Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Are Motorcycles for Fools?

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Are Motorcycles for Fools? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, our motorcycles for fools. That's today's question, and we're
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  Speaker 1: speaking of recreational motorcycles here, of course their primary function
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  Speaker 1: in the States, and it's really a question about providence
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  Speaker 1: more than anything else. Here's the email. Hello Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: My name is Ian and I live in the beautiful
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  Speaker 1: city of San Diego. My girlfriend and I got into
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  Speaker 1: a discussion recently about riding motorcycles for fun. I stated
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  Speaker 1: that if we got married, I wouldn't ride motorcycles because
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  Speaker 1: to me, it feels unwise to put myself in a
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  Speaker 1: greater risk of dying and thus leaving her alone, or
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  Speaker 1: if we had kids, leaving them without their father and
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  Speaker 1: leaving their mother to support all of them. Because writing,
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  Speaker 1: for us is just recreational. She believes that if I
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  Speaker 1: died writing it was God's will for me to die anyways,
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  Speaker 1: and taking precautions like not writing is to live in fear.
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  Speaker 1: While for me it feels like a wise decision to
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  Speaker 1: not take that unnecessary risk when others' livelihoods are at staate.
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  Speaker 1: I'm having trouble reconciling the sovereignty of God in our
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  Speaker 1: lives but also making wif's decisions. It's true that God
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  Speaker 1: oversees every event that happens in our lives, regardless of
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  Speaker 1: our precautions. But in my mind, I feel like decisions
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  Speaker 1: that we make will also impact our future. But aren't
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  Speaker 1: crashes and misfortune in the hand of God too, making
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  Speaker 1: precautions like these worthless? Am I living in fear? Or
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  Speaker 1: am I being prudent and wise in not wanting to
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  Speaker 1: ride motorcycles? Thank you best for John.
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  Speaker 2: There are two sentences in Ian's question which I think
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  Speaker 2: needs some correction, and in the process, perhaps I can
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  Speaker 2: clarify a way of thinking about God's sovereignty and our
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  Speaker 2: risks and our fear that will shape the way he
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  Speaker 2: and his girlfriend and all of us make our decisions.
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  Speaker 2: One of those sentences expresses Ian's opinion, and the other
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  Speaker 2: one expresses his girlfriend's opinion, at least the way he
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  Speaker 2: articulates it. So let's take Ian's sentence first. He says,
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  Speaker 2: but aren't motorcycle crashes and misfortune in the hand of
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  Speaker 2: God making precautions like these worthless? Now I'm not sure
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  Speaker 2: Ian really believes that that God's sovereignty over motorcycle crashes
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  Speaker 2: make precautions like not riding a motorcycle worthless because he
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  Speaker 2: had just said in the previous sentence, It's true that
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  Speaker 2: God oversees every event that happens in our lives, regardless
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  Speaker 2: of our precautions. But in my mind, I feel like
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  Speaker 2: decisions that we make also impact our future. So sends
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  Speaker 2: to me like Ian, you're waffling. Precautions make a difference
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  Speaker 2: in our future, and precaution to seem worthless in making
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  Speaker 2: a difference in view of the sovereignty of God. So
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  Speaker 2: we need to think from it. We need to ponder
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  Speaker 2: what's going on here in that ambiguity and what is
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  Speaker 2: the truth here? And I think we can settle quickly
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  Speaker 2: that according to the Bible, God governs the smallest details
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  Speaker 2: of nature and human activity, including most motorcycle riding, including
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  Speaker 2: all accidents and non accidents, as well as the greatest
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  Speaker 2: events in government and history, and the universe, the solar system,
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  Speaker 2: the galaxies. Jesus said, not one bird falls from the
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  Speaker 2: sky apart from your father's will Matthew ten twenty nine.
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  Speaker 2: That's tiny micro providence. Proverbs sixteen thirty three. The lot
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  Speaker 2: dice are thrown in the lap, and every decision is
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  Speaker 2: from the Lord. Isaiah forty twenty six not one of
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  Speaker 2: the stars is out of place because of God's power
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  Speaker 2: Ephesians one eleven. God works all things according to the
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  Speaker 2: council of his will James four. If the Lord wills,
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  Speaker 2: we will live and do this or that. So the
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  Speaker 2: sovereignty of God over all things is not at issue.
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  Speaker 2: I think Ian agrees with that, given what he says,
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  Speaker 2: But he does not seem to be as sure that
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  Speaker 2: taking precautions makes any difference in the outcome of our lives.
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  Speaker 2: If God is sovereign over everything, That's where he seems
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  Speaker 2: to be waffling. He says, but aren't motorcycle crashes in
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  Speaker 2: the hand of God making precautions worthless? Now the answer
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  Speaker 2: to that question is a clear and emphatic no, they're
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  Speaker 2: not worthless. They are not. The sovereignty of God over
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  Speaker 2: human events does not make human choices about those events worthless,
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  Speaker 2: And the reason is very simple. God not only predestined
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  Speaker 2: the events that he wills to come to pass, but
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  Speaker 2: also he predestined the means by which those events come
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  Speaker 2: to pass. If God predestines that there be a building,
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  Speaker 2: he also predestines that there'll be builders who build it.
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  Speaker 2: If God predestines that a person not starved to death.
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  Speaker 2: Then he also predestines that they have food and that
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  Speaker 2: they eat it. If God predestines that you do not
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  Speaker 2: fly off a mountain cliff on your motorcycle, he also
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  Speaker 2: predestines that you not enter the curve doing eighty miles
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  Speaker 2: an hour. If God predestines that a nail be driven
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  Speaker 2: through a two by four, he also predestines that someone
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  Speaker 2: hit it with a hammer. If God predestines that someone
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  Speaker 2: be saved, he also predestined that someone bring that person
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  Speaker 2: the Gospel. It doesn't make any sense to speak of
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  Speaker 2: God's all governing sovereignty as if it only designed the
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  Speaker 2: ends and not the means to those ends. It wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: be all governing if that were the case. Why would
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  Speaker 2: we think that if He governs all things, he governs
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  Speaker 2: all secondary causes, all means to ends. For the loss
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  Speaker 2: of a nail, the shoe was lost for the loss
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  Speaker 2: of the shoe. The horse was lost for the loss
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  Speaker 2: of a horse. The battle was lost for the loss
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  Speaker 2: of the battle. The war was lost for the loss
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  Speaker 2: of the war. The nation and the kingdom was lost.
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  Speaker 2: Every one of those causes secondary causes, going all the
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  Speaker 2: way back to the nail, that fell out of the
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  Speaker 2: horseshoe is in the hand of the Lord just as
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  Speaker 2: much as the final outcome of a nation that falls.
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  Speaker 2: He sets up nations, he takes down nations, and he
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  Speaker 2: governs them. Billions of causes that develop over decades to
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  Speaker 2: bring a nation up or take a nation down. Any
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  Speaker 2: one of those causes may alter the outcome of our lives,
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  Speaker 2: depending on whether God wills it to be so. So
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  Speaker 2: it's just wrong to say that because God governs final outcomes,
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  Speaker 2: our efforts to promote or hinder those outcomes is worthless.
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  Speaker 2: That's just wrong. That would be a great unbiblical mistake.
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  Speaker 2: God ordains means as well as ends, and our action
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  Speaker 2: is part of those means. So not riding a motorcycle
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  Speaker 2: is a very good way not to be killed on
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  Speaker 2: a motorcycle. There is a real causal connection between not
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  Speaker 2: riding motorcycles and not being killed on motorcycles. Now, the
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  Speaker 2: other sentence in that question is not Ian's statement, but
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  Speaker 2: the one he says his girlfriend spoke. He says she
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  Speaker 2: believes that if I died riding a motorcycle, it was
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  Speaker 2: God's will for me to die anyway, and taking precautions
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  Speaker 2: like not riding is to live in fear. Now, there's
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  Speaker 2: more than one problem with that sentence, but we're just
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  Speaker 2: gonna take one, and you're going about fear. She says,
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  Speaker 2: to take precautions is to live in fear. I doubt
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  Speaker 2: she really said that. I think he's reporting it quite
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  Speaker 2: exactly right. I don't think she really believes that, because
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  Speaker 2: that is certainly not necessarily true, and if she's thought
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  Speaker 2: about it for five seconds, she'd know it's not necessarily
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  Speaker 2: true that to take precautions is to live in fear.
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  Speaker 2: I take precaution by locking my doors every night. I
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  Speaker 2: take precaution by putting the car in the garage. I
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  Speaker 2: take precautions by backing up my hard drive on my computer.
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  Speaker 2: I take precautions by wearing a seatbelt. I take precautions
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  Speaker 2: by praying for protection before I go to bed at
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  Speaker 2: I take precautions by having health insurance, and on and
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  Speaker 2: on and on. The actual experience of fear in my
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  Speaker 2: life is almost totally absent. I don't even think about it.
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  Speaker 2: It does not dominate my life. Hardly even give a
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  Speaker 2: thought to those things. Fear is rarely a conscious experience
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  Speaker 2: in my life. So taking precautions doesn't have to mean
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  Speaker 2: that you are living under the domination of fear. I
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  Speaker 2: have no intention of owning a motorcycle or going skydiving,
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  Speaker 2: for example. I don't give them a thought. They don't
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  Speaker 2: affect my fear level at all, one way or the other.
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  Speaker 2: So the question that Ian and his girlfriend face regarding
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  Speaker 2: the motorcycle is what risks in life are wise and loving?
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  Speaker 2: So instead of answering that question, which I don't have
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  Speaker 2: time to do now, I'm going to send you to
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  Speaker 2: ask Pastor John episode fourteen forty six, where I do
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  Speaker 2: answer that question, spent a whole session on it. The
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  Speaker 2: title of that episode is how do I te take
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  Speaker 2: risks without being unwise? And I give six criteria there
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  Speaker 2: for answering that question. How to be wise, how to
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  Speaker 2: be loving, and yet take appropriate risk because we all
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  Speaker 2: do every day. I mean, life is a risk right
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  Speaker 2: you cannot not risk. But the two main points here
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  Speaker 2: are the sovereignty of God does not make precautions worthless
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  Speaker 2: and two, taking precautions need not imply that we are
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  Speaker 2: living in the grip of fear.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, taking risks wisely? Thank you, Pastor John, and also
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  Speaker 1: check out our tenth episode ever on the podcast that
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  Speaker 1: we recorded way back in the first like week and
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  Speaker 1: a half, it settled safety as a myth episode number ten.
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  Speaker 1: There we talked about Pastor John's fifty page booklet titled
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  Speaker 1: risk is Right. Better to lose your life than to
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  Speaker 1: waste it. See both of those episodes, episode fourteen forty
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  Speaker 1: six and episode ten. Both are available right now at
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  Speaker 1: ask pastor John dot com, every episode with audio and
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  Speaker 1: full transcript. And they're at that same site. You can
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  Speaker 1: find a link to send us an email with your
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  Speaker 1: own question, well, are our holy deeds filthy? Racks? No
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  Speaker 1: super important clarifier on a very common myth in the
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  Speaker 1: church today. That's up next. I'm Tony Raik. We'll see
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  Speaker 1: you on Monday.