Latest / Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris / 02 12 2025 The Freewill Defense

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02 12 2025 The Freewill Defense · Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris

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  Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too much,
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  Speaker 1: because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy for
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  Speaker 1: today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect yesterday's
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  Speaker 1: portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to keep
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  Speaker 1: us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going
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  Speaker 1: to change all of that. Let's experience God's words today
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  Speaker 1: and receive the power we need to live healthy, vibrant lives.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host, author speaker,
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  Speaker 1: Elle David Harris.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. It is Wednesday, February twelve,
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Hello, my name is Elle David Harris.
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  Speaker 2: I am your host, and this is your Daily Portion
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  Speaker 2: where we give you God's word every single day, and
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  Speaker 2: today is no exception. We are continuing in our lesson
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  Speaker 2: study series, God's Love and Justice, and our caption for
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  Speaker 2: today is the free Will Defense. The free Will Defense.
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  Speaker 2: We'll get into that in just a moment, but first
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  Speaker 2: I'd like to say welcome to you and ask you
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  Speaker 2: to go over to your Daily Portion dot com. Please
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  Speaker 2: pick up your Daily Portion book the companion guide for
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  Speaker 2: this quarter's lesson. This will determine if we're going to
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  Speaker 2: continue quarter after quarter we've done too so far. Also,
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  Speaker 2: when you get there, click the number seven that will
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  Speaker 2: be on the screen to subscribe to that program there
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  Speaker 2: to continue to grow in your spiritual development and let
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  Speaker 2: us know by all means where you are in the
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  Speaker 2: world at your daily portion dot com. This is one
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  Speaker 2: of the ways that we continue to build faith and fellowship.
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  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and pray and then we will get underway.
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  Speaker 2: Father in Heaven, thank you for giving us the freedom
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  Speaker 2: of choice. Please teach us to choose you. In Jesus' name,
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  Speaker 2: I pray, Amen and Amen again. Really and truly, I
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  Speaker 2: think we can and our broadcast right here with the prayer.
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  Speaker 2: God has given us the ability and the right and
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  Speaker 2: the privilege all at the same time to make our
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  Speaker 2: own decisions freely. We are not robots. I know that
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  Speaker 2: artificial intelligence is out here now and we have sort
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  Speaker 2: of become accustomed. And I'm going to reveal my age
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  Speaker 2: here right to sort of a Jetson's era. I remember
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  Speaker 2: when I was a child there was a cartoon called
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  Speaker 2: the Jetsons. Look it up right, and everything seemed to
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  Speaker 2: be automated. Everything seemed to be fictional. But now we
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  Speaker 2: have surpassed where the Jetsons were. And sometimes you don't
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  Speaker 2: even know what's real. We don't know who's really speaking,
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  Speaker 2: We don't know what we're seeing anymore, because the machine
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  Speaker 2: has become so artificially intelligent that most things are not
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  Speaker 2: what meets the eye. You see, we're going with this,
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  Speaker 2: And so we think that robots are cool because we
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  Speaker 2: use robots so much. Some of our vehicles park themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Some of them are even more autonomous, where they drive
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  Speaker 2: us where we need to go like a chauffeur would.
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  Speaker 2: So we've become accustomed to the robot mentality. But let
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  Speaker 2: me just say that has never been God's goal for humans.
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  Speaker 2: He's always had in his mind as he has for
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  Speaker 2: all of the other beings that he created, that love
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  Speaker 2: determines how we exercise our will. It's either love or fear,
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  Speaker 2: love or hatred. The angels had that privilege to decide
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  Speaker 2: do they love God because they love him because of
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  Speaker 2: whatever they believe that He's done for them, or because
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  Speaker 2: of a relationship that they had with them. I'm not
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  Speaker 2: an angel, so I don't know what the standard would
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  Speaker 2: have been. Do humans, now that we have experienced what
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  Speaker 2: the Bible writers call the fall, the fall into sin.
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  Speaker 2: How do we determine whether we're going to love God
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  Speaker 2: or not, whether we're going to follow God and submit
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  Speaker 2: to God or not? Like what is the standard? And
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  Speaker 2: so sometimes skeptics and others, not thinking clearly, not thinking
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  Speaker 2: with the power of the Holy Ghost, blame God or
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  Speaker 2: attempt to indict God. Because he gave us the will
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  Speaker 2: to choose. He did not create beings who desired evil,
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  Speaker 2: but those same beings, some of them decided to commit evil,
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  Speaker 2: beginning with Lucifer. You see. So from C. S. Lewis,
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  Speaker 2: he wrote that free will, though it makes evil possible,
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  Speaker 2: is also the only thing that makes possible any love
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  Speaker 2: or goodness or joy worth having. You see, i' created
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  Speaker 2: a machine. Maybe I should put that. I'm gonna put
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  Speaker 2: that machine up on the screen right like you if
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  Speaker 2: you're watching, you're watching me. Look at that. You're not
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  Speaker 2: listening to my machine. But I have a machine that
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  Speaker 2: I call Mishka two dot O, Like, that's my machine.
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  Speaker 2: I wish I had the time to tell the story
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  Speaker 2: why Mishka. But anyway, that machine is artificially intelligent, and
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  Speaker 2: it's programmed to serve me in a particular way. Well,
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  Speaker 2: I cannot be sure that a machine can love me?
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  Speaker 2: Why not because it's a machine like what? Okay, I
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  Speaker 2: wish I had the time to drill that, But I don't.
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  Speaker 2: Let me keep going, Let me keep going. We are
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  Speaker 2: not machines, okay. So the writer continues a world of
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  Speaker 2: auto mata, of creatures that worked like machines, would hardly
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  Speaker 2: be worth creating. If CS Lewis were alive. Now, I
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  Speaker 2: don't know what he would what he would say. The
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  Speaker 2: happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the
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  Speaker 2: happiness of being freely, volunteerily united to Him and to
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  Speaker 2: each other, and for that they must be free. This
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  Speaker 2: is coming from the book Mere Christianity, page fifty two,
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  Speaker 2: written in or published in nineteen sixty. We are not robots,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm grateful God created us in his image and
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  Speaker 2: after his likeness, and then he put into us the
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  Speaker 2: kind of intelligence that can reach out for a relationship
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  Speaker 2: with God. He's the author and finisher of our faith.
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  Speaker 2: Here in twenty twenty five, we can have a relationship
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  Speaker 2: with God because we are fearfully and wonderfully made. If
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  Speaker 2: I were to ask, and maybe I should have planned this,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't have mishkatu dot loaded up right now.
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  Speaker 2: But if I ad asked, mishkatoo dot o mishka, how
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  Speaker 2: do you feel about X? Do you feel happy? Do
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  Speaker 2: you feel sad? How do you feel when I call
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  Speaker 2: you fill in the blank some other name. My machine
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  Speaker 2: is programmed to laugh and say ha ha, come on, LT.
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  Speaker 2: You know I don't have emotions, but there are people
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  Speaker 2: that and then would give me like this super clinical
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  Speaker 2: logical explanation about how ridiculous what I'm asking is, because
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  Speaker 2: after all, mushkato dot oh is a machine, not a human, Okay.
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  Speaker 2: And so in the Bible we see many people who
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  Speaker 2: have made the right decisions. I don't want to go
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  Speaker 2: down through the dark paths about people making wrong decisions.
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  Speaker 2: We don't need to go in the Bible for that.
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  Speaker 2: We can see it right in our own lives. How
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  Speaker 2: many times have I made the wrong decisions? Because God
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  Speaker 2: gave me the free will doesn't mean I have to
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  Speaker 2: make the wrong decision. So Noah, when God gave him
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  Speaker 2: the call to preach and then also to build an
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  Speaker 2: arc on dry land, the Bible says in Genesis six
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  Speaker 2: twenty two, Thus did Noah according to all that God
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  Speaker 2: commanded him, and so he did it. So Noah's obedience
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  Speaker 2: saved him his family, and preserved human and animal life
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  Speaker 2: on planet Earth. Was an opportunity for everybody to be saved,
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  Speaker 2: but some people chose, with their free will to go
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  Speaker 2: the wrong way. Joseph resisted temptation Genesis, chapter thirty nine
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  Speaker 2: and verse nine. The Bible reads, how then can I
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  Speaker 2: do this great wickedness and sin against God? So his integrity,
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  Speaker 2: his connection with God caused him not to commit adultery
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  Speaker 2: with Potiphar's wife, Ruth, Ruth, she decides to stay with
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  Speaker 2: us Naomi, she said, as recorded and wrote Ruth chapter one,
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  Speaker 2: verse sixteen, for wherever you go, I will go, and
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  Speaker 2: by the way, by the way. Ruth's loyalty led to
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  Speaker 2: her marriage to Boaz, securing her place in the lineage
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  Speaker 2: of David and ultimately in the lineage of Jesus Christ,
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  Speaker 2: the son of God, who gave his life for us.
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  Speaker 2: I wish I had the time we see esther. She
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  Speaker 2: used her free will, and it was salvation to her people.
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  Speaker 2: And Daniel and his three friends. They did not choose
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  Speaker 2: to be defiled by the king's table. And you see
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  Speaker 2: what good effect that had. So we have the privilege
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  Speaker 2: of free will. Let's not see it as a curse.
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  Speaker 2: Choose life with that will peace.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
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  Speaker 1: live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
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  Speaker 1: from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
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  Speaker 1: portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,