Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 06, 2020


Ep 234 | Mobsters, Self-Love, & Blaming God


Episode Stats


Length

30 minutes

Words per minute

181.71327

Word count

5,564

Sentence count

2

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, what do we do in times of fear, confusion, and anxiety? How do we explain all of that from a biblical perspective? How can we explain it from the perspective of the Word of God and the sovereignty of God?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to relatable i hope everyone had a great weekend today we are going to do a kind of
00:00:07.480 theology monday so what i'm going to do is i'm going to tell you a couple things we did over
00:00:11.460 the weekend i'm going to draw some pertinent lessons out of that some things that i want us
00:00:16.360 to think about that do have to do with everything that's going on but it's not specifically
00:00:21.520 coronavirus related then we are going to end with what i think is a very important discussion on the
00:00:28.540 sovereignty of god because i've seen some bad theology floating around on social media some of
00:00:33.480 you might have seen this too and i want to correct it by going to what the word of god actually says
00:00:39.780 about god's character rather than all of these misinterpretations and mischaracterizations that
00:00:44.840 we unfortunately see on instagram especially in times of crisis wednesday i'm going to give you
00:00:51.260 a more of a news update i know so many of us are over coronavirus right now and the last thing i
00:00:56.880 want to do is to fill your mind with things that you've already heard or things that bog you down
00:01:01.160 this episode today is so important because it seeks to reorient you if you are in a place of fear
00:01:07.240 confusion or anxiety to remind you of what is true and hopefully give you some food for thought to
00:01:12.780 continue um in your thinking and analysis about everything that's going on right now wednesday more of
00:01:20.020 a news update some of the reactions that have been happening and how it shapes our culture
00:01:23.820 friday i plan to do a full episode on toxic mommy culture which you guys have been asking me to do
00:01:29.280 it is rampant right now on social media so i plan to do that on friday kind of already have it planned
00:01:35.700 out but today like i said very important episode about um about the various aspects of this that we can
00:01:44.460 analyze from a biblical perspective and then of course rightly looking at the sovereignty of god and how
00:01:50.880 we explain all of that in the midst of a pandemic let me go ahead and start this podcast so this
00:01:58.380 weekend we didn't do a whole lot uh we did for the first time eat out so we got takeout we got tacos
00:02:07.180 and i was really excited about that we have not gotten takeout any kind of restaurant drive-through food
00:02:13.340 anything like that in over three weeks which is big for us because i would say at least once a week we
00:02:20.060 would order favor or uber eats or something like that on the weekends like we just like to get
00:02:26.560 tacos or fajitas or something like that as you can tell we really like tex-mex and we haven't done it
00:02:32.740 for the past few weeks just because one we've been trying to save money you never know what the future
00:02:38.320 holds we have not wanted to go out and we haven't wanted to risk there being any kind of you know
00:02:46.600 virus on our food or on the packaging but finally we were like you know what it's been a few weeks
00:02:52.440 we really don't want to cook we don't want to clean dishes again so let's order some tacos so
00:02:58.060 this is this this was my thinking when i finally was like okay yes not eating out has been good for
00:03:05.040 the budget it's been good for the waistline but tacos are good for the soul and eventually you just
00:03:12.220 got to break down and do what's good for the soul so we ate tacos chips queso and by the way i don't
00:03:17.760 know if you know this but just to give you guys a heads up friend to friend this is how apparently
00:03:22.540 i saw it on a youtube video so it has to be true apparently how you sanitize everything when you get
00:03:31.380 takeout is uh you get your food you take it out of the packaging you put it on plates you throw all of
00:03:38.780 the packaging away and you either wear gloves or you wash your hands later and then you put
00:03:43.820 the food in the microwave i don't know you microwave it for 30 seconds a minute however long i'm not
00:03:50.360 really sure about that maybe you need to look that up and then you take it out of the microwave and you
00:03:54.620 make sure that you wash your hands and then you sanitize where any of the packaging was so that
00:04:00.860 apparently is what you do to make sure that you don't get the rona while you are supporting all of
00:04:07.160 your favorite restaurants so we did that and then we watched goodfellas and i know some of you out
00:04:12.560 there like how have you not seen this movie that literally came out 30 years ago this year and it's
00:04:18.260 a classic and it's one of those movies that everyone talks about i don't know but it was also one of
00:04:23.280 those movies that as i was watching it i was like i've seen this before but i don't know when and i
00:04:28.240 don't know why my husband hadn't seen it before and i wouldn't have watched it by myself so i'm not sure
00:04:32.880 my husband i'm not sure if he would be okay with me telling you this but he actually was not a fan
00:04:38.620 of the movie i thought it was good um i really like 80s and 90s movies just a little fun fact about
00:04:45.100 ali i will watch pretty much any 80s and 90s movie that is somewhat reputable i like to watch movies
00:04:52.420 that people have talked about and movies that they consider classics just to basically said say that i
00:04:59.080 have seen it and this was one of those movies wasn't my favorite movie ever but now i can say
00:05:02.820 for sure that i've seen it and i'm glad that i did because i learned some things in watching it that
00:05:07.540 we are going to talk about that's pertinent to what we're going through today so some thoughts that
00:05:12.320 i had about goodfellas now if you haven't seen goodfellas this is still going to be pertinent to you
00:05:16.440 and we're even going to tie tie it into uh the tiger king conversation that we had on wednesday
00:05:21.280 if you haven't listened to tiger king in the end times episode from last wednesday you should go do that
00:05:26.360 this is kind of building on that conversation a little bit so if you've watched goodfellas if
00:05:31.640 you've watched the sopranos any of these mobster movies uh you know that the common characteristic
00:05:37.340 in all of these characters in these movies is ego every decision they make is based on their ego
00:05:44.900 they want to be seen as loyal or industrious or cunning but ultimately their ego is what is driving
00:05:52.340 them their ego overtakes all other qualities they might be striving for always leads to their
00:05:57.520 demise in some way every single character in every single mobster movie or tv show this is true of um
00:06:04.300 and in so doing and letting their ego drive them they go down this uh mobster path of corruption
00:06:11.560 that virtually ends their life or literally ends their life and all of the people that are left in their
00:06:18.140 wake are just collateral damage that's true of tiger king i mean it's like a redneck 1.00
00:06:22.080 mob what's tiger king and these zoo keepers or these wildlife collectors are in it is like a
00:06:30.940 redneck mom and they are doing the same thing that tony soprano the people in goodfellas did they are 0.97
00:06:36.120 letting their ego drive their lives and drive what they do and in the end is not just corruption but
00:06:42.580 their own demise now most of us i'm going to go so far as to say uh all of us are not mobsters we are not
00:06:50.380 weaving some complicated web of extortion if i do have a mobster listening to this podcast you're not
00:06:56.200 in my target demographic but i'm really glad that you're here but many of us are in our own
00:07:01.640 seemingly innocuous ways inflating our own egos at the expense of our own good and the good of those
00:07:09.860 around us and that's what i was thinking when i was watching goodfellas just how
00:07:13.000 ego is constantly looking to be seen constantly defensive constantly be uh there it's constantly
00:07:20.000 looking for attention and to get that next thing that makes it feel better that uh makes it get
00:07:27.320 bigger whatever it is and all of us are the exact same way even if we are not mobsters uh we are told
00:07:35.260 by these self-love promoting influencers and authors that we should be building up our ego in the same way
00:07:42.800 that every person who has been driven by ego to commit a crime has now the end results typically
00:07:48.360 aren't the same but they are in another sense just as devastating so glennon doyle has an entire book
00:07:54.260 about women becoming full of themselves people ask me what i think about uh brene brown all the time i 0.97
00:07:59.560 think brene brown has the same message as glennon doyle and rachel hollis and all of these self-love
00:08:06.340 people that sounds inspiring but is focused on the elevation of the ego the elevation of the self
00:08:12.680 and it's cloaked in humility it's cloaked in innocence but it is much the same message that
00:08:18.660 you hear from crude rap songs and crude mobster movies that life is all about you and you need to
00:08:25.000 do what builds you up and makes you happy uh these self-love influencers wrongly try to convince us that
00:08:31.780 the higher we think of ourselves the higher self-esteem we have uh the less problems the fewer problems that
00:08:38.240 we'll have that if we place ourselves in the center of our own universe and think of ourselves more
00:08:42.880 highly i will have the confidence to build the lives of our dreams heal from our past traumas
00:08:48.480 and we will finally be at peace and be satisfied i mean think about tiger king the redneck mobster
00:08:54.640 i mean he literally one he calls himself the tiger king and he had that throne if you've seen the
00:09:00.380 documentary he had that throne that he sat on because he wanted so badly to be the ruler of his
00:09:05.680 universe and to be the center of his own life well we laugh at that and we say okay obviously that
00:09:10.980 didn't end up well for joe exotic but we are being fed the same message to call ourselves queens to call
00:09:17.120 ourselves the ruler of our universe to have people around us and ourselves bow down to us to put our
00:09:22.840 needs and wants in front of other people uh we are told that if we do these things if we boost our ego
00:09:30.460 if we are full of ourselves if we put ourselves first then we will be happy but if that were true
00:09:37.100 if that were true uh the secular world would be a lot happier would be a lot more at peace than they
00:09:43.420 actually are the fact is is that christless messages no matter how inspiring they may sound
00:09:50.060 are always ultimately empty and are going to lead us into a cycle of more confusion and more hurt they may
00:09:57.260 pump us up for a little while uh they may help us chase our goals like we might lose the weight we
00:10:03.020 might organize our closet we might do the things that we set out to do uh with the help of these self
00:10:08.460 uh self-love and self-help uh authors but they ultimately lead to our demise because they can't
00:10:14.300 satisfy and they can't save we see very extreme demonstrations of that in these mobster movies and
00:10:21.500 ridiculous documentaries like tiger king putting yourself first being full of yourself doing what you want to do
00:10:26.860 uh obviously it helped them for a little while and it led to our demise but it has the same trajectory
00:10:33.500 and the same pattern in our own lives even if the inner results aren't exactly the same it ultimately
00:10:39.580 builds a life that hurts us and hurts those that we love and one thing that we're seeing in this pandemic
00:10:46.380 is the absolute absurdity of the self-love culture in times of crisis because guess what we don't have time
00:10:53.340 right now to figure out how to love ourselves before we love other people like most of us don't
00:10:58.860 have time for non-stop self-care right now or even a little bit of self-care right now whatever that
00:11:03.980 looks like most of us don't have the luxury of just doing what makes us happy we can't put ourselves
00:11:10.780 first right now and if we did other people would suffer we are not the center of our universe we are very
00:11:15.980 small right now so we see the absolute vitality of putting the needs of other people before ourselves
00:11:22.620 i mean think about who are our heroes right now in this crisis the people putting themselves first or
00:11:28.620 the people putting themselves last the people who for example hoard supplies to try to make a buck off
00:11:35.020 them or the people who are selflessly giving their time giving their money and risking their health
00:11:40.780 their health and lives to save and help others who do we admire right now the grocery store clerks
00:11:46.940 the nurses the homeschool parents all selflessly serving those who need it or the people who are
00:11:52.860 just focused on self-love and doing what makes them happy and self-care the people going outside because
00:11:59.500 they don't care how it affects other people all of a sudden in the pandemic selfishness is condemned
00:12:06.460 before we were talking about how great it was for people to just do what they want to do and to have
00:12:11.180 good vibes now all of a sudden we're expecting people to sacrifice maybe we should have backed
00:12:16.460 up and been encouraging self-sacrifice and consideration of other people a long time ago
00:12:21.260 rather than telling people to place themselves at the center of their universe so one again another
00:12:26.860 silver lining that we're seeing in this pandemic is that people are reminded of the importance of
00:12:31.180 selflessness and not putting yourself first and considering the needs and the wants of other
00:12:36.540 people even before yourselves uh these messages that we heard before this for a long time very
00:12:43.180 pervasively hey just focus on you right now cut all the toxic people out of your life all the people
00:12:48.220 that are burdens and uh burdensome just do what makes you happy all of those right now sound really
00:12:53.900 tone deaf don't they like they sound really vapid that's because they are not just now but all the time 1.00
00:13:00.940 because there are messages that do not deliver on their promise any life philosophy that is about
00:13:07.180 inflating your ego serving yourself will always fail you maybe and hopefully not as drastically as it
00:13:13.660 failed tony soprano or joe exotic but it will fail you it will end friendships it will hurt your marriage
00:13:20.300 that is why god gives us an opposite directive don't put yourself first he says put me first he says put
00:13:28.700 others before yourself count others as more significant than yourself philippians 2 says don't be
00:13:34.060 so concerned with what you want and need i will take care of you god promises us you care for those
00:13:39.740 that i've placed in your life who need it don't inflate your ego defeat your ego don't worry about
00:13:45.020 loving yourself more you already have an innate drive to take care of yourself and meet your needs focus
00:13:49.820 on loving me god says and loving those around you don't make much of yourself forget yourself
00:13:55.500 what the world needs right now contrary to what glennon doyle's new book says is not women who are 1.00
00:14:02.780 full of themselves but women and men who forget themselves who are on the front line of this pandemic
00:14:10.140 uh characterized not by self-love and self-esteem but self-forgetfulness christians are called to
00:14:18.700 self-forgetfulness not self-obsession not self-fulfillment not self-deprecation or self-loathing
00:14:24.860 but self-forgetfulness uh there are two quotes that are that i've just put together to read together
00:14:30.700 from c.s lewis's mere christianity that i think work well with what we're saying according to christian
00:14:37.180 teachers the essential vice the utmost evil is pride on chastity anger greed drunkenness and all that
00:14:44.620 are mere flea bites in comparison it was through pride that the devil became the devil pride leads
00:14:50.940 to every other vice it is the complete anti-god state of mind the christians are right it is pride 1.00
00:14:59.020 which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began and
00:15:06.380 man that is so true in all of our lives like think about every fight that you've gotten in
00:15:14.700 think about all the times that your feelings have been unnecessarily hurt think about all of the harsh
00:15:19.660 words that you have said that later you regret think about uh all of the conflicts that you see going
00:15:26.300 around not just in your life and and in your community but on a greater scale so much of them
00:15:32.700 have their foundations and pride and yet we are hearing from a large community of people
00:15:37.820 online and uh in books that pride is actually a virtue rather than a vice but i'm telling you
00:15:44.700 just as it did for joe exotic and all the characters and good fellas it doesn't lead to a satisfying life
00:15:52.700 and one thing like i said that this pandemic is revealing to us is just how empty these messages
00:15:57.900 attempting to inflate the ego are how shallow and misleading they are how unsatisfying and unadmirable
00:16:04.300 they are um all of that came from me telling you what we did this weekend watching good fellas uh
00:16:10.780 but another thing we did since my husband is so sad not to have sports to watch right now we watched
00:16:18.780 the masters the masters golf tournaments we we both like golf he likes golf more than i do but
00:16:24.060 i do enjoy watching golf i'll really watch and enjoy any sport but i actually understand golf more
00:16:30.220 than i do football for example so i enjoy watching golf we watched the masters tournaments from 2010
00:16:36.700 and 2004 he's a big phil mickelson fan on saturday so that's super exciting but one thing that i was
00:16:42.860 thinking about so just drawing some more lessons out of our very non-eventful weekend for us uh one thing
00:16:48.060 that i was thinking about as we were watching is that it's funny to watch something like that at that
00:16:52.620 that at that moment was so important to the people who were involved so anxiety inducing not knowing
00:16:58.780 who is going to win what the next shot is going to look like the players and audience anticipating
00:17:03.820 every move and us sitting there knowing exactly what's about to happen my husband even remembering
00:17:08.860 some of the shots that were hit and of course this is true of every replay you watch every book you
00:17:13.420 reread every piece of history that you study the participants and the characters or players
00:17:18.620 are in the moment you're outside of it and even though you might feel their excitement you're not
00:17:23.020 worried about the outcome because you know what's going to happen um and as we were watching these
00:17:27.900 tournaments i was reminded that everything we currently feel uh and fear and worry about right now
00:17:36.300 will pass we will one day be looking back on it like we were watching the 2010 masters we will someday
00:17:44.140 and get on the other side of this and say i had no idea what was going on but looking back from the
00:17:49.340 outside i can see that it worked out maybe not how we wanted it to maybe not as easily or as quickly
00:17:55.580 as we would have liked but this will end this is just a season i know it feels indefinite and honestly
00:18:02.780 i don't know how long it's going to last we keep getting conflicting reports i don't know what this
00:18:06.940 quarantine is going to look like or what the results going to be or what troubles we have ahead but it's not
00:18:12.300 going to last forever the phrase that you have heard people say a dozen times a week it seems like
00:18:19.100 on the news and on social media this too shall pass is true it is absolutely true it will but we as
00:18:26.620 christians don't just take comfort in the fact that time is passing that one day we will look back on
00:18:32.620 this and be able to read the shots and know who's going to win to go along with our analogy
00:18:39.100 um we're not just going to be able to say yeah that time passed and we got out of that season we
00:18:45.020 can take comfort not just in thinking about the future but in knowing that right now as i've
00:18:50.780 reminded us so many times that god is actively working he is actively doing he's actively using
00:18:56.460 actively bringing himself glory and bringing all things together for our good as romans 8 28 says that
00:19:02.860 he is doing something even when we can't see it even when we're not sure even when it feels as if
00:19:08.780 things are falling apart around us we know that he is holding things together and uh just like we
00:19:15.580 weren't anxious when we were watching the masters god is not anxious watching this unfold because
00:19:22.220 he is outside of it he knows what's going to happen and even more than that he is in control of all of
00:19:27.340 it um and i want to get into a note on how people are avoiding that fact that people are avoiding god's
00:19:37.900 control and they are spinning it into a theological misconception that has a lot of dangerous
00:19:43.740 implications so right now as we've talked about it's a time that is ripe for conspiracy theories and
00:19:52.220 false prophecies which neither of which glorify the lord uh but they're also an opportunity these
00:19:58.620 crazy chaotic times for bad theology in general um i have seen a refrain that i see almost every time
00:20:05.980 terror uh terror strikes or we get into some kind of bad situation and it is don't blame god for this
00:20:14.380 this is not god's fault um i saw a meme that was created i assume by an atheist
00:20:22.380 that uh it was funny from their perspective i mean i kind of laughed even though it's terribly
00:20:27.340 blasphemous but it was a picture of jesus looking at the earth and it said here's some coronavirus i
00:20:32.540 love you so much lol obviously making fun of the idea that you know we serve a good god why would a
00:20:38.380 good god send coronavirus and there were a lot of well-meaning christians in the comments saying no
00:20:43.340 this isn't god's fault this is not his will and my reaction to that is uh how is it that
00:20:51.660 atheists understand god's character better than professing christians god does not need you to 0.71
00:21:00.140 let him off the hook god doesn't need to be excused or justified or covered for or explained he doesn't
00:21:08.300 need to be made simpler for the unbeliever he doesn't need to be more accommodating to the atheist he 1.00
00:21:14.060 doesn't need to be made softer for the agnostic he is sovereign he is in control if not even a sparrow
00:21:21.580 falls out of the sky without his permission which is what the bible says then you can bet a pandemic
00:21:26.140 doesn't escape his will either uh there are things that god actively causes and then there are things
00:21:33.180 that god permits but there is nothing that god does not have the power to stop what is far more
00:21:41.020 terrifying to me than a god who is in complete control is a god who is not i would rather have a
00:21:49.260 completely sovereign god who i don't understand than a limited weak god who fits nicely inside my own
00:21:56.460 mental box i don't want to worship a powerless god i don't want to bow down to a god who's limited by my
00:22:03.500 own comprehension or who follows my self-contrived dictates of what's good and what's bad i want to
00:22:10.380 worship the god of isaiah 55 whose ways are not my ways whose thoughts are not my thoughts let's read
00:22:16.780 that isaiah 55 8-10 for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the
00:22:22.780 lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
00:22:28.540 than your thoughts for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return and do not
00:22:33.820 return there but water the earth making it bring forth and sprout giving seed to the sower and bread
00:22:38.700 to the eater so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth it shall not return to me empty but it
00:22:44.540 shall accomplish that which i purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which i sent it this is true of
00:22:50.460 all god does and all god allows jeremiah 32 17 says our lord god it is you who have made the heavens
00:22:58.780 and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm nothing is too hard for you job 42
00:23:06.380 2 one of my favorite verses i know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be
00:23:13.340 thwarted so we don't know whether god purposely sent this virus to call us to repentance to
00:23:20.220 display judgment to show mercy to those he wanted to take out of the world or whether he simply
00:23:26.060 has allowed this virus to occur but either way it didn't just slip through the cracks god didn't sit
00:23:32.860 back and say oh i can't believe i allowed this to happen i've said this a million times i'll probably
00:23:38.460 say it a million more god is not surprised uh his power is not restrained our our roles and our
00:23:46.220 responsibilities might be suspended but his aren't we are quarantined but god is not we are contained
00:23:53.020 but god is not he is not wondering if we are going to figure this out he is not thrown off he's not
00:23:58.540 taking it back and it doesn't matter whether or not a non-believer thinks god is a meaning for
00:24:02.540 coronavirus we know the truth that beyond our finite weak understanding god is good he is faithful he is
00:24:10.220 loving he is compassionate and he is totally and completely sovereign um i've said this many times
00:24:17.580 to explain god's sovereignty but it is uh it's important to i think understand the quandary that
00:24:25.580 unbelievers think that we are in and that they are in we have a hard time all of us as humans but
00:24:32.220 especially non-believers not starting from the premise of the word of god being inerrant and god being
00:24:36.780 true uh have a hard time understanding how god can be these three things at the same time so good
00:24:43.180 powerful and seen how can god be totally good completely capable and wholly aware of everything
00:24:49.580 that's going on the non-believers contention is that god can only be two of these things and the
00:24:55.180 logic of that goes like this if god is all good and all powerful then he must not see all the bad that's
00:25:01.340 going on or else he'd do something about it if god does see everything that goes on and he is good
00:25:07.260 he must not be all powerful he must not be able to stop it or else he would do something about the
00:25:13.500 bad stuff he would stop the bad stuff from happening or if god is all powerful and he does see everything
00:25:19.740 then he must not be good because if he were he would stop these bad things from happening so this is
00:25:26.300 the quandary that non-believers pose and unfortunately professing christians try to 0.52
00:25:31.580 wiggle their way out of by diminishing one of these three attributes by saying it's not god's god's fault
00:25:38.380 which is diminishing the attribute of power they are well-meaning christians trying to square this
00:25:45.740 circle uh trying to fix this quandary by saying okay yes god is good god is all-knowing but he's not
00:25:52.540 responsible for the bad things that happen satan is is the typical answer but this is bad theology
00:25:59.580 even atheists understand that this is bad theology satan does have power but never outside of god's
00:26:06.380 permission we read that in job so we as christians we start with the premise that god is who he says he is
00:26:13.420 which is good powerful and all-knowing and through that filter we see all that happens all that we don't
00:26:20.460 understand will ultimately be for his glory and the good of those who love him which is what the bible
00:26:26.700 says like he told him back he is doing something that we would not believe if he told us it is not
00:26:33.340 our job to let god off the hook or to make him more chewable for atheists uh let the word of god stand
00:26:40.380 let god's character stand don't downplay god don't water him down don't apologize for him he is enough he's
00:26:47.180 the only being in the entire universe uh who can actually claim that he is exactly who he says he is
00:26:54.060 and no less and he is exactly what he says we need and no less than that and either you introduce
00:27:01.180 people to this god in all his complexity in all his sovereignty or you introduce them to a figment of
00:27:08.220 your imagination a weak wizard with limited power i don't want to worship a weak wizard with limited power do you
00:27:15.180 because a god that is limited by our understanding of what he should and shouldn't do isn't a god that
00:27:21.500 can save the real biblical triune god can and will save and the great news is is that he won't allow 0.69
00:27:29.740 evil to go unpunished just because evil happens under god's sovereign watch does not mean that he is
00:27:36.860 ignoring it that he likes it that it pleases him it might be all under his grand sovereign will but it is
00:27:43.260 not a part of his moral will he does not desire it and he will still punish it just because he allows
00:27:49.740 and sometimes even causes pain doesn't mean that he does not care about it on the contrary god is a god
00:27:57.100 of vengeance and he will pay back evil what it is due he will defeat the wicked forever no act no word
00:28:05.100 of evil escapes his attention or his judgment as psalm 37 12 through 15 i love psalm 37 i highly
00:28:12.140 encourage you to read it if you need comfort a reminder of who god is and what he will do as
00:28:18.380 psalm 37 12 through 15 says this the wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him
00:28:24.460 but the lord laughs at the wicked for he sees that his day is coming the wicked draw the sword and bend
00:28:30.540 their bows to bring down the poor and needy to slay those whose way is upright their sword shall enter 0.99
00:28:36.540 their own heart and their bows shall be broken romans 12 19 says beloved never avenge yourselves but
00:28:44.220 leave it to the wrath of god for it is written vengeance is mine i will repay says the lord so
00:28:51.580 no evil will go unpaid for god promises us that and about our pain and all of the pain that christians
00:29:01.660 are enduring scripture says this the lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed
00:29:07.260 in spirit psalm 34 18 and even beyond that uh one day all sadness will be completely eradicated
00:29:15.100 revolution of revolution revelation 21 4 says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death
00:29:22.540 shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have
00:29:28.540 passed away yes we have a sovereign god we also have a redemptive god who is powerful enough right now
00:29:37.580 to be in control of everything that's going on that means he is powerful enough to save to the uttermost
00:29:43.180 and to save ultimately that is why we don't have to let god off the hook because god in all of his
00:29:50.620 complex complexity and all of his character that we do not understand doesn't need to be
00:29:58.300 diminished it's unnecessary and this is why theology matters this is why reading god's word matters
00:30:05.420 because it affects not just our mentality in a crisis but our mentality also affects what we do
00:30:11.900 god doesn't want us to be afraid he doesn't want us to be anxious he doesn't want us to think that he
00:30:16.940 is not in control he is in control now and forever and we can trust in that okay that's my episode for
00:30:24.060 today i will be back here on wednesday and i will see you guys then