Ep 396 ｜ Big Reasons to Rejoice： The People Push Back, Jesus Defeats Death
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 17 minutes
Words per Minute
168.00848
Summary
In this episode, we talk about the good news, the bad news, and the feel good stories that remind us of our common humanity and reminds us of the compassion that still exists out there, even in the craziness of all of the news cycles.
Transcript
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So I thought it would be fitting to talk about good news.
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Of course, the best news of all, the news of the gospel, the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
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We're going to talk about less good news, but still good news, more temporally good news.
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First, I asked you guys on Instagram what you preferred for this episode, and most of
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you said that you wanted me to give you good news of things that are happening across the
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country as far as legislation goes, as far as the organization of citizens go, and standing
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up against the things that they don't believe in and standing up for the things that they
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We're going to talk about really good bills that are coming down the pipeline in several
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states, some bills that have been signed into law by particular governors.
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We're going to talk about organizations that maybe you can decide to support that are, for
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example, for protecting good and moral education for our kids.
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And then we're going to talk about some feel good stories that just reminds us of our common
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humanity and reminds us of the compassion that still exists out there, even in the craziness
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And then we're going to end with just reminding us of what Easter is and why it's so encouraging
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and why even in the midst of all the chaos that seems to characterize our world right now
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in our culture, that we have every reason as Christians to rejoice.
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There are a lot of bad things that I could talk about.
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There are plenty of bad things that have happened this week.
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There are a lot of things to be concerned about.
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There's a lot of terrible legislation, a lot of awful activism, a lot of just absolutely
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horrifying moral changes, cultural changes, political changes that are happening.
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And so if you just wanted to be anxious, if you just wanted to be worried about the country
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in which our kids are going to grow up, I could definitely give you that episode.
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And honestly, that's a lot of what we talk about, because I want us to be aware of the
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I do think that we have a responsibility as people living on earth in this time that God
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has placed us in, in this country that God has placed us in with purpose.
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I do think it's our responsibility to pay attention to the things that are going on and to infuse every
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sphere that God has placed us in, every sphere that we occupy with as much light and wisdom as possible.
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And so it's important to talk about the scary things.
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Like it's important to talk about the concerning things, which we do very often.
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But it's also important to celebrate the wins, big and small.
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And of course, it is so important to remind ourselves of the transcendent good news of the gospel
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always, and to set our joy, to set our sights, to set our hope on that.
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Let's start with some temporal good news, with some earthly good news, by talking about a couple
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organizations that have been brought to my attention.
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Now, I don't know everything about these organizations.
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I'm giving you the names of these organizations so you can look them up and you can research
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them and you can decide if these are organizations that you want to support, if you like their
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I'm just giving you examples of different coalitions of parents that are trying to stand
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up for the things that I know a lot of you guys care about, in particular when it comes
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Now, you guys also know I've done a lot of episodes on the teachers unions, on the corruption
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that exists in public education, and I have also advocated for if there's any way possible,
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which I understand maybe not for everyone this is possible, but if there's any way possible
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for you to get your kids out of public school and for you to homeschool or for you to send
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them to a Christian school, then I highly recommend that.
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I know a lot of people out there are big supporters of public school.
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They say, oh, this craziness with critical race theory and so-called comprehensive sex education,
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which is really just left-wing indoctrination in both of those cases, it's never going to
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I live in a conservative suburb where I know my teachers.
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They go to my church, and then every day I get a message from a public school teacher
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who there's so many, so many wonderful and Christ-like public school teachers out there,
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and many of you listen to my podcast, and I'm thankful for that, and yet you understand
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what's going on, you messaged me and you said, you know, I never thought that this would come
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I never thought that this would come to my public school, but hey, the teachers are being
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forced to denounce our whiteness or to categorize ourselves on tiers of privilege according to
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our race, not actually according to our experiences, and we are being told to teach our kids from that
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perspective, that is coming to your school, like that is coming to your school, it is coming to
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your county, I don't care how conservative your county is, I don't care how Christian your county
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is, how Christian the public school teachers are in your county, it is coming from the top down.
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This is an orchestrated effort to fundamentally change even more our public education system so
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kids primarily view the world and view themselves through the lens of race.
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We've talked about, for example, woke math, where people of different races, students of different
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races are held to different standards when it comes to math, where they're never, they're not
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actually expected anymore to find an objective answer, a solid answer to a math problem, but you
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actually have to do math according to your background and privilege and race and intersectionality
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and all of that, I promise you, that is coming down the pipeline for your public school.
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And private schools are not perfect, homeschool curriculum is not perfect, we live in an imperfect
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world, but the thought that your public school, being a secular public school, is neutral is wrong.
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Like there's no such thing as neutrality, you need to understand that.
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Progressives are extremely dogmatic about their ideology, and they tell you, they try to shame
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you as a Christian to not try to influence your child or not try to influence their education
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with your Christian or conservative values, but they have no problem with influencing your
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So do you want to have to fight against what your kids are learning from a secular perspective
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eight hours a day when they come home at night?
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I think it would be a lot easier if your child has an education that's incongruent with the
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Your child is not meant to be a missionary in third grade.
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Your child is not meant to be on the front lines of the Christian battle when they are 10 years
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And I'm saying this as someone who knows a lot of moms that are more experienced than I am.
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And a lot of you who have way more years under your belt when it comes to education and when it
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comes to raising kids, I'm not pretending like I'm the expert in all of this.
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But what I've learned from people who are much older and wiser than me is that it is our job as
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parents to raise our kids in the way they should go, to raise them to love God and to love their
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neighbors with a biblical worldview for as long as we possibly can.
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And then they go out into the world and they are on the front lines and they are salt and
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light and they do become missionaries and evangelists and all of these things in the
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That's not their job when they're six years old.
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They don't have the equipment to be able to fight against something like a curriculum that
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says gender and sex are independent and that in seventh grade, you need to be able to decide
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what identity you are when it comes to your so-called gender identity.
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And I think it's cruel to put them in that position in many cases.
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And so all that to say, while I do think it's important, if parents can, to try to give
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your kids an education that is characterized by a biblical worldview, I also think it's important
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for parents of kids who are in the public school system to try to influence that curriculum as
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much as possible by pushing back against things like critical race theory, like the 1619 project,
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which we've talked about so many times, how toxic and how dishonest this curriculum is.
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And there are parents, for example, in Defending Education.
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It's Parents Defending Education is one organization.
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They're a national grassroots organization working to reclaim schools from activists promoting harmful
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agendas through network and coalition building investigative reporting, litigation and engagement
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We are fighting indoctrination in the classroom and for the restoration of a healthy, non-political
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So even though I advocate for giving your kids an explicitly Christian education, if you can,
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I also think it's important to make sure that the kids that are going to public school are
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not being saturated with politics and activism on a daily basis, but are rather given a non-political
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There's also another organization, No Left Turn in Education.
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They say that their goal is to revive an American public education, the fundamental discipline of critical
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and active thinking, which is based on facts, investigation, logic and sound reasoning.
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So like I said, I think the entirety of society would benefit from things like that.
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And these organizations, these kinds of organizations are popping up everywhere because the past year
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has really given us a good look into the problems with our education system, how the teachers unions and some teachers
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that are represented by the teachers unions really pit themselves against the well-being of kids.
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It's really kind of taken the cover off of a lot of corruption that many people have known
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exists within the public education system that works against the education of kids, in particular
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in poor communities, which happen to be a black and brown communities.
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If you really care about social justice, like if you really care about so-called equity
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and you really want to try to close the gaps of success in outcome, you should be for school choice.
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Like you should be for opportunities that help these kids who are in these failing public schools
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with corrupt teachers unions working against them, who are only indoctrinating them with activism.
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You should be for the opportunities for them to get a better education elsewhere.
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And we'll talk a little bit more about school choice, but these organizations like Parents
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Defending Education, No Left Turn in Education are popping up in particular this year.
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Parents are joining these organizations in droves to try to push back against what they see
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So even though I'm not the biggest fan of our public education system, I still think that
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these reforms are very good for our whole country.
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No Left Turn in Education, that organization is also trying to restore parental function
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in public education and elevate the family as a core teaching unit of society.
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They're trying to educate the public about the radical indoctrination in K-12 and its existential
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It supports parents in trying to talk to their school board or talk to their administration.
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They want to use all forms of media to expose this kind of indoctrination.
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I don't know what to do as a public school teacher.
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I want to push back against this stuff and I don't know how.
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Um, and these organizations could be very good tools for you.
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They could at least point you in the right direction.
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I got a wonderful review the other day and I love all of your sweet reviews.
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And if you love this podcast, I would love for you to give it a five-star review on Apple
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I got one in particular that meant a lot to me the other day.
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It was from a public school teacher who listened and said, hey, I really didn't like what you
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It was actually really offensive because I'm a public school teacher and it seemed like
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And then the review said, but as I listened more, I realized that the things that you were
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talking about and that your guests were talking about were actually true and that a lot of
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these problems, uh, or all the problems that you were talking about actually do exist.
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I'm so glad that you kept listening to those reviews always mean especially much to me when
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someone says that I listened and I was mad, but I kept listening and I agree.
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That just shows a lot about the listener and it just shows also that minds can change.
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My mind has changed when I start listening to someone and maybe I'm mad at first, but I
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That has certainly been the case about theological things in the past and maybe even political
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If you are listening to this, thank you for that review and for talking about how your
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mind was changed and heart kind of softened through listening to this podcast.
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Because when I talk about the problems with the public education system, it's not a knock
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It's not a knock on every single school, but it is a knock on the system.
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And in general, uh, the inaptitude of a lot of the schools that are, I think, underserving
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There are a lot of wonderful, wonderful teachers out there.
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And there are a lot of bad teachers at private schools, by the way.
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Um, but I, uh, I do think it's important that we look at the problems that we're facing
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in the public education system and that we push for reforms and that parents are empowered
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There's also a Chinese American group that is coming out against critical race theory.
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If you've taught, if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, it starts with
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a fundamental premise that America is systemically racist, that every system, every institution,
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almost every interaction between a white and a non-white person is steeped in racism, uh,
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specifically anti-black racism, and that it's not enough to just be not racist, that you have to
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And part of that is actually acknowledging, acknowledging your privilege as a white person,
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how you have been at the very least complicit, if not active in oppression.
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And we're talking about telling this to young kids as well, and, uh, having non-white people
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understand that they are on the side of the oppressed and whatever can be done in order
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to even the scales or equalize the outcomes has to be done.
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Even if that means discriminating against, for example, through affirmative action, uh, white
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and Asian students or changing the standards for particular races of students.
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This is toxic because it forces people to view people according to their race.
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It muddies the definitions of oppressed versus oppressor.
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It lays responsibility at the feet of people who have not been oppressive and who perhaps don't
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It, uh, creates resentment, it creates division, it creates self-loathing, it creates loathing
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of other people, and it gives a false representation of what America is.
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It's not an accurate assessment of real oppression that has existed in America.
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It is the assertion that America is systemically, endemically, pervasively racist down to its core
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and must be fundamentally revolutionized and done away with in order for things to get better.
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That's a false premise that is, uh, not a good basis for change.
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Those kinds of so-called liberation revolutions have always ended in death and destruction,
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never liberation and equality for the people that it claims to be fighting for.
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And so that's why parents are speaking against this, because it's harming how their students
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see the world, see themselves, and see other people.
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So this Chinese-American group called Chinese-American Citizens Alliance Greater New York, according
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to Fox News, said that critical race theory, CRT, has predominantly entered workplaces and
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educational institutions under the guise of anti-racism and diversity, equity, and inclusion
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when it is, in fact, racist, oppressive, discriminatory, and divisive.
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This doctrine teaches that people are inextricably linked to their race, that blacks are oppressed,
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that whites are oppressors, and any unequal outcome is not only unjust, but also racist.
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So that's a really good summary of what I just said.
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The group cited examples of this doctrine seeping into workspaces and schools, instances where
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white employees and students were subjected to diversity training seminars, or, and that's
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in scare quotes, diversity training seminars, or curricula that essentially asked participants
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to admit their complicity in an inherently oppressive system.
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Another part about critical race theory is its muddy definition of what morality and responsibility
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Responsibility and agency is never ascribed to people who are not white or seen as not privileged
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or on the side of the oppressed, and all agency and all responsibility, collective responsibility
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So that means you've probably seen this when we see, for example, a person who is black commit
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You've probably seen a lot of these assessments and analyses from the media, from Blue Checks on
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Twitter saying, this is still, white supremacy is still to blame.
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Or when, for example, the Muslim man shot several people at the Colorado, at the Colorado grocery
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store, still there was a way to try to blame whiteness and white supremacy.
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It prohibits us from actually seeing the world as it is.
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And for us, it prohibits us from being able to assess things clearly, intellectually, and
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morally because we are unable or unwilling, according to that worldview, to say that someone
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is responsible for their actions based on their skin color.
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And don't you see how if you have a justice system that is based on that, then you're incentivizing
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And as we've talked about so many times on this podcast, God hates partiality.
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This particular organization, this Chinese American organization, it notes that third graders at a
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Northern California elementary school math class were told that they lived in a dominant
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culture of white cisgender educated Christians, and this culture was created to hoard power.
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The third graders were told to check themselves off victimization categories to see whether
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According to Fox News, this is what this organization is saying.
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It only knows how to tear down that which it doesn't like.
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There is also an organization, it's actually a website called criticalrace.org.
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It was started by a law professor that I've had on this podcast from Cornell Law School,
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and it tracks critical race theory in colleges.
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It's a free resource for parents and students concerned about the negative impact critical
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And so it has a database of over 200 colleges and universities to learn more about critical
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I will link to the interview that I did with this professor in the description of this podcast.
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And I will also link to all of these things in the description of this podcast.
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This is very good that people are starting to understand the dangers of this and that
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they are feeling empowered to take matters into their own hands and to be educated about it,
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to educate other people about it, and to do something about it.
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Because critical race theory started as this very academic, very esoteric idea that has
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only now started to manifest itself in tangible ways and enter into the classrooms of your kids.
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And so it is absolutely your right and your responsibility to know how this is going on,
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where this is going on, why it's going on, and how to push back against it.
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There's also a new organization called Fair for All.
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It was started by Christopher Rufo, whom I've had on this podcast twice.
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He has been leading the charge in a lot of ways against critical race theory.
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And he is a wonderful journalist, and he has been wonderful in informing the public about
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It's an organization that says it defends civil liberties and rights guaranteed to each individual,
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including freedom of speech and expression, equal protection under the law, and the right
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They advocate for individuals who are threatened or persecuted for speech or who are held to
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a different set of rules for language or conduct based on their skin color, ancestry,
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Fair for All also offers guidance to parents and educators.
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It connects advocates across the country, develops curriculum, and works to make sure that your school
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lives by values of fairness, understanding, and humanity.
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It advocates also for merit-based systems and structures that we're told are actually racist
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But this is what it means to have a fair and truly equal society.
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It's against viewing people primarily by their race, which is something that's going to tear
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So Fair for All is another good organization that you can connect to.
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So many of you messaged me and say, I don't know what to say.
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These are all organizations that you should connect to that can hopefully provide you with
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There are also lawyers now and legal teams that are suing against critical race theory,
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in particular when it comes to students or when it comes to employees being forced to say something
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or being forced to, for example, denounce their privilege or say that America is systemically
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There are lawyers now that are going after companies that are forcing speech in this way.
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And so this is a fight that people on the right are taking on.
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There are people who are leftist, left wing in a lot of ways that I've had on this podcast
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several times who are against critical race theory and the kind of victimization and cancel
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And so this really is a very diverse and broad coalition of people that are coming together
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and pushing back against this, even in legal ways.
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And then we're also seeing this affect some state legislation and executive orders.
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For example, in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, he issued an executive order to block critical
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The New York Post says critical race theory will be explicitly excluded from Florida's new
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The Republican governor addressed the academic study while discussing his proposed $106 million
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initiative to support a new civics curriculum for students at a press conference Wednesday
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He said that high quality education begins with high quality curriculum.
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We are going to make sure that students have the best civics instruction standards possible.
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And so they're going to incorporate the foundational concepts with, you know, the best materials that
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they can that does not include this kind of divisive rhetoric and curriculum.
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There is a bill that has been put forward by State Representative James White, HB 4093, an
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education bill looking to end teaching of critical race theory in public schools throughout the
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It would make it illegal for any teaching administrative bodies, including school districts and state
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agencies, to require teachers, administrators or employees to teach courses on concepts such
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as one race or sex being inherently superior to another.
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A few years ago, we would have read that and we would have said, yeah, that's racist.
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So this is simply saying this bill is saying that an administration in a school cannot force
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teachers or employees to teach this kind of stuff.
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Oklahoma, they passed a bill, a state senator or is bringing forth a bill, Shane Jett, Senate
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Bill 803 to ban critical race theory in school.
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It would explicitly prohibit the teaching of critical race theory and its components in the
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Oklahoma, it's teaching divisive concepts and ideology to young people.
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Jett told The Blaze it is Marxist in origin, true, and it's designed to cause children to
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instead of looking at what makes us unique and special in American, it causes them to
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pit themselves against each other based on the color of their skin.
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Rhode Island, there is also a bill in the state legislature to ban critical race theory
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according to the Daily Caller H6070 introduced into the state's house in early March, seeks
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to prohibit the teaching of divisive concepts and would mandate that any contract, grant or
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training program entered into by the state or any municipality include provisions prohibiting
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teaching divisive concepts and prohibit making any individual feel discomfort, guilty, anguish
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or any distress on account of their race or sex.
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Now, shouldn't that be obvious that any curriculum that intentionally tries to make a student feel
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uncomfortable about their race, about their melanin count, about their sex, that that's bad
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And yet the left says, oh, no, no, we actually want that.
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Like we want that kind of discomfort because they see it as health.
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And then when we look on the federal level, we will probably will probably remember that
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President Trump had signed an executive order to make sure that this kind of divisive concept
00:29:09.460
is not going to be infiltrating our federal agencies.
00:29:14.000
And of course, Joe Biden quickly reversed it as soon as he became president.
00:29:18.680
But Tom Cotton has introduced legislation, the senator from Arkansas, to ban critical race theory
00:29:24.580
in the military, which, again, should be a given.
00:29:27.120
According to Chris Ruffo at City Journal, quote, the bill would prohibit the armed forces
00:29:32.920
from directly promoting the core tenets of critical race theory, that the United States
00:29:37.040
of America is a fundamentally racist nation, that an individual by virtue of his or her race
00:29:43.800
All of that is what critical race theory teaches, and that an individual, because of his or her
00:29:48.340
race, bears responsibility for the actions committed by other members of his or her race.
00:29:53.180
That is what critical race theory teaches about white people.
00:29:56.460
The bill also includes a provision against segregating members of the armed forces by race, which has
00:30:01.040
become common practice in many CRT training programs.
00:30:04.320
Now, this legislation is probably not going to pass, but it's important.
00:30:10.460
You put forward legislation to start a conversation, you hold on to it, you hope that it gets passed
00:30:15.980
I think it's very important that he propose this legislation and we should be all for it.
00:30:21.460
Now, if we go across the pond, there are also efforts in Britain, for example, against
00:30:30.760
According to the BBC, there is a race report UK not deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities,
00:30:39.320
Of course, it's an American theory because we have so much luxury and privilege in this
00:30:44.880
country that we actively are thinking of ways to try to create and capitalize on oppression.
00:30:53.540
But this also exists in places like the UK, which would say that the UK is fundamentally deliberately
00:31:08.040
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities said family structure and social class had
00:31:12.640
a bigger impact than race on how people's lives turned out.
00:31:16.640
And of course, we absolutely know that that's true.
00:31:21.320
That doesn't mean that racism has never existed in people's past or that it doesn't exist right
00:31:26.620
And America has been systemically racist in the past.
00:31:30.720
The question is, how do those horrors affect today?
00:31:35.020
How do those atrocities that America endured and perpetuated actually affect the outcome
00:31:42.840
And there is a narrative that the legacy of slavery is an unbroken thread that is still
00:31:51.300
And the facts just don't back that up, probably not in the UK and not in the United States.
00:31:57.500
Again, that is not ignoring the atrocities of systemic racism that have existed here.
00:32:08.240
And actually, there's a lot of counter data to there's a lot of data that pushes back against
00:32:16.280
this theory, against this assertion that every racial disparity or every bad circumstance
00:32:23.020
that is experienced by a non-white person today is because of slavery or because of systemic
00:32:31.280
As Thomas Sowell often points out, if you look, for example, at the 1950s, crime rates among
00:32:42.120
There was a point in the 1940s and 50s where the fatherlessness rate among white families
00:32:48.360
was actually higher than that of Black families.
00:32:54.200
That is when these gaps started to grow even more.
00:32:57.200
And by the way, fatherlessness among white families also started to increase dramatically
00:33:07.060
If it was true that there is this unbroken thread of slavery that is still affecting just
00:33:13.840
as much people today as it did in the 1950s, and that's the reason for fatherlessness, that's
00:33:19.540
the reason for crime, that's the reason for broken families in Black communities, then that
00:33:24.860
would have been worse at the time of Jim Crow in the mid-century than it is now.
00:33:29.780
But the fact of the matter is, fatherlessness has gotten worse since the time of Jim Crow
00:33:41.500
There have to be other causes that are factored in there than historic racism.
00:33:49.300
And of course, we know if you look at, for example, the U.S. Census Bureau and the National
00:33:54.600
Center for Health Statistics, the median household income is correlated very strongly with the
00:34:06.640
So if you look at, for example, Asians, according to this study, their median income is $98,000.
00:34:15.320
That's a median income for Asian Americans, much higher, about $20,000 more than the median
00:34:23.300
And the share of birth to unwed mothers in 2019 was only 11.7% among Asian Americans.
00:34:33.160
And if you look at white Americans, the median income is $76,000, and the fatherlessness rate
00:34:42.580
So a lot higher fatherlessness rate, a lot lower median income.
00:34:47.580
If you look at Hispanic Americans, $56,000 is the median income with a 52.1% fatherlessness
00:34:57.600
And then if you look at Black Americans, $45,000 median income with a 70% fatherlessness rate.
00:35:09.380
And we can't necessarily prove causation from this graph, but we can look at a correlation
00:35:14.800
and probably assume based on the context that there is a causal effect there.
00:35:21.660
So the UK coming out with the study saying, look, it's actually a family structure.
00:35:26.060
It's actually a lot of other factors that go into someone's life outcome that have a much
00:35:38.160
I mean, from every study that we see, even the Brookings Institute talks about this as well.
00:35:45.300
It's good that the UK is coming out with this kind of stuff and just is willing to say,
00:35:50.260
hey, look, this is not rigged against people of certain races.
00:35:54.980
I think it's important for the United States to also take that stand.
00:35:58.180
That is a direct assault on the assertions of the divisive critical race theory.
00:36:08.600
We've also got bills protecting girls sports in Tennessee.
00:36:11.820
According to CNN, Governor Bill Lee signed a transgender sports bill into law Friday
00:36:16.420
requiring students to prove their sex at birth in order to play middle school and high school
00:36:22.960
The bill states that a student's gender for purposes of participation in a public middle
00:36:29.260
school or high school, interscholastic athletic activity or event be determined by the student's
00:36:34.900
sex at the time of the student's birth, as indicated on the student's original birth certificate.
00:36:42.700
The differences between boys and girls, as we've talked about many times, are fundamental
00:36:49.200
and they only grow more pronounced as kids go through puberty and it creates an unfair playing
00:36:58.480
field, literally playing field between boys and girls when girls are forced to compete against
00:37:04.660
boys who naturally have greater bone density, greater muscle mass, greater aerobic and anaerobic
00:37:11.100
We've looked at these studies several times before as if we need studies to prove something
00:37:16.980
that has been obvious for all of human history, but we have looked at a variety of studies
00:37:22.680
that compare female athletes versus male athletes and how the non-androgynized body of a woman
00:37:33.920
It doesn't mean that women aren't awesome athletes.
00:37:36.000
It just means that men and women are different and girls sports now have to be protected from
00:37:42.300
boys who were born boys who identify as girls competing against them and competing for their
00:37:48.340
scholarships and competing for their state titles.
00:37:54.160
We've talked about some of the injuries that have been endured by professional female athletes
00:37:59.220
who have been forced to play against biological men.
00:38:02.920
And I hate that phrase, but sometimes we have to say it for the for the sake of clarity.
00:38:07.480
Um, and so this is about protecting girls' safety.
00:38:13.300
This is about making sure that girls are still able to fairly compete for things like
00:38:21.420
Arkansas, according to Fox News, became the second state this year to ban transgender athletes
00:38:25.520
from participating in sporting events Thursday.
00:38:30.060
Fox News Governor Asa Hutchinson signed the Fairness and Women's Sports Act after the measure
00:38:36.300
passed through the state house with overwhelming support earlier this week.
00:38:41.000
The law simply states that female athletes should not have to compete in a sport against
00:38:44.700
a student of the male sex when the sport is designed for women's competition.
00:38:48.080
Hutchinson said in the statement on Thursday, proponents of the bill argue it will ensure
00:38:53.180
females have an equal playing field when it comes to sporting events as biologically
00:38:56.960
born males have a physical advantage over female competitors.
00:39:02.420
Again, parents are speaking up about this kind of stuff.
00:39:04.880
And this is not to say that transgender athletes can't play sports because you're going to
00:39:10.820
see the ACLU say this is a ban on transgender athletes playing sports.
00:39:17.020
Everyone is allowed to play a sport according to their sex as long as they make that team.
00:39:22.560
So just like everyone else, they are able to play sports according to their biology.
00:39:31.440
It's not according to identity or declaration or feelings.
00:39:34.440
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you're talking about physical sports, especially
00:39:40.020
And so it's good that states are taking these measures.
00:39:44.720
Moving on to vaccine passports, which we're going to talk about more thoroughly next week.
00:39:49.160
I know a lot of you guys are concerned about that as far as privacy goes.
00:39:52.740
And there are a lot of states that feel those concerns and are hearing that those concerns.
00:39:58.800
Governor Ron DeSantis said that he plans to issue an executive order forbidding businesses
00:40:03.580
from requiring so-called vaccine passports across the state, says Business Insider.
00:40:08.440
DeSantis said at a news conference on Monday that he would introduce an executive function
00:40:12.660
designed to prevent businesses from refusing to serve customers who are unable to prove they
00:40:17.840
had been vaccinated while seeking support from the Republican legislature to enshrine the
00:40:23.400
Now, I will be surprised, honestly, if vaccine passports become as pervasive as we are afraid
00:40:29.360
that they are, because I've been listening to this and there are actually concerns from
00:40:33.500
the left, even from the ACLU, which I'll read in a second, about the equity of this and
00:40:40.260
how this is going to disproportionately negatively affect Americans that are living in poor communities,
00:40:46.080
which happen to be predominantly black and brown Americans in many cases.
00:40:50.640
And they're afraid that people without a vaccine passport are going to be treated like second
00:40:56.420
And that's especially concerning to these organizations if that includes black and brown Americans who
00:41:03.540
they who they would say are traditionally marginalized communities.
00:41:09.220
So because that there there is that concern, I'm actually interested to see if there's going
00:41:14.720
to be as much support from the left as Republicans think that there will be.
00:41:19.980
Ohio is another state that's coming out against vaccine passports.
00:41:23.900
Fox News says is America's mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 continues to hum along
00:41:28.660
to Ohio state legislators are planning to introduce a bill that will preemptively
00:41:33.080
ban vaccine passports over concerns about privacy and government overreach.
00:41:37.920
Rep Al Cutrona, a Republican who represents parts of eastern Ohio, told Fox News that vaccine
00:41:42.720
passports mandated by the government would create privacy concerns that should be startling to
00:41:48.200
anyone. A vaccine passport, a unified centralized system for providing or denying access to
00:41:52.920
everyday activities like shopping and dining would be a nightmare for civil liberties and
00:41:57.040
privacy. And it would exacerbate existing social disparities connected to wealth, privilege
00:42:04.620
Jay Stanley is a senior policy analyst with the ACLU Speech Privacy and Technology Project.
00:42:09.760
ACLU is very left wing, but sometimes sometimes they are on the good side of things.
00:42:18.400
Jay Stanley said that he fears that a vaccine passport would be overused.
00:42:22.640
While there are legitimate circumstances in which people can be asked for proof of vaccination,
00:42:26.760
we don't want to turn into a checkpoint society that outlasts the danger of COVID and that casually
00:42:31.900
excludes people without credentials from facilities where vaccine mandates are not highly justified.
00:42:37.460
He's absolutely right. And that, of course, is the concern with all of these restrictions,
00:42:43.480
all of these new developments that he says would be a checkpoint society that outlasts the danger
00:42:50.700
of COVID and actually exceeds the danger of COVID, I would say. And so it's good. We've got different
00:42:58.660
organizations on the left and the right that are coming out against this stuff. And the fact that
00:43:02.760
there are states, I wouldn't be surprised if other conservative and Republican dominated states
00:43:07.640
do the same thing. They're saying, look, you can't deny someone service just because they don't have
00:43:12.520
a vaccine passport. It goes along with this idea that if you don't have a vaccine, you automatically
00:43:19.620
are carrying that disease. I mean, that's just not true. That's not even logical. And if the point of the
00:43:26.680
vaccine is to create at least enough immunity for society to be safe, there's no reason to ban
00:43:31.520
everyone who doesn't have the vaccine, who is not even sick from entering a place of work,
00:43:37.500
especially as we have seen COVID cases go down so much, even in states that have lifted the mask
00:43:44.460
mandates and have lifted business restrictions and things like that. There's no reason. There's just
00:43:49.660
no reason for this. Moving on to abortion legislation, there is a fetal heartbeat bill in the state of
00:43:57.140
Texas that has been approved by the state Senate. It approved six anti-abortion bills, according to
00:44:03.940
USA Today, including a proposal, a proposal that would outlaw the procedure once a fetal heartbeat
00:44:09.980
is detected. The second measure would become law. Oh, there's another measure that would effectively
00:44:16.860
ban the procedure completely. The second measure would become law if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses
00:44:22.200
earlier decisions legalizing abortion. Abortion opponents have pledged to push an aggressive
00:44:26.880
agenda to severely limit availability of the procedure with an eye to the changing power dynamics
00:44:32.740
of the Supreme Court, where the conservatives now hold a 6-3 majority. That is untrue. USA Today
00:44:38.220
conservatives do not hold a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. At best, it is 5-4. Roberts is not
00:44:44.140
a conservative. Just because he was nominated by a Republican does not mean he's a conservative. He does not
00:44:49.800
have a conservative track record. But Texas is, according to USA Today, looking to the majority
00:44:59.040
that conservatives do mostly, in most perspectives, have on the Supreme Court to try to challenge
00:45:06.680
abortion as much as possible. Abortion is the killing of a human being. That's what it is. It can't be
00:45:12.020
described in any other way. You can try to euphemize it. You can try to sanitize it. You can try to
00:45:16.180
normalize it. You can try to glorify it. But that's what it is. It's the killing of a human being. And
00:45:21.540
Texas is trying to push back and trying to lead the way and banning that as much as possible to
00:45:28.580
protect life inside the womb. That does not mean that we don't care about the mom. That doesn't mean
00:45:34.540
that we don't care about the baby after the baby is born. That is a myth. That is a lie. Go visit your
00:45:39.580
local pregnancy center and see how many resources and how much love and how much help is poured out
00:45:45.240
for families in crisis on a daily basis by pro-life organizations. People who say this is about
00:45:50.620
controlling women's bodies. You don't know anything about pro-lifers. You don't know anything about pro-life
00:45:55.340
activists. You don't know anything about these pregnancy clinics that help women get the resources
00:46:00.380
and the connections and the education that they need in order to survive and thrive. Go check it out
00:46:07.680
before you launch that attack at pro-lifers for saying this is about controlling women's bodies
00:46:13.360
and this is about just being pro-birth. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love this from
00:46:19.340
the Huffington Post. 2021 is already the year of anti-abortion legislation. The Huffington Post is
00:46:25.880
obviously very mad about this. And they say, according to a report, the Planned Parenthood Federation of
00:46:31.140
America, who is responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands, about 300,000 unborn babies
00:46:38.340
every day, disproportionately black unborn babies, by the way, which I only note because the same people
00:46:44.680
who say that they care about inequality of outcomes don't seem to care about that disproportionate rate
00:46:51.060
among black Americans. And by the way, that disproportionality is, I think we talked about
00:46:57.260
yesterday, according to Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal, exists even when you control
00:47:02.380
for income and education and employment and things like that. It is disproportionately high
00:47:08.280
among black Americans, the abortion rate. And again, the same people who say that they care about
00:47:14.500
inequality of outcome in other ways don't seem to care about that gap there. That should tell you
00:47:21.060
something. So continuing legislation limiting abortion in 2021 has skyrocketed in comparison to
00:47:28.560
a similar time frame in 2019. Compared to bills introduced from January through mid-March 2019,
00:47:34.240
medication abortion restrictions and bans have tripled to 33. Anti-abortion constitutional amendments
00:47:39.620
have more than tripled to 14. And states have enacted 12 abortion restrictions this year compared to
00:47:45.040
just one by this point in 2019. Overall, state legislatures have introduced 516 abortion restrictions
00:47:52.340
compared to 304 mid-March 2019. Those pieces of legislation are clearly about power and control
00:48:00.020
over our bodies. Original talking point, President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson says, well, I'm saying
00:48:07.020
original talking point, but that was her talking point. Noting the bills disproportionately impact people
00:48:11.420
of color, people with low incomes and LGBTQ plus people. And get this, she says, these policies are
00:48:18.420
designed to make it harder for people to exist. That's what the president of Planned Parenthood says
00:48:26.460
about anti-abortion legislation. Let me repeat. She says, these policies are designed to make it harder
00:48:34.220
for people to exist. What does abortion do? It kills a human being. It makes it impossible for a person to
00:48:40.360
exist. Disproportionately people of color. Oh, my goodness. To live in this kind of cognitive,
00:48:46.340
moral dissonance. I don't know how people do it. I don't know. But like I said, like I've said,
00:48:53.100
postmodernism, godlessness makes hearts of stone and brains of mush so that this kind of dissonance can
00:48:59.520
just, I guess, exist there comfortably. Now, we've talked about how abortion rates go down under
00:49:07.840
democratic presidents and people say, well, this is why we need to elect a Democrat, because abortions
00:49:13.680
go down because of democratic policy. But Democrats don't, or not Democrats, but presidents don't set
00:49:20.520
policy. We've talked about this before. We did an episode and we'll link to it. Do Democrats decrease
00:49:25.980
abortions? No, that's not true. States have the most control over abortion law. And under Barack Obama,
00:49:35.640
when you saw a big drop off in or a big decrease in the abortion rate in America, state legislatures
00:49:44.080
were dominated by Republicans who were pushing anti-abortion, if you want to call it that, I'm
00:49:49.760
fine with that phrase, legislation. And I'm not even saying that was the cause of the decrease in
00:49:56.320
abortions. But nothing that Obama did as president, as part of the executive branch, could have had an
00:50:04.040
effect on the abortion rate. So that's just a, that myth is a fundamental understanding of how our laws
00:50:10.180
work and how, how policy works, in particular, abortion policy. Again, we'll link to that past
00:50:16.020
episode and you can go back and you can hear us bust that myth in full. There are also lots of school
00:50:22.680
choice bills that are being pushed in state legislatures. According to the Wall Street Journal,
00:50:26.980
nearly 50 school choice bills have been introduced this year in 30 states. The article says the
00:50:35.040
pandemic has been a revelation for many Americans about union control of public schools that refuse
00:50:40.360
to reopen that awakening is helping disperse some welcome reform progress as several state legislatures
00:50:46.440
are moving to expand school choice. One breakthrough is in West Virginia, where the legislature passed a
00:50:51.620
bill creating the state's first education savings program. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the House passed a
00:50:57.660
bill last week that would expand eligibility for the state's voucher program for special education
00:51:02.940
students. The Senate, which had already passed the legislation, voted to approve House amendments on
00:51:07.300
Monday. The bill is headed to Brian Kemp's desk. In South Dakota, Republican Governor Kristi Noem signed a
00:51:13.120
bill that expands eligibility for the state's tax credit scholarship program to students already enrolled in
00:51:20.320
private schools. Last school year, the program provided nearly 800 students with scholarships for about
00:51:25.200
$1,800. The teachers unions remain powerful, as demonstrated in Kentucky, where Democratic Governor
00:51:32.980
Andy Beshear vetoed a bill last week that would establish a new tax credit scholarship program. But the
00:51:39.580
state legislature voted late Monday to override the veto, meaning low and middle income families will have
00:51:45.720
access to a scholarship fund of up to $25 million financed by tax credit backed private donations.
00:51:52.180
Imagine being against something like that for low income students. Two Arizona bills to expand tax
00:51:57.900
credit scholarships and education savings accounts have passed this in it and are now in the House.
00:52:03.680
An Indiana bill created an ESA program passed the House as it has in Missouri. A Florida bill that would
00:52:10.260
consolidate state scholarship programs into ESAs for some 200,000 students is still
00:52:14.980
percolating in the Senate. So school choice advancements also happening in several states.
00:52:22.240
All of this legislation, by the way, if it not, if it has not been signed into law by the governor,
00:52:27.840
you still have an opportunity to call your state representative, to call your state senator,
00:52:33.940
wherever the bill happens to be, and make sure that they vote yes on the bills that you care about.
00:52:39.280
School choice is one of the most important civil rights issues of our time. Again,
00:52:44.000
mostly affecting middle and low income students to make sure that they have access to quality
00:52:50.700
education. The lack of the lack of quality in our education system has nothing to do with funding,
00:52:57.640
as we've talked about several times. That, again, is a myth. Funding to public education has only
00:53:03.000
increased since the 1960s, and yet teacher salaries have barely gone up and student outcomes really have
00:53:10.220
an increase. Under Barack Obama, billions and billions of dollars, according to the Washington
00:53:15.840
Post, were pumped in to failing public schools over the span of seven years. They saw no positive
00:53:23.280
changes, no positive results from the funding of public schools. It has to do with the corruption
00:53:28.120
and the bureaucracy and the administrative bloat of the public education system that does not allow
00:53:35.440
those dollars to actually influence the teachers and help the students and give them resources.
00:53:42.840
It's not a lack of funding issue that we have in our public education system. It's a corruption issue,
00:53:47.580
and school choice incentivizes higher quality in schools so they can continue to have students come
00:53:55.580
to their schools. When the money follows the child, all of a sudden you are creating a marketplace of
00:54:01.540
schools to be able to compete for education, to be able to compete for students, and that kind of
00:54:08.680
competition creates higher quality as it does in every part of the marketplace. Also, the Texas Senate
00:54:15.660
approves the bill to stop social media companies from banning taxes for political views. The Texas
00:54:22.560
Senate early Thursday approved a bill, according to Texas Tribune, that would prohibit social media
00:54:28.540
companies with at least 100 million monthly users from blocking, banning, demonetizing, or discriminating
00:54:33.920
against a user based on their viewpoint or their location within Texas. So that's interesting.
00:54:39.680
Florida is also taking a stand against big tech censorship. So legislation seeking to increase
00:54:45.240
transparency in big tech and fight back against social media censorship. It's moving quickly through
00:54:50.780
the Florida House. It would require social media companies to tell Florida residents why they were banned
00:54:55.700
within 30 days of it happening. It creates a path of legal action for Florida residents to sue social
00:55:01.160
media companies. And so that gives a lot of power in the hands of social media users when they feel like
00:55:08.020
they are being unfairly discriminated against in Texas and Florida. We'll see if that holds up. There's some
00:55:13.620
other good conservative news. For example, Nancy Pelosi and Rita Hart finally gave up on their power grab to
00:55:22.260
steal a house seat for Democrats amid pressure from Iowans. We've talked about this. Rita Hart actually
00:55:27.260
lost her her congressional race in Iowa by just a few votes. And so she asked the House of Representatives
00:55:36.680
under the control of Nancy Pelosi to investigate into this because she claims that there's fraud, even
00:55:41.880
though the state election board in Iowa already said that there's no fraud and that the Republican
00:55:48.240
candidate actually won fair and square. Nancy Pelosi said that she was actually considering unseating the
00:55:54.960
certified legitimate winner of the Iowa election and giving that seat to the Democrat Rita Hart. I think maybe
00:56:01.460
they realize that that's the exact thing that they criticize Republicans for doing in regards to the
00:56:07.240
presidential election back in January. They said those people were actually encouraging terrorism by
00:56:15.420
questioning the results of the presidential election. Nancy Pelosi was literally just because she wanted
00:56:20.640
to about to take away a seat from a Republican, give it to a Democrat in Iowa. Thankfully, she has backed
00:56:27.260
off on that. So that's no longer going to happen. Things are looking good in the places that have opened up
00:56:33.060
like Texas. Their rates have gone down even after the mask mandate has been lifted, even after businesses are no
00:56:40.300
longer restricted. Same thing in Florida, even though places like California, Gavin Newsom called this
00:56:46.960
absolutely reckless, but it has not been reckless. The results actually have been very good. The rate of
00:56:54.360
infection and the rate of death in Florida, for example, per 100,000 people is much lower than, for example,
00:57:02.040
in New York, in California, in Massachusetts, in various states that still have those restrictions. And so
00:57:09.400
that's really good news. OK, now I want to get into just one like feel good story and then we'll end
00:57:16.340
with some gospel truth. I know this is a longer a longer episode. I ended up having more commentary
00:57:21.240
than I thought. All right. I want to talk about this sweet story that I saw in CBS News. A 19 year old
00:57:32.040
with autism pins cover letter to future employers. The article says a young man recently pinned an honest
00:57:38.000
cover letter to his future employer and posted it on LinkedIn, where it eventually went viral.
00:57:42.420
My name is Ryan Lowry. I am 19 years old. I live in Leesburg, Virginia, and I have autism.
00:57:47.460
In his letter, Lowry goes on to explain that he has a unique sense of humor. He's gifted at math
00:57:51.260
and technology and is a quick learner. He wrote the letter with one goal to get a job in animation or
00:57:56.300
IT. I realize that someone like you will have to take a chance on me, he says in his letter.
00:58:01.020
I don't learn like typical people do. I would need a mentor to teach me, but I learn quickly.
00:58:07.120
Once you explain it, I get it. I promise that if you hire me and teach me, you'll be glad that you
00:58:12.820
did. Lowry then assures his future employer he will show up every day and work hard and his sincerity
00:58:18.840
and determination. In this letter, it touched many people. The article says the post received more than
00:58:24.240
180,000 reactions and more than 6,000 comments on LinkedIn. One of the people who saw the post was a man
00:58:30.340
named Aaron Perry, an executive at a 3D and animation studio. Perry brought Lowry's story
00:58:34.900
to Exceptional Minds, an academy and studio for digital artists and animators with autism.
00:58:39.400
David Siegel, executive director at Exceptional Minds, knew Lowry was a perfect candidate for the
00:58:45.460
academy, which trains people with autism in the art of animation and helps them with job placement.
00:58:50.940
Lowry will now take virtual classes for eight weeks of summer through Exceptional Minds.
00:58:55.520
While the animation classes are usually held at Exceptional Minds studio in California,
00:58:59.160
the classes are virtual due to COVID. He gets to do that, which is one of his dreams. I love that he
00:59:07.760
was so honest about this. I love his cover letter and just how transparent he was and how sincere he
00:59:14.060
was and that he just wanted to be able to work hard and prove himself. He wasn't looking for any kind of
00:59:19.080
special treatment. And I do love one good thing about our society is that I think that we have become
00:59:26.420
more understanding and in some ways, not in enough ways, but in some ways have become more
00:59:32.840
accepting and compassionate towards people with special needs. And we absolutely need to highlight
00:59:39.780
and continue to reward people who simply want to work hard and want to be rewarded based
00:59:45.820
on their merit. And so I just, I applaud this young man for his cover letter. I know it can be hard.
00:59:53.700
I know a lot of people, I've known a lot of people throughout my life who have autism and it can be
00:59:58.820
especially hard for them to put themselves out there and for them to articulate and communicate
01:00:05.260
their thoughts in some situations. And he was very articulate and was able to very honestly
01:00:10.940
give an assessment of what he brings to the table. And I love that it went viral, that someone reached
01:00:16.520
out to him. And now that he's connected to an opportunity, I just hope it goes well for him.
01:00:21.560
I truly think that as toxic as our current culture is, we are always looking for ways to bring joy to
01:00:30.360
people. Like I do think that essentially our neighbors want to do well for each other. Like it brings
01:00:37.020
you joy. It makes you happy to help someone else, to connect someone else to something that they need.
01:00:43.720
I think that we need to run after that high that generosity and charity gives us rather than trying
01:00:49.720
to push it down and find ways to be divided. I think we need to remember that most of our neighbors
01:00:55.280
and most people in everyday life aren't thinking about politics. They're not thinking about our
01:00:59.080
differences. Most people that I interact with on a daily basis are very kind, especially if I can tell
01:01:05.900
that they're in a bad mood maybe or they're not having a great day. If I'm kind to them, my tone
01:01:11.760
or my smile, depends on if you're wearing a mask or not, it can change their tone. A kind word turns
01:01:19.780
away wrath, as the Bible says. And I think it's the same for you, the same for everyone. When I'm in a
01:01:24.420
bad mood and someone's tone is kind and I can tell they love their job and that they're working hard,
01:01:30.540
that can make all the difference in my day. I still think most people are committed to those kinds
01:01:36.400
of interactions and relationships. I still think most people want that to be the characterization
01:01:43.580
of our country. There's one other feel-good story that I wanted to point to. This is according to NBC.
01:01:51.320
A couple adopts seven siblings in foster care after their parents die in a car crash. This is devastating,
01:01:58.720
but also redemptive. Pam Willis was scrolling through her Facebook feed in 2019 when she
01:02:04.260
landed on a news story about seven siblings in need of a permanent home. The children who range
01:02:08.940
from age one to 12 have been in foster care for more than a year after losing both parents
01:02:12.920
in a horrific rollover crash. Pam couldn't stop staring at their faces. I can't explain it. I just
01:02:18.680
knew I was supposed to be their mom, Pam 50 told today parents. Pam and her husband Gary have been
01:02:25.240
fostering kids for years and they share five adult children. They called the number listed at the
01:02:29.880
bottom of the story and they were matched two months later to these seven siblings. They adopted them
01:02:38.580
all. In August, the emotional ceremony was attended virtually by Pam and Gary's biological children.
01:02:45.840
And so I love stories of people purposely running into discomfort and running into pain simply for
01:02:55.820
the sake of helping someone else. Again, I think there are more people like this in our country,
01:03:01.860
which I still believe, by the way, is the greatest country in the world. There are more people like
01:03:06.880
this than there are people who want to do harm. There are a lot of bad people out there. There are a lot
01:03:11.280
bad things out there, but there's also a lot of good. There's a lot of compassion. There are
01:03:15.700
image bearers walking around that reflect God's love and God's charity and God's kindness to other
01:03:24.080
people. And I think that we as Christians have the utmost responsibility to not just emulate that and
01:03:30.300
to not just represent that in the world, but also to see that in other people and to highlight the
01:03:37.220
ways that we see that in our communities. And so I'm so thankful for these sweet parents who decided
01:03:42.400
to go out of their way to make sure that these kids were cared for. I can't imagine what these
01:03:47.200
kids have gone through over the past couple of years. And so thank the Lord for Pam and Gary for
01:03:52.900
doing that. There are a few other feel good stories that I could get to, but I already I know that this
01:03:57.760
is already long. So I want to end with the best with the best news of all. And that is the news of the
01:04:03.400
gospel. That's what we're celebrating this weekend. Of course, as Christians, that's what we celebrate
01:04:07.640
every day. Every day that we're reminded of our sins, we're reminded of our failures, we're reminded
01:04:12.320
of our fate if it had not been for Christ. We talk a lot about Ephesians 2, how we are either dead in
01:04:22.160
sin or alive in Christ. And Ephesians 2 says that we used to all be under the influence of the prince of
01:04:29.080
the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience and were by nature
01:04:35.280
children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love
01:04:42.320
with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ, by grace we have been saved. We talk
01:04:47.380
about that passage in Ephesians 2 so much because it's the perfect depiction of the gospel. We have
01:04:53.120
been made alive together with Christ. And the way that we can say that we've been made alive together
01:04:58.280
with Christ is because Jesus himself died and rose again, and he has become our resurrection
01:05:04.420
and our life. And that's exactly what he says in John 11, 25 through 27. This is in the midst
01:05:12.100
of mourning over Lazarus's death. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me,
01:05:19.740
though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
01:05:26.120
Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ,
01:05:31.540
the son of God who is coming into the world. So what's the difference in Jesus, in any other prophet,
01:05:38.400
any other teacher, any other religious leader who has died? The difference, well, there's many
01:05:44.180
differences, but one of the differences, the biggest difference is that he came back. He didn't
01:05:50.060
just die. He's not just gone forever, is that he actually, he was actually raised again. He actually
01:05:56.260
became our resurrection when he was resurrected from the dead. And let's read that story a little
01:06:02.520
bit, and we'll talk about why we can be so confident in that and why that resurrection gives
01:06:07.500
us confidence and should give us every reason to rejoice every day, but especially as we go into this
01:06:12.540
weekend. Matthew 28, 1 through 6. Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the
01:06:18.120
week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. I don't know why I just, that phrase
01:06:24.860
tickles me. The other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake for an angel
01:06:31.180
of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance
01:06:35.380
was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became
01:06:39.960
like dead men. But the angel said to the woman, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus
01:06:45.800
who was crucified. He is not here. This might be the greatest, most consequential verse in the entire
01:06:51.640
Bible. He is not here, for he has risen as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. So Jesus was
01:07:00.920
resurrected from the dead. Mary and the other Mary went to go see him, to visit him in his tomb. An angel
01:07:07.420
came to him, came to them and said, no, no, no. Remember, he said that he was going to rise again.
01:07:12.120
He did exactly what he said he was going to do. And he has defeated death by walking out of this
01:07:21.020
tomb, which was guarded by this heavy stone. How the heck did that happen? Because he is the God of
01:07:24.960
the universe. First Corinthians 15, three through nine says this, for I deliver to you, this is Paul
01:07:31.540
speaking to the church in Corinth, for I deliver to you as a first importance, what I also received,
01:07:36.360
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and he was
01:07:41.600
raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. So this is not random. It was to
01:07:46.260
fulfill prophecy. And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500
01:07:52.880
brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. So you see that claim?
01:07:59.700
It's not just that Jesus rose from the dead. It's actually that he appeared to people, that he appeared
01:08:04.480
to not just the 12, but he actually appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom
01:08:10.780
are still alive. So why do we trust this testimony? Vodibachum talks about this a lot because it's a
01:08:16.460
collection of eyewitness testimonies, in particular of the resurrection, what is, to many people,
01:08:24.220
understandably, the most unbelievable part of the gospel, and therefore the most essential part of the
01:08:29.140
gospel. He's saying, look, I don't just believe this, but I saw it, and over 500 people saw it,
01:08:35.380
and some of them are still alive as I am writing this. That's what gives this so much credibility.
01:08:40.620
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and then Paul says, last of all,
01:08:44.820
as to one untimely born. I love that humility. He appeared also to me, for I am the least of the
01:08:51.120
apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. And yet, as he also
01:08:58.720
says in 1 Corinthians 1, God chooses that which the world would scoff at, that which the world would
01:09:05.260
reject, to bring to nothing the things that the world regards as wise and powerful. God uses the
01:09:13.100
unexpected all of the time in order to bring himself glory and to achieve his purposes. And Paul
01:09:19.200
is a perfect example of that. Now, in Acts, we see and hear the gospel so perfectly coming from
01:09:26.880
Peter in particular, when the Jews are given the gospel and the Gentiles are given the gospel. I'm
01:09:34.380
going to read you parts, not the whole passage because it's a little long, but parts of Acts 2, 22 through
01:09:41.940
37. So, men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty
01:09:50.540
works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst. And by the way, that's an
01:09:56.080
authentication of Jesus's divinity, the mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him.
01:10:03.880
As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge
01:10:09.440
of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the
01:10:16.720
pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. And then he says that David
01:10:22.520
actually prophesied to this in, he quotes Psalm 16. Then he goes on, brothers, I may say to you with
01:10:30.440
confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this
01:10:35.000
day. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set
01:10:40.460
one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw, David foresaw, and spoke about the resurrection of the
01:10:45.740
Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. That's what Psalm 16 says.
01:10:52.020
This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Let all the house of Israel therefore
01:10:58.860
know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
01:11:05.940
And I love this passage. I've always loved this, these two verses. Now, when they heard this, this,
01:11:10.760
this audience, now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest
01:11:16.120
of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one
01:11:22.120
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the
01:11:27.500
Holy Spirit. That's what happens when you hear the gospel and God has made your heart ripe and made your
01:11:33.820
heart soft and good soil for planting the seeds of the gospel. What happens is you are convicted. You're cut
01:11:42.220
to the heart. You want to know, what do I do with this news? What do I do with this knowledge that this Jesus
01:11:47.680
died for my sins and then was raised again by God? What do I do? You worship, you repent, you turn to God.
01:11:55.060
Acts 10, the Gentiles get to hear the good news. So this is great for all of us who are not Jewish,
01:12:00.400
that Jesus also means reconciliation to God for Gentiles. So this is Acts 10, 34.
01:12:07.620
So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality,
01:12:12.500
but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word
01:12:18.560
that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all,
01:12:23.240
you yourselves know what happened. Throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism
01:12:28.660
that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,
01:12:34.340
he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him.
01:12:39.260
And we are all witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
01:12:44.440
They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to
01:12:50.660
appear not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses. He commanded us to
01:12:58.040
preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and
01:13:05.360
the dead. So if you ever hear, by the way, someone say that Jesus isn't about judging people, doesn't
01:13:11.620
judge. Jesus is the judge. First Corinthians 1, 22 through 24. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek
01:13:20.260
wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those
01:13:28.200
who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. That's who Jesus
01:13:35.080
is to us. That's what his resurrection means for us. It means eternal life for us. That's why we get
01:13:41.400
to rejoice at Easter. We should be praying also. Remember to pray for our brothers and sisters in
01:13:47.880
Christ around the world, because there are unfortunately attacks that happen throughout the
01:13:56.900
world, especially in the Middle East that target Christians on Easter weekend. We've unfortunately seen
01:14:02.900
that in the past. And so just be praying for the protection of saints throughout the world and be
01:14:09.380
rejoicing that we have hope, not just in this life, but also in the next. We talked about all these
01:14:14.980
political victories, which I think are good, these cultural victories, these good news stories,
01:14:19.900
and all of those are wonderful. And we can focus on changes that are being made in that way. But
01:14:24.820
ultimately, we know the world as it is, is going away. It's going to pass. And so while I think it's
01:14:31.000
important for us to care about what's going on in the here and the now, to be involved in what's
01:14:35.000
going on in the here and the now, to look after the welfare of the places in which we dwell, to care
01:14:41.160
about the future generations and the burdens that they're going to carry, to make sure we are infusing
01:14:45.680
light and truth and wisdom and goodness into every sphere we occupy. Ultimately, our hope is not here
01:14:52.720
because our home is not here. Our hope is in heaven because our home is in heaven. And that has been
01:14:57.980
accomplished to us through the reconciling death of Jesus Christ and his conquering resurrection that
01:15:05.240
we celebrate this weekend. What sets Jesus apart is not just that he is a very smart guy. It's not
01:15:13.180
just that he died, although, of course, that is part of the crux of Christianity. And it's not even just
01:15:19.820
that he rose again, although that is what sets him apart from all of the prophets and all of the
01:15:25.540
teachers and all the other religious leaders. What really sets him apart is that every other
01:15:29.600
religion tells you how to get to God. It tells you here's the mountain that you have to climb. Here's
01:15:34.520
the rules that you have to follow. Here's the way that you have to make yourself clean and make yourself
01:15:39.740
right before God. Here's how you earn God's affection. Here's how you earn acceptance, except for
01:15:46.500
Christianity. The gospel says something different than every other religion. The gospel of
01:15:52.580
Christianity says you can't get to God. There's nothing that you can do. There is nothing that you
01:15:59.640
can do to make yourself right or clean or acceptable to God. And because of that, because God loves you
01:16:07.420
so much, he is going to come down for you. So you don't climb up the mountain. He gets off his throne.
01:16:15.000
He comes down the mountain to rescue sinners, to save the lost sheep, to find the lost coin,
01:16:22.200
to chase after the prodigal son. The difference is that God is pursuing us in Christianity. God is
01:16:30.140
making us right. He is making us acceptable. He is making us pure. He is making us clean. He is
01:16:38.740
providing the sacrifice on our behalf. There is nothing we can do to become acceptable to God. God has made us
01:16:47.340
acceptable through his son by grace through faith in Christ. That is the freeing, liberating,
01:16:57.500
um, exceptional reality of Christianity and of the gospel. And that is what we cling to. That's the
01:17:05.180
best. That's the best and most eternal news of all. I know this was a very long episode. Uh, that's
01:17:11.460
because I had a lot to say. There's a lot of good news and we could have gone on for a lot longer than
01:17:15.220
that, but I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend. Have a wonderful Easter. We will be back here on