Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / The Attention Economy and the Book of Job || SLP466

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The Attention Economy and the Book of Job || SLP466 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, hello and thank you for downloading episode four hundred and sixty-six of the Speak Life podcast.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thorragon, media producer at Speak Life.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: And today we have a sermon for you that Nate Morgan Locke preached on Sunday, the 2nd of July, at All Souls Church in Eastbourne.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: It's on Job 16.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: So enjoy the episode, and I will catch you at the end.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether that's news to you or not, but we do.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: Your eyeballs and your eardrums are on sale.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: And there is huge money to be made by getting and keeping your attention.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: It's basically how all social media makes its money, apart from Twitter, which uh Elon Musk has chosen now, will be a subscription fee.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: But for most of us, the platforms we're on are free.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: And that means we're the product.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: Our attention is very precious.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: It is a finite resource.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: The comedian Bo Burnham said that we used to colonize land.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: We used to go out and find as many new pieces of land that we could colonize and then we could use that land to find resources and make money out of it.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: But we've done that now.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: And so we've just got human attention left.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: And we've realized that you can keep someone's attention for 24 hours a day.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: If you put a little device in their pocket that's going to kind of give them a little nudge every now and again with a notification, you can grab their attention.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: And you can hold their attention.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: It's given us what American sociologist Neil Postman called context-free information.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: This is what he says when you get information which will not change how you're going to go about your day, and it's not helping you solve a specific problem that you're currently facing.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: It's context-free information, and we are drowning in it.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: He was writing in the 1980s talking about the television.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the TV.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: How old-fashioned.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: But then he took it back to the telegraph, and when information could be shot out around the country, and now with the use of satellites around the world, as fast as possible, so that we are drowning in context-free information.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And when we are given so much of this information, it leaves us feeling impotent to do anything about the problems in the world.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do in every situation that I'm presented with as I'm scrolling through Facebook.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: It leads us to feeling a bit helpless.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's so many problems in the world.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I can't deal with it all.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: And the people who are in charge of these algorithms, well, they know that we have something called portion bias, which means we like to finish a thing.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: So depending on the size of the spoon that you give someone, apparently, they will take that amount of sugar.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Half the size of the spoon, they'll eat half the amount of sugar.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Double the size of the spoon, they'll eat double the amount of sugar.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: It's portion bias.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: It's why I eat an entire big bag of crisps.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: Because why would they give me a whole big bag of crisps if I wasn't supposed to eat it in one go?
4:08
SPEAKER_01: They'd give me a smaller bag of crisps, I would just finish that one.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: But then they put the smaller bags together in multi-packs, so I then think, well, I've got to eat the whole bag of little bags of crisps.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Portion bias.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: On the internet, you can't finish a unit of the internet because they've developed what they call infinity scrolling.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: You never get to the end of the page.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: You just keep it keeps refreshing.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: More information, more to read, more to discover, more context-free information that you can't do anything about.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: More and more and more.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: So when you come off the internet, you don't feel satisfied.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I finished the internet for the day.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: You think I'm probably missing something.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Something else could have popped up.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: There might be a new notification.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: There might be breaking news.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And so this drowning information leaves us feeling not just helpless and hopeless and impotent to do anything about all this stuff that's happening in the world, it also leaves us wanting more.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: It leaves us thirsty.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Feeling hungry, dissatisfied because we didn't get to the end of it.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: Nobody told us it was time up.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: It also leads in extreme cases to what uh Dutch American pastor Paul van der Klee has called nihilism-induced depression.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's because there's so much information, there's so many things that you can read about.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: You have access to so much of what is going on in the world, and it must all be meaningful, but it couldn't possibly be meaningful and have value for me individually, therefore, it probably must be meaningless.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm just drowning in all of this stuff, feeling overwhelmed, and the worst thing of it all is it's addictive.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: So we keep going back to it, and it doesn't help.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: And there are some wonderful things about it.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: We're going out live on YouTube right now.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: But the question is, what do we do when we feel this sense of hopelessness, helplessness, being overwhelmed, feeling that we can't change anything.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: Feeling just I'm worn out.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: I can't take all this.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to draw our attention this morning to just one verse of the Bible.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
6:56
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to read everything, just one little verse of the Bible, one little verse of Job chapter 16 and verse 19.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: If you closed your Bible, you can find it on page 521.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: And with Job chapter 16, verse 19 in front of us, thinking about what we will give our attention to, let me pray.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Job 16, verse 19, even now my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Job 16, 19, even now my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: We're just going to put this verse under the microscope, give our attention to this verse and see what it can teach us about how we might use our attention, prioritize our attention in the rest of our lives.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: So we'll start with even now.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: It's the beginning of the verse.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Even now, even in these circumstances, Job says, My witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Even now, in this situation.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: We go back to the beginning of Job and we see what that situation is.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: That he had his cattle, his donkeys, his sheep, his camels taken away from him.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: All of his children were killed.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: It was mourning.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Each one of those pieces of news came hot on the heels of the last piece of bad news.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: He's feeling overwhelmed.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: And this isn't even context-free information.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: This is context-specific information.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: They were his cattle.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: They were his children.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: He sits in the dust, he shaves his head, he tears his clothes, and then he is covered from head, shoulders, knees, and toes in boils and sores to the point where he cuts himself with broken pottery to try to relieve the pain and the irritation of the soreness of these boils.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Here is a man who is overwhelmed with grief, with sadness, with helplessness, hopelessness, with depression.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: His friends come, the miserable comforters.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: So they come and they sit with him, and after a week of silence, he opens his mouth and an argument starts.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: To the point where Job says in chapter 16, verse 3, With your long-winded speeches never end, what ails you that you keep on?
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Arguing.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Not only have I lost all this, not only am I grieving the death of my children, not only am I covered in boils and sitting in sackcloth and ashes, but now my friends have turned against me.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: They have become miserable comforters.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: And Job says, 16, 19, even now my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: What's the situation that you're in?
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, the circumstances of your life at this time.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: What is the accelerating drumbeat of bad news that has been hitting your doorstep?
10:37
SPEAKER_01: The feeling of being overwhelmed.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Have you even got friends who turned on you because you're not responding in apparently the right way?
10:45
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord says, even now, in the midst of this, my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of his suffering, covered in his own blood, covered in these boils, sitting in the dust, he says, even now, with my friends angry at me.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Even in this situation, my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn to those witnesses, those advocates.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Then can you see how this verse, it sort of overlaps with each other?
11:26
SPEAKER_01: So even now refers to both of the situations, and then witness in heaven, advocate on high.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: There's a sort of parallelism there.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: So we'll take witness first.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: It's a word that we would usually use in legal terms.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: I want to draw your attention to three of the three first three, the first, second, and third occasions that the word witness is used in scripture.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: And the first one is to do with Jacob and Laban.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Laban is Jacob's father-in-law twice over, and Jacob's been working for him, and they get into a disagreement around wages, and Jacob decides he's going to up and leave.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: He's going to leave in the middle of the night.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: He's going to take both of his wives, he's going to take his camels, he's going to take his herds and flocks, and they are going to leg it.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And Laban's going to go after him.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: He's angry, he's frustrated.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: Why have you turned this?
12:22
SPEAKER_01: Why have you taken this away?
12:24
SPEAKER_01: And Laban is visited by the Lord in a dream who says, Go easy on Jacob.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Make peace with Jacob.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: And so when Laban comes to Jacob, he says, We're going to make peace.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And to witness to this peace, we are going to set up a pillar and a heap of stones.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: And that pillar and that heap of stones will be called a witness.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: It's the first time this word is used in Scripture.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: This is the witness.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: It's a memorial of peace.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: That's something you can point to and say, I have peace with you because of that.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: That is a memorial, is a witness to the concord that is between us.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: The peace that we have together.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: And Job says, My memorial of peace is in heaven.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: I know that I am at peace with God because my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: The second time it's used is in the Ten Commandments when it says, Thou shalt not bear false testimony against your neighbor.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Testimony there, that word means witness.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: We would say, do not tell lies.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: This use of the word witness is to do with a testimony of truth.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: The truth.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: Tell the truth.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: And Job says, the truth about me, the testimony of truth about me is in heaven.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Even now.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: It's not what you guys are saying.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: The truth about me is in heaven.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: What is most true about me is in heaven.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: The third occasion, you know when that bit in Exodus, when it starts to sort of unfold into more specific laws about what you do if you lend your neighbor your donkey and you say, Can you look after it for a weekend?
14:23
SPEAKER_01: We're going off to camping or something.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: And you come back and the donkey's dead, and you're like, oh no, what do we do?
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And then, well, it says, if a wild animal ripped the donkey apart while they were on their camping weekend, then you need to bring the carcass off the donkey as evidence witness to show that you didn't rip this donkey apart yourself, but wild animals came and took it.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: So you point to the evidence, the witness of the donkey carcass, and you say, Look, I'm innocent.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: It's a memorial of peace, it's a testimony of truth, and it is proof of innocence.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: Job says, Even now, my witness is in heaven.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: My vindication is in heaven, my proof of innocence is in heaven.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Tell all the lies you want.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: The Lord knows the truth.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: So we've done witness, let's just think briefly about advocacy, being an advocate, someone who adds their voice on behalf of someone else.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you: is there anyone that you know in your daily life that you almost without fail, when you go to see them, you are for them.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: You are on their side.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: You are you are you are team them.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: Right?
15:59
SPEAKER_01: And and you know the truth about them, you're not gonna you know just believe anything about them.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: But even if there were bad things about them, you're on their side.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: You want, not to make excuses, but you want them to be restored.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: You would go in, I was about to say go into bat, but I don't really want to talk about the cricket because it's a bit dodgy, right?
16:19
SPEAKER_01: You would go in for them.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: You would be an advocate for them.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: You feel goodwill towards them, you are always hoping for their best.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: And what about the other way around?
16:37
SPEAKER_01: Who walks into the room and your shoulders can drop and you can rest easy because you know that they want the best for you.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: They are for you, they are team you.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: They know the truth about you, but they're not just gonna disregard you.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: They are loyal and they want the best for you, they are team you.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: This is how we enact something of what the gospel does for us to each other.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Who are we for?
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Who is for us?
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Job says, even now, my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: And we come to those two phrases, in heaven on high.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're just different ways of kind of saying the same thing, attacking the same idea from different perspectives.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: One of the things we pray in the Lord's Prayer is on earth as in heaven.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: There's a heavenly reality that we want to be poured down to be an earthly reality.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: We pray that God would bring his reign and his rule and his justice, and that that would be poured out upon the earth.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: On earth as it is in heaven.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: Job says, that is quite good to have your surety, your security, your witness, your vindication in heaven.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: We also wanted to come down too, right?
18:17
SPEAKER_01: Now we've seen into heaven in the book of Job, right?
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Remember the first few chapters of the book of Job, we actually get to see into heaven, and we see the Lord in conversation with his angels and Satan who comes along.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: We know that Job has an accuser in heaven.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: We know Job has someone who wants ill for him.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We know Job has someone who is not team Job in heaven.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Job doesn't know about that.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: Job is not party to that situation.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: Job says, no, I actually have a witness in heaven, I have an advocate in heaven.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Heaven is the place where I'm fine.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: On earth I'm struggling.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Even now, my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Now, the NIV misses out a word.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: Which, if you've got the ESV or the King James Version of the Bible in front of you, you'll know what that word is.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And that word is the word behold.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: The most attention word you can have.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Behold.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: So in the ESV, it's even now, behold, in heaven is my witness.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Or behold, my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Behold, look.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Give your attention to this.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: It's the visual version of the word hark.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Listen.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: We need to use these old-fashioned words more often.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: Behold and hearken.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: Right?
20:02
SPEAKER_01: These are the words of the internet.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: Behold a cat video you have not yet seen.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Hearken to this what somebody is saying on the internet.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: Give your attention to this, give your attention to that.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: Listen, look.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: Have you seen that?
20:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh, did you watch it?
20:20
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard that?
20:22
SPEAKER_01: We're all in the attention economy asking each other to give our attention to different things.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: And in this verse, Job says, Even now, behold, give your attention to this.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: My witness is in heaven.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: My advocate is on high.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Now here's a question: what would we see?
20:41
SPEAKER_01: What would we be able to actually see if we were there with Job and his miserable comforters?
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, Job actually gives us a description of what he looks like.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: He does say in verses 15 and 16.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: What would we behold?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: What would we see if we were in Job 16?
21:03
SPEAKER_01: He says this, I've sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: My face is red with weeping, dark shadows wring my eyes.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: I do not look pretty.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm covered in dust, I'm covered in tears, my eyes are bloodshot, I haven't slept.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: I am a sight for sore eyes.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: I am pitiful to look at.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: And Job says, not only him as an individual, but he says, I'm going to describe for you in poetic language what my situation is, and we get that in verse 10.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: People open their mouths to jeer at me, they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: All was well with me, but he shattered me.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: He seized me by the neck and crushed me.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: He's made me his target.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: His archers surround me.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Without pity, he pierces my kidneys, spills my gull on the ground.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Job's bodily fluids are everywhere.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Again and again he bursts upon me.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: He rushes at me like a warrior.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And then one more verse, if I can take it from chapter 17, verse 6, same page.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: God has made me a byword to everyone, a man in whose face people spit.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: Here is a guy covered in his own blood and other people spit.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: A sight for sore eyes, battered and bruised, surrounded by adversaries who are going again and again and again at him, not letting him up.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: That's what we would see, says Job.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn to Matthew 27.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: We'll see the similarities between Job's description of his situation, what you would see if you were with Job, and what you would have seen if you were with Jesus.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 27, from verse 27 to verse 30.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: It's on page 999.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers round him.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: They put a staff in his right hand, then they knelt in front of him and mocked him.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: Hail, King of the Jews, they said.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: They spat on him and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: After they had mocked him, they took off the robe, put his own clothes on him, and then they led him away to crucify him.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: The description of Job's suffering in Job chapter 16 is a foreshadowing of the description of Jesus' physical suffering in the Gospel, particularly in Matthew 27.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: But I wonder if you could look at John chapter 19 as well.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: Let's flick over to that.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: John 19, page 1087.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: From verse 1, then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: They clothed him in purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, Hail King of the Jews, and they slapped him in the face.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know I find no basis for a charge against him.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: And then verse 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, Here is the man.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: NIV misses a word there.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Behold.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Look at this man.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Look at the man with the crown of thorns.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: Look at the man covered in his own blood and other people's spit.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: This is the man.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: Behold the man.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Look at the man.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Look at him.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, later on in the same chapter, Pilate will again evangelize, point people to Christ.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: He will say in the weirdest way, verse 14, halfway through, here is your king.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Behold your king.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: He's a king of the Jews.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: He's a king for sufferers.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: He's a king for people who are feeling overwhelmed.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: People who are sitting in the dust, feeling that they just can't sleep.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: People who can't eat.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: People whose minds have been crushed.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: This is a king for you.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: Look at him.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Exactly the same word that John the Baptist uses when he says, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: Look at Jesus.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: We're called to give our attention.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Our attention is being grabbed by so many different things.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: So many of those things are not helping.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord has given us a witness.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has given us an advocate.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has given us Jesus.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: Behold him there, the risen Lamb, my perfect, spotless righteousness.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: The great, unchangeable I am, the King of glory and of grace.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: Look at Jesus.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, we thank you that even now our witness is in heaven, our advocate is on high.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: That Jesus who suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried, was raised to new life and ascended into heaven.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: Help us look with eyes of faith upon him, even now.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Two things you might not have thought about being connected before, but Nate, as always, does that job of connecting things for us.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions or comments about the show, either this episode or previous episodes, do send them over to info at speakerlife.org.uk as an email address.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And uh we're gonna take a look now at some comments on our previous episode, which was a discussion about uh Lewis Capouding and his Glastonbury performance.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: So we've got some comments on that video.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: I like the point about our culture needing heroes, which we rescue the point well made.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: You will know them by their fruit that can be applied to most things in life.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: The fruit that has appeared after this beautiful moment of Glastonbury, the outpouring of love and support towards Lewis that's all over the internet tells me that this was indeed a genuinely beautiful moment of humanity demonstrating the love we hold for each other on the deepest level, where ego and judgment don't exist, and a moment where the crowd and Lewis and so many others who weren't there recognized ourselves in each other.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for that comment.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really interesting point, and I think yeah, Nate did uh try to reiterate that he wasn't having a go at Lewis Capowdi.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's become a bit of a fan of Lewis Capowdi.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't having a go at the crowd either.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: I guess what he was saying is that if we uphold this as a kind of as far as our transcendence goes, we need to look to something bigger.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's uh all from uh the Speak Life podcast today.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: If you have any other comments about either this episode or previous ones, do send them in to infospeaklife.org.uk, as I said, and we will be back next week for another episode.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: God bless.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Goodbye.