Genesis is a great place to start, and specifically.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: No Genesis.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: You said that's a good idea.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: No Genesis.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an anti-genocite.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it is a great place to start, and Genesis 3 shows us that the devil is doing the same tricks on us today than he did uh with Adam and Eve in the garden.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you think about the lie that he speaks into Eve's life, he goes to her and he says, You will be like God.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Think break that down for a second.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: A serpent tells an image bearer, you will be like God.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Two things.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: One, the serpent had no power or authority to change the quality of the personhood of who Eve was.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, first, he's offering her something that he can't deliver on.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: But the second thing is that he's also offering her something that she already has.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Be like God.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: She's an image bearer of God.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: She's made in the image of God by but by distorting that reality, Adam and Eve want to be God, not just be like God.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what's happening in secular humanism is that we want to be our own God's autonomy, and we want to be our own saviors.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the irony of that is that nowadays, if you listen to secular humanists, they believe the next evolutionary leap is AI.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of scary to think about.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: But you literally, they've talked about Elon Musk is on record as saying if human beings die off completely and the next evolutionary leap is AI, well then good, because we've created something better than our own selves.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so by being our own saviors, we're confessing that we're ready to destroy humanity completely.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_06: Um you know, Ray, I I think of the Tower of Babel and when God was conferencing basically within the within the Trinity and saying, let's go down there and confuse their language, or else nothing will be impossible for them.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_06: Like, have you ever thought on that?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_06: Like what what is what are the implications of that?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Inside the mind of it.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Neilan.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's funny.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: Virgin Russell, who was a humanist.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Am I correct?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: And an atheist.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: And like a pope for uh atheists even nowadays, they look back and quote, but he said this faith is a firm belief for which there is no evidence.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, what a crazy statement.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, everything we do in life is built on faith.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: Your marriage has got a foundation on trust.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: Whenever you have any interactions with other human beings, it's a trust.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: You say to your girlfriend or boyfriend, not you guys, but you say to a girlfriend or boyfriend, I don't trust you, that relationship's not going to last.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Even nations, you know, they deal with trust with each other.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: So you can't get away from what he's actually saying is the faith he doesn't believe in is a faith in God.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's what's in the heart of man, this rebellion against this creator, the carnal mind, is enmity against God.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what's behind humanism: a rebellion against the moral law.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: God, don't you tell us what to do morally.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: We want to do our own thing because we love darkness and we hate the light.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's what's behind it.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: Um feel free to applaud.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: Boo.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_06: And boo.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: Please.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: That'd be good.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually told you should always applaud when somebody's done, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: You either really enjoyed it or you're glad they're done talking.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, it applies.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Oscar, you were talking about, you know, humanism really kind of springing up in the you know, 14th, 15th, 16th century, somewhere around there.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_06: But really, it began to take shape in in a sort of pronounced, defined way then.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_06: But we go back, like we said, to Eden, but then even after that, you hear statements like this by Protagoras in the 5th century BC who said, man is the measure of all things.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_06: That's creepy, isn't it?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it is.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_06: That thought.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_06: Man is the measure of all things.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_06: And at the end of the day, Oscar, would you say it comes down to not just not just deification in the sense that man wants to become God, but but it's almost in a sense self-worship, right?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely is.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's yeah, it's it's we want to, we have been since the beginning trying to dethrone God and put ourselves on the throne because we we we worship the idea of self, uh, self-authenticity, self-salvation, et cetera, et cetera.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, the kicker about all of this is that uh it's important to recognize when we're talking about secular humanism and atheism is that we are not replacing religion and belief with reason and logic.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: You're simply replacing one belief with another system of beliefs.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: And John Gray, who's an atheist in a humanist, admits this.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: This is a quote from him.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: He says, humanism is not a science, but a religion.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: The post-Christian faith that humans can make a world better than any in which they have so far lived.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: He's confessing this is this idea of humanism isn't logic and reason, it is an act of worship, a worship of self.
• 34:17
  unknown: Wow.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, G.K.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Chesterton, he said something very similar.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, When men choose not to believe in God, they do not therefore believe in nothing, they then both become capable of believing in anything.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And who was it that said men will believe anything as long as it's not in the Bible?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Napoleon?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Men will believe anything as long as it's not in the Bible.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was uh It was someone really powerful.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Napoleon?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't Napoleon.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, it was Napoleon, I think it was.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody who you could see eye to eye with.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um Thomas Paine.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: You're familiar with Thomas Paine?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Ouch.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: 1791.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: And he wrote, In the Rights of Man, my country is the world and my religion is to do good.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: But according to good standard, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem that we have with, right?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because your standard might be I I believe flying planes into Twin Towers is a great thing.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then somebody else comes along and says, No, I think feeding homeless people is a good thing.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you don't have an objective standard for good and bad, well, then everybody does that which is right in their own eyes.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: What is the objective standard?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is the objective standard?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where we come back to the word of God, and that is a reflection of God's moral code, the commandments, which is a reflection of his heart.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: Which was written in stone and it's eternal, it's not going away.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_06: Guys, seriously, could you imagine how dark our lives would be without the guidance of God's word?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I mean, I and honestly, I do take it for granted.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_06: I I love the word, I I love memorizing the word, but there's there are times when I realize I'm not pausing long enough to be struck by like what I'm reading.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_06: And I've shared it on the podcast before.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_06: Like, I'll I'll read something especially like Ephesians, you know, something Paul's talking about the mysteries of the gospel, and uh and like I'm just like it's a it's one of those like holy ground moments where I have to step back and I'm like, this is otherworldly, right?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: I would like you to put out Ephesians as an audio Bible, just the just the book of Ephesians, because I don't think you'd read it statically, you'd read it with absolute passion.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_06: If I had Garrett's voice here, I would do it, right?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_06: I need Garrett's voice.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he Garrett's out one of our scouts at Huntingham Beach.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: He's come today and join us in the podcast.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's in the military to give us a salute, you know.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: Very good.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: Even a salute was deep.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: And he's yeah, he's got a deep, wonderful voice.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but easy, I think you'd it'd be it would be amazing because he'd burst into tears with one verse and rejoice in another.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: It could be the easy version.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'll start if in Ephesians 1, Paul.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_06: We got an audience today.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_06: This is fun.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_06: But uh, but yeah, you know, I've often said when when you don't have God's word, you know, the world it people in the world are are like a ship lost at sea, without any oars, without a motor, or even a shape.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, without wit without a killing without lids without candy, you know, just like a pencil with that lid.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or like a donut without the donut.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, most zero.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's like nothing there.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um were you gonna say something, Oscar?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: You were like doing something there.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was pulling something up.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I wanted uh I think it's kind of the direction that you're going in, which if you think about it, and and this is this is how I would talk to somebody who's a secular humanist, which is let's look at history.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have never been successful of creating heaven on earth without God.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: We, I mean, Russia failed in trying to do it, Germany failed in trying to do it.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: Anytime, you know, San Francisco was supposed to be the next utopian city, New York was supposed to be the next utopian city, Rome was supposed to be the next.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Anytime we try to build a utopia, we create homelessness.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: We we are, we, we cannot do it.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the reality, and I want to point back to the reality that um I think it's so important for that secular humanist.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I think it's important for all of us to recognize that it's not just the atheist secular humanist that wants to worship something besides God in the everyday, day-to-day trenches of lives, we are all doing that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: And to quote a secular humanist, David Foster Wallace, and I love this quote by him because you can hear him being haunted by the gospel.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: He says this in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's no such thing as not worshiping.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody worships.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: Never feel you have enough.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: Worship your own body and beauty and allure, and you will always feel ugly.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Worship power, you will feel weak and afraid, and you will net you will need even more power over others to keep fear at bay.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he says, look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is that they're evil and that they're not only that they're evil and sinful, but that they are unconscious.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: They are our default settings.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that is exactly what you're doing.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: Did he come to faith?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: He actually died by either overdose or suicide, unfortunately.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: What a tragedy, because what a searching heart and what honesty of heart.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Truly.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and you know, we have to be careful because I think for us as believers, we can sometimes overlook certain areas where humanism can crop up its head and really try to dethrone God.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I think conservatism is one of those dangerous areas.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_06: Because, you know, as believers, obviously we rejoice when we see policies that are enacted that are favorable to righteous standards from the word.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_06: We rejoice when politicians that have a desire to stop wickedness in our nation rise up.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_06: But at the same time, you have to remember that you can be conservative and remove God from the equation and make that your idol.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_06: And there's a danger there.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_06: You know, Mark, we we've talked a lot about the ugly spirit that we even see among conservatives and and the dangers that that that can lead to.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_06: What would you say are some of the things that we have to be on the lookout for in causing us to drift toward humanism without realizing it?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you if you don't meditate on God's word as truth, you're gonna believe lies are true, right?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the importance of meditating on God's word day and night.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Oscar mentioned David Foster Wallace.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, the truth will set you free, but it'll be uncomfortable when it does so.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus said, You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what we need to do continually is be reporting for duty inside of God's word.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: That, hey, it's enough.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: God said it, and that is enough.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: We we don't need to go any further.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a debate right now with a gentleman online with one of my videos uh dealing with um uh he believes that Jesus and he is the father, and he believes that the Jesus and Father are the spirit and that they're one, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Modalism.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't want to spill it up, but so we have this idea.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going back and forth, and I said we have to continually go back to what the word of God says.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants to go back to what man has come up with.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when you come up with what man comes up with, you'll always come up short, you'll always fall short of that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Get the word of God in you, and the word of God will get inside of you.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I say, we need to be careful that the Bible doesn't become just an adult coloring book, that we stay within the lines and we have all the different colors for the different subjects that are at hand, but we become doers, not just hearers, that we are continually saying, search me and try me, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: What is there that might potentially be trying to attempt to dethrone you from the place where you live?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: God, right?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: So in the second chapter of The Pursuit of God, um, A.W.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Tozer talks about that there is a place and a point inside of our lives where, as a Christian, Christ lives on that throne.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as Christ lives on that throne, there's always idols that are kind of creeping its way up to try to dethrone God.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to keep God from being dethroning in our hearts is that we're always taking inventory.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the way we take inventory is we're always reading and praying through the word and surrounded by people like you and I, right?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who can speak inside of each other's lives.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have never seen the back of your head.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: You've always had help to see the back of your head, whether it be through a mirror or through somebody else.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Plagiarism.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_06: That's the way it is, right?
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_06: Plagiarism.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_06: Plagiarism.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_06: Who came up with that?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I wonder.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, Mark, such guys, you guys, I'm so enjoying this because identifying roots is so important.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, I I want you to to touch on this.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_06: You know, um, we often don't recognize the influences of the world that creep into the church.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_06: And we get blinded and think, oh, this is Christian, this is biblical.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_06: As an example, you know, the the um mumbo jumbo from the psychology, psychiatry world, psycho babble, has crept into the church.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_06: And so we'll we'll begin to talk in ways that reflect the rootedness of humanism in certain things.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_06: But there are other areas.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: Ray kind of you kind of just microaggressed me a little more.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_06: Microaggressed.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_06: Oh my goodness.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_06: Ray, um, but I I think we fail to realize the roots of humanism when it comes to the man-centered gospel.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, touch on that in a minute.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: But what you said about conservatism, there's a Trojan horse of humanism that's got within the church.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_03: And um there's one litmus test that we can use to expose humanism, and that is just quote Jeremiah um 17 9.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: The heart is deceitfully above, you know that verse anyway, but don't you?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's deceitful above all things.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's offensive to humanism.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: That'll expose it.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'll say, no, no, no, no, man is basically good.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: We have some bad things we get into, but we're basically good.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: But when you look at scripture, there's no room for that.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: The heart is deceitfully wicked.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: Who can know it?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_03: We drink and we like water, we love the darkness, our eyes are full of adultery, and it's offensive to the pride of man.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the you talked about humanism seeping into the gospel.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_03: When you throw out God's law, which shows sin in its true light, then you get humanism creeping into the gospel proclamation that man isn't that bad.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: And when you say that, then hell it becomes an offensive doctrine.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why you get preachers who preach a wonderful plan, God loves you, everything's fine between you and God.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: You cannot preach hell when you think man is basically good.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: But once you see sin from God's point of view, that we are desperately wicked, then hell becomes a necessity.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: It it must exist if God is just.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: So they invert it and blame authority for for the wickedness that's already in the heart.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Freud?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: It it certainly could be Freudian, yeah.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in regards to conservatism, I I know I've mentioned this book before, Political Visions and Illusions by David Koizick.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fantastic book, and he goes through and critiques all forms of political views.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that he points out in that book is that he says we are highly religious people, uh, that even in a post-Christian era, we have this tendency to tell false false gospel stories.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: And he breaks down every single political perspective, and he says, if you listen closely, they're telling a false gospel.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so he he says, like, there's there's the fall, the messiah, the salvation, and the final vision in conservatism.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, he points out like this the problem, the fall.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: In conservatism, they see the problem as radical change and a disruption of tradition.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: When society moves too quickly, they risk tearing down moral and cultural and institutional foundations.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: So the fall is abandoning the things that have stood the test of time.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: The savior is tradition itself, often embodied in long-standing institutions like family, church, constitution, monarchy, cultural practices.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: We bring this messiah back and we discover redemption.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Conservatism, conservatism salvation is found in preserving and transmitting tradition across generations.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: By conserving what is good and resisting utopian schemes of rapid change, we discover a new utopia through conservatism.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then he says the eschatology of conservatism, the final vision is heaven on earth, uh, where traditions of instability are now secure and people once again flourish.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, as conservatives, confessionally, as conservatives, we hear that and go, well, there's some stuff that's in there that's really good.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, tradition, especially if tradition is good, morals, Christian values, that's a good thing.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: But if our only hope is in re-establishing morals, we're still only creating a utopia.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: We are still only creating a utopia.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: Our hope is in the second coming of Christ.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: And our primary work is in proclaiming the gospel so that more people come to a saving faith as that second coming of Christ approaches.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and we have to again be careful of subtlety, because all these things creep in in a in a subtle type of manner.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_06: You know, it's like when when Satan was trying to reason with Eve, and basically he had that three-pronged approach.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, first it was discontent.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, come on.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_06: As God said, you can't have of every tree of the garden.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_06: And so there's that subtlety, right?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_06: Like, like, oh yeah, but but in there was a big fat lie.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_06: What what was it in reality?
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_06: God said, You can eat of every tree.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_06: In fact, he gave them dominion over every square inch of the entire planet.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_06: And then Satan takes that one thing.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah, I can't have everything, right?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_06: Like, what whereas as opposed to like one thing, it's like now it's as though God took everything from them, you know.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_06: Then it was disbelief.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_06: No, you surely will not die.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_06: Again, it's just that like subtle thing, and oh yeah, that's true.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_06: And and then finally, deification.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_06: No, in fact, you will become like God, knowing good and evil, which ultimately is autonomy.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_06: And so we have to be on our guard against the subtleties because we're extremely impressionable and we live in a very influential age.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_06: It's like a rock colliding with clay.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_06: The clay is going to be affected, and so we have to have our guard up and constantly be careful.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_06: So, Mark, for for the parents listening today, what can they do to help their kids?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_06: You know, Kylie right now is out at Summit Ministries.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_06: You guys remember Jeff Myers?
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_06: So that's your youngest?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, our youngest, you turned 18.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_06: And Jeff Myers was here.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_06: I I'm the one that invited him out, and then I was sick, I couldn't be here with you guys.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_06: But great ministry that's training up young people in worldview so that when they go into college, they're ready.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_06: When they go out into the workforce, they're ready for those arguments.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_06: But Mark, how do we how do we bring that home?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_06: What can we do with our kids to help them protect against the subtleties of humanism?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first thing you do is you become a student of your child, right?
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: As much as your child is studying you, you need to study your child.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: You need to see what makes them tick, you know, what makes them anxious.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: And family devotions are so important.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just going through the word and the word going through you, but it's a time to get inside of each other's lives.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are you struggling with?
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like how was your day today?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking very specific questions.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: What was a highlight of your day today?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what was a fear today that you encountered uh as you drove?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, what was crossing your mind and what were you listening to, right?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, when you ask very uh pointed questions, when you're very direct in the relationship and you give them permission to speak inside of your life, uh, I think that it invites that conversation, it invites relationship.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you've been designed not just to raise your kids, but have a relationship with your kids.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just shooting them out in the world when they turn 18 to 20 some years old.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: You want to come alongside them and something shifts when they realize that they can approach you.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I've shared with my kids continually.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing you can do to get me outside of, get me out of your life.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that you can do.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I came up with an example.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, if you were to, hypothetically, if you were to murder your sibling, I will be the only one probably that will visit you in prison, that will be writing to you continually, that will be calling to you, because there's nothing you can do.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when they feel that safety to be able to approach you, well, then you have the ability, I think, to continually speak inside their lives.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: But even if that's not there, you still speak inside their lives.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're still giving them the word.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the rising up and in the sitting down, you are teaching them things, hopefully before the world teaches them.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Vodibacum, he said, we cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and then be surprised when they come home as Romans.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is our kids are excited to leave house for whatever reason because we have not demonstrated that the home is the altar, it is the church, it is the place where they need to be raised up.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when you can talk hard conversations, you know, I've heard you talk easy several times that you started talking about sexuality with your kids since they were really little.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that has taught me with my five kids on how to talk to them.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, I'm not gonna talk to a four-year-old the same way I would a 14-year-old, but there is as I'm studying them, as I know that hey, I need to give them the word, or as what Oscar does when you watch a movie, you know, what is that?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Spot the lie, find the lie, you know, pausing it, what just took place, what was said that isn't accurate according to the word of God.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you're always getting them to think through a biblical lens, a lofty view of who God is with his sovereignty, and having the word there at the table and having uh the word of God present when you go through life, you know, when you get cut off.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just get the next uh exit or I'll uh take the next uh parking space.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray for them.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: You miss the light.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe I can pray for the people that are going across.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just having that big view.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you teach your kids to have a big view, everything changes.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: And now they ask really good questions.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: And don't belittle them when they ask a question.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've already answered this last week, right?
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's no safety in them coming back to you when you treat them like they're three-year-olds and they're 13-year-olds.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_06: Wow, Mark, you you did something really profound because I think that by default, we immediately go to what what we need to do as it relates to the main thing, right?
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_06: Like equipping our kids.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_06: Well, we need to teach them this and we need to do that.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_06: But what I love is that you laid the foundation for receptivity.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_06: Like, how do you get them to the place where they're gonna even listen to you?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_06: And that begins to back away from from even beginning to to speak, and that is giving them that sense of feeling comfortable with you.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_06: And that just kind of reminded me we can do that with people too, not just our kids.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_06: But it's amazing when you take that time to like really make someone feel that they could trust you to open up to you.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_06: Now, we we're very emphatic on being careful about lifestyle evangelism or friendship evangelism, right?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_06: Because we're called to proclaim the gospel.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_06: But I hope those of you listening don't get a misunderstanding that we're saying you never try to build rapport with people because you should, especially with those that are in your life on a regular basis.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_06: Now, you need to be mindful and hit the balance in that they need to hear the gospel because obviously life is short and we could die at any time.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_06: But even as you have shared the gospel with them, like honestly, for me with certain family members and certain friends, I've shared the gospel, I've exhausted the gospel, and I'm always ready to engage with them on the gospel again.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_06: And I will when I feel it's appropriate.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_06: But but I also feel a great joy in like, man, I'm gonna love them with everything within me.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna be present in their life, I'm gonna ask them the questions about what they're going through.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna be there to serve them when they need it.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_06: There's just like a joy in that.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_06: I've exhausted the gospel, and I can't tell you how many times I've then been approached, like, hey man, you know, I was thinking about this or that, or or to surprise them, like, wow, he he took me out and didn't like didn't batter me, you know, about God.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_06: So that and they and it does, it causes them causes them to get closer.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_06: And Ray, you've talked about that with family, that that's important with family, especially.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: Always keep that relationship going.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: Often I just text my sister in New Zealand, whom you've met, just for no reason, just say how you're doing and stuff like that, just to keep that leg open, hoping one day she'll say, Tell me what you believe.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm believing for that.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: But let me just say something here.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_03: Before I was a Christian, I was probably a humanist.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't think that deeply.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: All I was about was enjoying myself and my surfing life, etc.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_03: But if you probed me, I probably would have said, Man, it's basically good, you blah, blah, blah.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but what a joy it was when I came to Christ to give him the reins.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_03: Just to say to the God that gave me life, you take over, you take the controls.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: Because that means I can never be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_03: You get these stories about some guy standing in a field by himself just enjoying life, and a meteorite comes from outer space, traveled millions of miles, and hits him in the head and kills him.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_03: He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's what they say.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_03: But when you're a Christian, you are never in the wrong place.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_03: If I get hit by a car, crushed by a truck, whatever happens to me, because I've committed my way to the Lord, he allowed it to happen, I was in the right place at the right time.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_06: And that's freedom when you live that way.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_06: It's um confidence knowing that God is sovereignly in control over every aspect of your life.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_06: And I can't help but think that many of these humanists that live that way in the corridors of their own hearts and minds, as they see their frailty, their weakness, their internal insecurities, their inability to control life, to stop a loved one from dying, to change the course of their nation's destiny.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_06: They see their smallness, they recognize their insignificance.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_06: And my hope is that God's Spirit will work and open their eyes to recognize that you're disconnected from the one who set your heart beating, from the one who triggered your brainwave activity to move, the one who holds your breath in his hand, and that they'll cry out to him in repentance and faith.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_06: You know, humanism has been progressive.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, we we we talked about all the way back in the 5th century BC.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_06: We talked about the Garden of Eden.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_06: We go to the Enlightenment, 17th, 18th centuries, guys like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, you know, their emphasis was reason, skepticism uh over religion, man's self-rule, right?
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_06: Science and rationalism became the supreme authorities.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_06: Those became the gods.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_06: You go to the 19th and 20th century as secular humanism.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_06: You have Karl Marx, human-centered socialism, communism, Darwin, naturalistic uh explanations of the origins of the of man.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you go to Sigmund Freud, man is explained apart from the soul, Nietzsche, God is dead, all of it promoting man, the power of man, and and we see it accelerating now.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_06: My concern is it's taking on kind of religious sort of overtones, and that gets even more dangerous.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_06: And so we have to be careful, friends, discernment and rootedness in God's word, so that as Mark has reminded us time and time again, become more familiar with the original so that you can spot the counterfeit.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one quick thing, we're gonna go back for just a minute.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're wrapping up here.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: I received a text yesterday from my daughter, and she sent it to Laura and myself, and we're going back to where we were talking about the family and what's connecting, what's hitting.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I met a girl at Starbucks who was handing out Living Waters tracks to people who were studying.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: I walked up to her and I said, I love those tracks, and we started talking, and she mentioned that Eddie had preached the gospel to her at Huntington Beach, and now she's totally walking with the Lord.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: When she found out that Mark was my dad, she freaked out and took a picture with me.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then she said, It made me stop to think about how thankful I am for my upbringing.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need a random person off the streets to come and preach the gospel to me because I've been raised in a sweet home where the Lord was already being honored.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so fortunate to have parents who brought me up in truth and to live in a house where we don't have to rent and with the food in the fridge and countless blessings I often take for granted.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, mom and dad, for the way you've loved me and pointed me to Christ.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: I come you didn't cry about that one.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_03: I did.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_03: Look at there's all creating emojis right there.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's eventually things begin to click, and we think things are not clicking, perhaps, they're always clicking because the word of God doesn't return void.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: So be strong in the word, not just with your family, but with the humanist out on the street, because they can't argue against God's word when they get alone all by themselves at night.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_06: And friends, a final challenge to us all you know, one of the things that we often echo is a refrain in this modern crazy busy culture is I don't have time.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_06: I'm too busy.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_06: I just want to encourage everyone listening right now, just Evaluate your weekly activities, your television watching, your movie watching, your sports outings, your hobby involvements, and add that time up.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_06: Oscar gave us a good indicator, I think, last episode that the average person will read 80 books a year.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_06: The equivalent of 80 of 80 books a week, 80 books a year based on what we look at on social media alone.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_06: So challenge yourself.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_06: You can't afford to not redeem the time because there are ramifications to that.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_06: And so ground yourself in truth, in the word, in prayer.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_06: Disciple your children, have family devotions.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_06: You do have time.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_06: Priority is important, and actions speak priority, as it's been said.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_06: And value impacts behavior, as we've talked about many times.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_06: So there you have it, friends.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_06: Humanism.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_06: No good, ugly.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_06: All right, friends.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_02: That could have been the whole podcast.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_02: Four seconds long.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_06: I know.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_06: Don't forget the four question survey, which Ray knows nothing about.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_06: The Living Waters mug, the Heaven Study Bible, and LivingWaters TV, all LivingWaters.com.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_06: Don't forget the podcast YouTube channel, podcast at LivingWaters.com with all your thoughts and suggestions and good comments for me.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_06: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast, where we have no idea what we're doing.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, hide that.