Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #190 - Did Jesus Claim Divinity? Alex O’Connor Says ‘No Way’ on Flagrant

Transcript

#190 - Did Jesus Claim Divinity? Alex O’Connor Says ‘No Way’ on Flagrant · Brandon Fogal Evolution

• 0:00
  So did Jesus ever claim to be God?
• 0:04
  Actually, well, Alex O'Connor doesn't seem to think so.
• 0:08
  And he went on flagrant the other day, and it was released yesterday with Andrew Schultz and his crew.
• 0:14
  And he defended his position that Jesus actually never claimed to be God.
• 0:19
  This gets very complex. And at the face of it, I would say you might have something
• 0:25
  there, Alex, but there's a reason why Jesus maybe did not explicitly at times say that he was.
• 0:32
  I do think he did say he was, but I want to first of all, take a look at a couple
• 0:37
  of things that Alex said on this show that almost seemed to contradict his own.
• 0:41
  And if he's going to be consistent about this, about Jesus never claiming to
• 0:45
  be God, it kind of goes back against what he said in the first place on the
• 0:50
  second clip we're going to look at.
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  But I want to first set the stage with him. Just Andrew brings up the point,
• 0:56
  did Jesus claim to be God?
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  And let's hear what Alex has to say. You make the claim in the Jubilee video
• 1:00
  that he, that Christ doesn't claim to ever be God.
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  That's what I think. And that's controversial too.
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  Amongst Christians, if you say Jesus never even claimed to be God,
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  even in the gospels, they'll look at you like you've said a triangle has four sides.
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  In biblical scholarship, this has been a very mainstream opinion for the past
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  few hundred years. Why do you believe that?
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  Because there's no instance in the gospels where I think Jesus is claiming to
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  be God. Christians think that
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  they have examples, but I think that all of them don't actually apply.
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  What are your examples and what are theirs? So there are constantly examples
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  of Jesus seeming to separate himself from the Father, where he says,
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  like, the Father is greater than I am and stuff like this. And people, like, rattle these off.
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  The problem is, devoid of any context, it's difficult to know what they even mean.
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  So Christians will point to verses like when Jesus says in John chapter 10,
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  he says, the Father and I are one. And when his disciple Philip asks him,
• 1:51
  when do we get to see the Father?
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  He says to Philip, anyone who's seen me has seen the Father.
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  And Christians point to that, and they say, see, he's claiming to be God.
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  But you just got to keep reading.
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  He says to Philip, anyone who's seen me has seen the Father.
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  How can you say, show us the Father? Don't you know that the Father is in me,
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  and I'm in the Father? Interesting.
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  Skip to John chapter 17, where Jesus... All right, so he's going to go through
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  a number of different things.
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  He even gets into the ego, a me statement, where Jesus said,
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  I am, before Abraham was, I am.
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  And then Alex goes into getting very technical into the language,
• 2:24
  into like, because Jesus more than likely spoke Aramaic.
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  He's quoting from the Hebrew scriptures, you know, or also it's written in Greek,
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  also in the Septuagint, but he's speaking Aramaic and then it's translated into
• 2:36
  the New Testament in Greek. We got it in English.
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  A lot of stuff's going on, but don't let this fool you because a lot of this,
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  when him going through these things, all it does is just confuse people so that
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  they don't have to actually deal with the text.
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  And it is very clear of who Jesus is.
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  If you look at front from beginning to end, the New Testament authors make it absolutely clear.
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  The ones who were with him that ate and drank and live life with him,
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  they were painting the portrait that Jesus claimed he was God.
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  And it gets very complicated because there's the father, there's the son and
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  the Holy Spirit, you know, and all of this is kind of fleshed out.
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  It's not like, and not everything is just, we have it perfectly intact.
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  And who, like, I guess it is a shocker that God would be a little bit more complex than us.
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  So our minds can't completely wrap our head around it.
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  But what him saying right there that Jesus, he's not really explicitly ever
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  saying this and the things that we're taking, it's just out of context.
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  I don't think it is. And if Jesus did front, like out in the open,
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  say, I'm God, you know, start worshiping me, everybody. Yeah.
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  Let's hear what he says in this next take, which is very interesting of him
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  talking about when Jesus came in.
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  This is earlier on in the conversation of Jesus coming in on donkey,
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  riding into Jerusalem, the triumphal entry, and everybody screaming,
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  Hosanna, Hosanna, and the highest.
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  And he questions this event actually taking place because if this had,
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  he would have been seized immediately. the Romans would have came in and just
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  obliterated him because him challenging their power.
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  That's why Jesus was very hesitant of ever saying he's the Messiah.
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  He was very low-key about it because he knew the context he was living in.
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  The Romans would squelch anyone that tried to challenge their authority.
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  But I want to hear from Alex what he has to say on this because it really stands
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  out. about riding in on a donkey. So that could be made up.
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  You could read that as like it's either made up to try and fit Jesus within
• 4:53
  the Old Testament and it's made up story for that reason.
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  Or you could say that Jesus did actually do it, but that he did it knowing that
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  he was referencing the Old Testament. He's doing a callback.
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  They're calling him the son of David. There are also other reasons why people might dispute things.
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  So, for example, riding into town, into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and
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  there's people lining the streets, Hosanna in the highest.
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  A lot of people think that if this event actually occurred, Jesus would have
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  just been arrested in an instant.
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  A lot of people are just like, there's no way this could have happened historically
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  just because Jesus would have been arrested. The Romans would have been like,
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  what on earth is going on here? This man is being worshipped.
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  He needs to be arrested. So there are all kinds of ways you can try and figure
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  out whether these stories... He's questioning if this actually happened because
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  if it did, he would have been arrested immediately.
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  The Romans would have brought him down because they're calling you the son of
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  David. David, they're calling you a king and there is no king but Caesar.
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  Do you kind of get what's going on? So you can't have your cake and eat it too kind of thing either.
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  I mean, so I agree that it's like, it's not, maybe it wasn't emphatic and explicit.
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  Jesus was very hesitant.
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  He told everybody every time he met with people, he said, don't be telling people
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  I'm the Messiah. Every time he told someone that he said, don't be telling everyone.
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  And you would think that would be opposite to what we would do nowadays.
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  We would go on, we would post it on TikTok.
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  We would go, you know, put it on X and all that kind of stuff.
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  You know, we'd tell everybody. But in that context, they were being occupied by Rome.
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  Rome was the power and they would kill and crucify everyone that challenged
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  their, if you, there was insurrection, even a sniff of it, they would destroy you.
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  So I get that. And maybe that makes a little bit more sense why Jesus wasn't
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  just completely explicit all the time.
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  I'm God, I'm God. And even, it wouldn't even make sense when you fully understand who God is.
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  Because there's God, the father, you know, and his, the perfect example of how
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  he sees himself, the representation of his nature, his word,
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  this, this perfect idea of himself is the son.
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  It's like the, the very radiance of his glory.
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  It's the, like the perfect example of who he is. So it's not, it's not like.
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  The God, this God outside the game just jumps into the game.
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  Rather, it's he has an avatar that comes into the game as himself. And it is him.
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  It is fully him. But it's him himself dwelling in a mortal human being.
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  So it's it gets really complicated. Like even it would have went completely
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  against what the Jews were expecting him saying, I am God, I am God.
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  They knew what he was saying.
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  That's why they always wanted to kill him. but he wasn't
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  just being over overriding explicit with everything
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  he was kind of keeping it under wraps
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  in a lot of ways and there was a good reason for it because if he did if he
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  immediately like when like he was being tempted satan wanted him to throw himself
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  off the off the temple and like you know cause a scene the angels will come
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  down swoop him and save him well obviously he is, he's doing miraculous.
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  He is God's anointed and everybody would just follow in and worship him immediately.
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  But he said, no, I got to go to the cross. I have, I have, I have something I got to do.
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  That's the whole point. He had to pay for our sins before he could come back and reign in glory.
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  If he just came back to just, you know, I was going to say guns blazing,
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  but Jesus has got more than guns.
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  He's got more power. His word is way more power than a gun.
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  If he came back like in his, like he is going to come in his second coming and
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  at his first, we would be just wiped out.
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  But he came to die for us in the first place so that we can have forgiveness. That's the whole point.
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  He did keep it low key. He was, but it doesn't change the fact that he is God
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  incarnate. He is the perfect representation of who the father is in human flesh.
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  And it's not going to make sense to everyone. And just when Alex talks about
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  this, I know he knows this stuff and you can know everything.
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  You can know, you can have so much intelligence about the Bible and about God
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  and all this and all, but you, it could be, but all it is, is a head knowledge.
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  And that's all it becomes is a head knowledge.
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  And I think that's all that Alex is at right now because he's just seeing things. It's just on paper.
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  It's not, he, he doesn't have it in his blood yet. He doesn't have it in his heart yet.
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  And that is, I think, the nature thing. God needs to transform and change his
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  nature so that he can see clearly. Because I was just thinking about this.
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  Imagine there's all these blind people, and they've been blind from birth.
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  But then someone gets LASIK surgery, so he's able to see clearly. He's able to see things.
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  And he's starting to describe to the people that are still blind,
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  he's like, man, you got to see all this stuff that's out there.
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  And they're like, see what?
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  There's nothing to see. I mean and they're still they're
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  they're just getting an idea of it a whiff of it but they
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  can't see it he's trying to describe them oh the
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  there's these mountains are so beautiful the sky is so beautiful the
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  sun is just amazing it's bright there's light
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  like they're and these blind people they're like you are so stupid what is light
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  that doesn't make sense it doesn't compute it won't compute and I think that's
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  where like and a lot of these guys I think Alex not Alex but Andrew Schultz and that Gagnon,
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  they're Christians on there.
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  And I didn't see them challenging him. And I think this is maybe because they
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  didn't feel like they had the equipment to challenge him on some of the things.
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  But it's like, if you're a Christian, I mean, you either got to be all in or
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  not at all. And that's the whole point.
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  So it's like, I know you might not feel like it's a safe space to go out there
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  if you don't have the knowledge or the eloquence or their ability to articulate
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  everything as clearly as Alex can.
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  He has God-given ability, but it's still all it is.
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  Right now, it's just outward manifestations of natural ability that God has given him.
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  And like I say this all the time, I don't know what the deal is with me, but I'm wanting Alex.
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  I hope something turns on so that he doesn't just look at Jesus on paper anymore,
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  but he actually sees who he actually is.
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  And it seems a little bit arrogant to think that you know better than the people that knew him.
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  In real life. We always talk about in real life. We're in just this internet
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  age and we don't see anybody in real life.
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  These disciples, they were in real life with the Lord.
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  And then they described it. What Jesus was keeping under wraps in a lot of ways,
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  they put out there and they made it clear, he is God.
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  Even though he might not have been able to, he had to accomplish,
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  he had to go to the cross, he had to die for our sins.
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  Even though he was keeping it under wraps in a lot of ways, He wasn't explicit
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  with everyone. He stood before Pontius Pilate and Pilate asked him, are you a king?
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  And Jesus said, yes, I am a king. That's the reason I came into this world.
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  And Pilate even asked him, what is truth?
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  What is truth? And Jesus, it says, I came to tell those who are of the truth, hear my voice.
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  And that's the whole point of the gospel. It's being spread out to everyone.
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  If you are of the truth, you will hear his voice eventually.
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  Eventually. It might take a hundred times, but eventually you will.
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  And that's just, as Christians, we just keep pounding the drum,
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  spreading the message, because eventually the hearts will be grabbed by the Lord.
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  So I like Alex. I like him a lot. And I really appreciate that he comes to this
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  with, he's not blasting everyone.
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  He does at times, but he hears things from both sides.
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  But it doesn't matter how many times you hear things from both sides and you're
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  open at the end of the day you gotta make a decision you got to you know but
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  I guess the whole thing is the light's gotta be turned on before you can see
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  clearly so we'll leave it at that if you've enjoyed this video follow me on
• 13:07
  x and instagram at brandonfogle alright peace.