The NXR Podcast - BONUS EPISODE - A Parable For Conservatives ｜ You’re Not Fearful, You’re Just Wicked

00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.

00:00:01.940 Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry

00:00:04.620 because you're spending your cash and your lives

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00:00:08.540 in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

00:00:10.560 Praise God for you and that endeavor.

00:00:13.700 However, algorithms are a thing.

00:00:16.220 Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.

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00:00:21.600 the reach and effectiveness of this ministry

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00:00:40.080 Speaking to Christians, because that's my primary audience, the fact that we have truth on our side

00:00:47.040 doesn't mean that we should use that as an excuse to make crappy stuff.

00:00:53.180 stop that stop making that excuse right facts over feelings yes facts should matter more than 1.00

00:01:03.200 feelings but here's the problem uh you you can talk to that purple-haired feminist 1.00

00:01:08.180 about why facts don't care about their feelings um but they don't care they don't care about the 1.00

00:01:17.000 facts. See, the reason why the wicked are so good at storytelling, I've been thinking about this a

00:01:24.840 lot over the last few weeks as we've spent so much time and focus and effort on upping our game

00:01:31.600 in terms of excellent media. I've been thinking about why are those who hate Christ, why do they

00:01:39.340 make the best movies and the best this? Why are they better at media? And ultimately,

00:01:47.300 really what it comes down to, why are they better storytellers than Christians and, to a lesser 0.50

00:01:53.540 degree, conservatives? Why are the most wicked people on the planet better at storytelling than 0.92

00:02:01.060 the people of God? I think the answer is this, because they have to be. Because if you don't

00:02:07.540 have the facts, right? So facts over feelings, because we do have the facts as Christians,

00:02:12.160 because we do have the truth, I think sometimes we can just lean on the facts, lean on the truth,

00:02:17.800 lean on the message, and not care at all about the medium. Lean on the message without caring

00:02:23.880 at all about the medium, right? The venue of that message, the way in which how it's being conveyed,

00:02:31.700 how it's being portrayed. And so, but if you're wicked, what I'm saying is, if you're a liar, 0.99

00:02:37.540 because that's what we're talking about, right? 0.98

00:02:39.260 If you're Joe Biden, you're Nancy Pelosi, right?

00:02:41.680 You're Chuck Schumer. 1.00

00:02:42.680 If you're just a liar, if you're Hollywood, you're a liar. 1.00

00:02:46.960 I mean, that's what you do for a living. 0.99

00:02:48.420 Then you better have good sets.

00:02:50.920 You better have great lighting.

00:02:53.060 You better have great actors.

00:02:55.880 You better have a great plot.

00:02:57.820 You better have a great story. 0.99

00:02:59.220 You better be good at storytelling if you are a liar. 0.99

00:03:04.580 Liars have to be good at storytelling. 0.89

00:03:07.380 They have to, because that's the only way that they could persuade anyone, right? 0.93

00:03:12.620 I mean, listen to false teachers, right?

00:03:14.520 Get away from politics and get away from Hollywood, you know, and entertainment and media for

00:03:18.340 a second.

00:03:18.900 Just think about within the church.

00:03:20.620 And when I say that, I don't mean true churches, but the church institute.

00:03:24.180 Think about that prosperity.

00:03:25.220 Think about Joel Osteen, right?

00:03:27.360 Think about Benny Hinn.

00:03:28.420 Think about Jesse Duplantis.

00:03:30.160 My goodness, he'd be a great example.

00:03:31.680 Jesse Duplantis, false teacher extraordinaire.

00:03:34.740 What is, if they teach, preach a sermon for, let's say, 40 minutes, 30 minutes of that

00:03:40.920 sermon, what is it going to be?

00:03:43.040 A deep, meticulous, biblical exegesis?

00:03:46.480 No.

00:03:47.880 Storytelling.

00:03:49.440 So the other day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I remember, and pulling on your

00:03:52.840 heartstrings and doing this and doing that, it's manipulation.

00:03:56.400 But here's the deal.

00:03:57.160 They have to manipulate because the actual contents of their message, the facts, aren't

00:04:02.840 facts.

00:04:03.900 In fact, they're blatantly false, false.

00:04:06.900 They're obviously false.

00:04:09.100 It's clear to anyone with an ounce of common sense,

00:04:12.960 even an unregenerate person, 0.55

00:04:14.960 even a non-Christian can watch Benny Hinn and say, 0.86

00:04:17.440 yeah, that's a charlatan. 1.00

00:04:19.020 That's a liar. 1.00

00:04:20.340 This is a Ponzi scheme, right? 0.98

00:04:22.380 It's so obvious.

00:04:23.620 So they have to be excellent at storytelling

00:04:28.360 because what they're trying to sell you

00:04:31.060 is so clearly false, it's so clearly untrue, that they have to dress it up and they have to dress it

00:04:39.240 up extravagantly well, very, very well. And for those of us who agree with Christ or submitted

00:04:47.200 to Christ and his lordship and the truth of his word, because we have the truth on our side,

00:04:52.120 because we have the facts on our side, the good, the true, and the beautiful. Because we don't

00:04:57.700 think that the beauty is needed. Because, hey, you know, to persuade someone, all I need is this pie

00:05:03.140 chart. Because the pie chart clearly says in statistical science that I'm right and these

00:05:12.420 liberals and progressives are wrong. Well, yeah, it does say that. But there's a lot of people who

00:05:19.180 don't care. And if we get good at storytelling, there's a lot of people who still won't care.

00:05:23.620 I get that. I'm aware. But some people might be won over. They might. And you might say, well,

00:05:30.600 we shouldn't win them over with storytelling, just win them over with the truth. I'm not talking

00:05:34.700 about storytelling at the expense of truth. I'm talking about the good, the true, and the

00:05:38.480 beautiful. That's a package deal. That's a triple-braided cord. They're not separated.

00:05:43.120 These aren't independent. The true is what's beautiful. Truth is beauty. So convey it as

00:05:50.300 though it's beautiful. Convey the truth in beautiful ways. And so that's one of the things

00:05:55.940 that we want to do on this channel with this ministry, right? Response Ministries is we want

00:06:00.480 to tell the truth. We want to tell the truth courageously, right? We are not winsomely winsome,

00:06:06.840 winsome, winsome guys, right? We're not the gospel coalition. Just put it out there. No,

00:06:11.860 there's going to be courage. There's going to be a few based moments from time to time where

00:06:17.640 you might even cringe. Did he really just say that? Repeal the 19th Amendment. Did Joel actually say

00:06:22.820 that? You know, those kind of lines, right? You've heard me say a few of those and you're going to

00:06:26.200 hear plenty more. So there's going to be courage. There's going to be truth. But we also want there

00:06:31.480 to be excellence. Excellence. Because Christ is worthy of it. And because Christians should be

00:06:37.720 the best. We should be the best. We have the worldview that actually makes sense of the world

00:06:44.120 God created. We have the truth, and therefore, if we have the truth, we should also have beauty.

00:06:50.980 Christians have a monopoly on beauty, and as the world continues to go apostate, as our nation in 0.91

00:06:56.820 America, specifically for those of you who are listening locally, who are fellow American 0.97

00:07:01.060 citizens, as our nation continues to apostatize and to turn its back on God, his truth, and his

00:07:08.040 mercy in previous generations, that will be reflected in every realm of life. It won't just

00:07:13.960 be their doctrine. See, doctrine matters because what a person believes affects, it has implications

00:07:20.220 on every other thing that that person does. If you have bad theology, guess what? You're a bad

00:07:26.620 artist, and it's finally starting to show. As our nation and our culture and political rulers

00:07:33.900 and civil magistrates continue to abandon Christ, his principles, and his words, that's starting to

00:07:40.660 show up in the culture, that's starting to show up in legislation, and that's also starting to

00:07:45.540 show up even in art, to where there's an unveiling of some big monument, and the response from even

00:07:53.440 just the average person is, oh my, that's embarrassing. That's ugly. Not just ugly,

00:08:00.340 but it's perverse. It's shameful. Certainly, you can't be proud of this monstrosity, right?

00:08:09.820 And so as the world apostatizes from God, it's not just that they're becoming more false and

00:08:17.340 less true. It's also becoming more ugly and less beautiful. And as we continue to further commit

00:08:24.580 to true doctrine, to the truth of God's word, we should be increasing not just with truer facts

00:08:31.980 or more true facts or however you want to say it, but also excellence in everything that we do,

00:08:38.620 not just what we say but how we say it how we convey it everything that we do right if you're

00:08:44.340 in construction you should make beautiful things in construction like this wood wall behind me

00:08:51.140 if you're media and video you should do excellent media and video like what you're seeing right now

00:08:58.960 and if you don't have much of a budget a lot of people say well i i want to do those things

00:09:03.900 I just can't, you know, I just can't afford it, then be faithful with little. Take what the Lord

00:09:09.020 has given you. I think too many Christians, they complain and say, a lot of Christians just don't 0.97

00:09:13.300 care about beauty because they don't see the correlation between truth and beauty. That's 0.77

00:09:16.840 what I've been addressing so far. But beyond that, another problem that Christians run into is they'll 1.00

00:09:21.960 say, okay, well, I see how truth, you know, and beauty relate to one another. And yeah, we should

00:09:26.280 do things that are excellent and beautiful, but we just don't have the resources. Hollywood has

00:09:30.560 billions of dollars for their productions. We just don't have... Okay, that's fine, but are you

00:09:36.600 being faithful with what you do have? Or are you being like the wicked servant? That's what Christ

00:09:42.140 calls him, the wicked servant who, because he was given one talent and his peers were given two and

00:09:48.500 five, instead of taking the one talent he has and working with it and getting as much mileage out

00:09:54.240 of that one talent for the good of the master that he possibly can, he takes it and he buries it.

00:09:58.980 he buries it in the sand. Right? I think there are a lot of Christians who rather than applying

00:10:05.440 the principle of faithful with little, be faithful with much, they're saying it's too little. And so

00:10:10.900 I won't be, I won't do anything with it at all. I'm just going to bury it in the sand. And here's

00:10:15.080 the thing about that parable. I'll say this real quick and then I'll take some questions.

00:10:19.320 But the interesting thing about that parable is that we often think of that servant who was given

00:10:24.580 one talent. His two contemporaries were given five and two. And we think of him as burying

00:10:30.780 his talent in the sand because, well, out of fear. We think he's the fearful servant. He's not the

00:10:38.420 fearful servant. He's the wicked servant, is what the Bible says. Why is he described as wicked

00:10:45.120 rather than fearful? Well, because the fearful are wicked. Yeah, you could make a biblical

00:10:50.220 principle for that, certainly. There's an association between righteousness and courage

00:10:55.580 and therefore fearfulness and evil. There is an evil to fearful apathy, certainly. But I think

00:11:03.480 it's beyond that. The reason why this guy is not called the fearful servant, but the wicked servant

00:11:08.740 is because he actually wasn't fearful. He claims to be fearful, but the master in the parable calls

00:11:16.240 him on his bluff. See, this is what he says. He says that I knew you to be a hard man. When the

00:11:23.320 master returns to get back his investment, he says, you know, what's going on? Where's my money?

00:11:32.780 Why haven't you grown it? Why haven't you increased it? And he says, well, I buried it in the sand.

00:11:38.780 And he says, you know, my reasoning? Well, my reasoning is because I knew you to be a hard man

00:11:45.520 Reaping where you did not sow.

00:11:48.340 Reaping where you did not sow.

00:11:50.320 That's the first problem.

00:11:53.160 There is nowhere where the master has not sown.

00:11:58.740 The master reaps everywhere

00:12:01.140 because the master has sown everywhere.

00:12:04.220 It all belongs to the master.

00:12:06.880 Everything we have was given and sown by the master.

00:12:11.060 The breath in your lungs come from the master.

00:12:15.020 your IQ comes from the master. If you have two working arms and legs, it comes from the master.

00:12:23.320 Your children come from the master. Your marriage comes from the master. Your house, your money,

00:12:27.560 everything you have comes from the master. God has never, never attempted to sow or to reap

00:12:34.540 where he has not sown because everything in this world was sown by God. Every good and perfect gift

00:12:42.640 comes down from the father of lights. He created all the cosmos, ex nihilo, out of nothing. And

00:12:49.840 all we ever do as creatures, he alone is the creator who makes out of nothing. But we as

00:12:57.280 creatures, what we do is we take what God has created, those initial resources, the cosmos

00:13:03.360 that he's given us, the life he's given us, the breath that he's given us, and we steward those

00:13:08.880 things in such a way that they grow. So anything that we have developed, it's not something that

00:13:15.040 we made out of nothing. It's something that we took from the Lord and multiplied. So there is

00:13:21.120 no place where the master has not sown. And so in this parable, going back to the parable, he says,

00:13:26.080 if you knew me like that, right? The servant says, I knew you to be a hard man. What he's saying is,

00:13:31.620 I knew you to be a harsh and unreasonable and unfair man, unreasonably hard, a hard man without

00:13:43.020 cause, without just cause for being so hard, a man who would unfairly and unjustly reap where he

00:13:51.300 didn't even sow. That's who I knew you to be. And the master calls him on his bluff. He says,

00:13:57.960 no, that's not fear speaking. That's not actually what you thought. You're claiming that's your

00:14:03.160 narrative. That's the line you've been rehearsing, planning for my return, but that's not actually

00:14:08.700 what you believe. And he calls on him by saying this. He answers the fool according to his

00:14:14.120 folly. He says, let's follow that line of logic for a second. If that were true, if you were just 0.99

00:14:18.860 fearful because you misunderstood my nature, my character, because you would be wrong. I'm not a

00:14:26.040 hard man who reaps where I don't sow. But let's just say that you thought that, that you had a

00:14:30.980 misconception, a misunderstanding about my character, about what kind of man I am. And you

00:14:35.860 thought that I was an unfair man who goes around reaping where he's never even sown. Well, even if

00:14:42.780 you thought that and you had this, you know, you were the fearful servant rather than the wicked

00:14:47.300 servant, here's what a fearful servant would have done. He would have at minimum invested my money

00:14:52.820 with the bankers so that upon my return, I would at least get my investment, my initial investment

00:14:59.100 back with interest. But you didn't do that. See, if you actually believe what you're saying,

00:15:05.680 if you were actually a fearful man, a fearful servant, this is how you would have behaved.

00:15:11.800 This is what a fearful servant would have done. No, you're not a fearful servant.

00:15:15.860 you're a wicked servant you buried my money in the dirt to do nothing to get zero return 0.98

00:15:24.120 not out of fear but out of resentment you hate me you're not afraid of me you hate me and you 0.99

00:15:33.260 hate me because i gave more to the other servants than i gave you and you didn't think that was fair 0.76

00:15:40.320 and you were bitter and jealous

00:15:43.800 and you held a grudge against me.

00:15:48.160 And because I gave two talents

00:15:50.560 to your friend and fellow servant over there

00:15:53.720 and five talents to your friend

00:15:56.580 and fellow servant over there

00:15:58.500 and only one talent to you, 0.97

00:16:01.620 you took offense at me

00:16:02.980 and you wanted to get back at me

00:16:06.060 by ensuring this was no accident.

00:16:10.320 This wasn't just fearful apathy.

00:16:12.280 This was deliberate.

00:16:13.320 You wanted to deliberately ensure that I wouldn't get a dime back on my investment.

00:16:20.060 You're not the fearful servant. 0.93

00:16:21.940 You're the wicked servant. 0.99

00:16:24.320 You're the wicked servant. 1.00

00:16:26.940 And my point is this. 1.00

00:16:28.460 As Christians, you may have less resources. 0.78

00:16:32.640 But first, step one, you should associate, draw the correlation between the true and

00:16:39.960 good and the beautiful truth goodness and beauty is a triple braided cord it goes together

00:16:48.400 because we have the truth let's not say because we have the facts we don't need to be good at

00:16:54.680 telling stories no let's have the facts and tell a glorious story that lives up to that it's it's

00:17:02.920 worthy of of the quality of the facts and truth that we've been given so first correlate truth

00:17:09.180 goodness, and beauty. Don't sever them. Secondly, when it comes to beauty, and you maybe don't have

00:17:16.800 all the resources that you would like to have, be faithful with little, trusting that eventually,

00:17:22.620 if it be the Lord's will, he might give you much to be faithful with much. And lastly,

00:17:29.140 be faithful with little, and don't be a fearful servant, and certainly don't be a wicked servant.

00:17:37.320 Don't say that because God has given you less than somebody else, right?

00:17:40.960 Well, you know, because we had $15,000 to work with our studio and Ligonier has, you

00:17:45.660 know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, then we're just not going to do anything.

00:17:49.880 No, no, we're going to make the very best thing we possibly can with 15 grand.

00:17:56.800 And by God's grace and his grace alone, we did.

00:18:01.140 And you get to enjoy that now.

00:18:02.800 And not just in this video, but every single video from here on out, Lord willing, until we

00:18:10.220 eventually do something even better. Can I be frank with you for just a second right here at

00:18:15.840 the end? Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry. And from the bottom of

00:18:21.140 my heart, I say, thank you. I cannot thank you enough. However, some of you, you just, you can't

00:18:28.400 afford it. In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest. I mean, we're living

00:18:34.540 in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their 0.96

00:18:43.440 minds over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply cannot cash.

00:18:50.760 It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession. We are living in a recession

00:18:56.840 right now regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.

00:19:04.340 You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you, but you could still

00:19:11.120 help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your

00:19:18.160 time. Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever that

00:19:25.360 might be, this is the way the system works. We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.

00:19:32.240 We need to be strategic. You leave us a five-star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.

00:19:39.460 And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of life

00:19:46.600 gets out there. Help us get it out there. Thanks for tuning in.

The NXR Podcast - February 04, 2023

BONUS EPISODE - A Parable For Conservatives ｜ You’re Not Fearful, You’re Just Wicked

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