The NXR Podcast - March 23, 2023


DAILY TRUTH - Jesus Is The Master Of “Church-Shrinking” Strategies

Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Isaiah Joe Biden Peter
DAILY TRUTH - Do Human Beings Actually Have Free Will？ DAILY TRUTH - Can A Christian Lose Their Salvation？

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

128.97

Word count

1,475

Sentence count

87

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Pastor Ken teaches us about the power of parables and how they can be used in our daily lives to point us toward the truth of God's Word. God bless you as you listen to Daily Truth.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
00:00:01 Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your
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00:00:10 Praise God for you and that endeavor.
00:00:13 However, algorithms are a thing.
00:00:16 Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.
00:00:19 And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry
00:00:24 that doesn't cost you a dime is by spending just a few moments leaving us a five-star
00:00:29 review. Also, perhaps even more effective than that, you can share our podcast with a friend.
00:00:36 We hope you'll take the time to do so. Thank you so much. God bless.
00:00:42 Jesus said, man cannot live on bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of
00:00:47 God. You're listening to Daily Truth. There's a time in Christ's earthly ministry where his own
00:00:56 disciples questioned him after one of his public teachings. They asked Jesus, why is it that you
00:01:03 always speak in parables? There are times that later you'll provide plain speech and interpretation
00:01:11 of the parables for us, your closest disciples, in private. But to the people in public, you
00:01:20 exclusively speak in parables.
00:01:25 And Jesus responds to their question by quoting Isaiah, the prophet, and says this is to fulfill
00:01:33 Isaiah's prophecy, that they would be ever hearing, but never listening, ever seeing,
00:01:43 but never perceiving, that their hearts would be darkened and never receive understanding.
00:01:50 In other words, although there are many today who say, you know, pastors should preach more like Jesus.
00:01:57 Jesus used parables, and parables are helpful illustrations that make things more sensical.
00:02:05 They take something that may be harder to understand and provide a story, an illustration, an example,
00:02:13 and make these things that are difficult to understand more palatable and easy to understand.
00:02:19 That's not Jesus' definition of a parable.
00:02:23 Jesus says, I speak in parables to make sure
00:02:25 that people are always confused.
00:02:29 I speak in parables to make sure
00:02:32 that the truth of the kingdom is something they miss.
00:02:38 I speak in parables so that Isaiah would be fulfilled,
00:02:42 that they would hear, but never listen,
00:02:45 to see but never really perceive
00:02:48 and that their hearts would remain
00:02:50 in a state of not understanding
00:02:53 because they're not mine.
00:02:59 They're not mine.
00:03:02 They're not my people. 0.96
00:03:04 They're not my flock.
00:03:06 They're not my sheep.
00:03:09 My sheep, even with the parable,
00:03:12 we understand parables as illustrations.
00:03:14 they're better to be understood as riddles.
00:03:17 Even with speaking in code and riddles and parables,
00:03:22 my sheep, they'll come regardless
00:03:25 because they recognize the shepherd's voice.
00:03:29 They can't help but come.
00:03:32 Just as a literal shepherd could be out with his flock
00:03:35 and he could be speaking English
00:03:38 or he could be speaking whatever, Mandarin.
00:03:44 and all of a sudden his sheep they recognize not so much the actual word and what it means
00:03:53 but they recognize the dialect the inflection the tone the style the voice of the shepherd
00:04:03 i have no idea what he's saying but that's our shepherd i hear him
00:04:10 and I'm going to come to him. 0.55
00:04:13 Notice that's even what the 12 do. 0.99
00:04:16 When Jesus in John chapter 6, 0.92
00:04:18 he had just fed the 5,000
00:04:20 in the previous chapter, John chapter 5,
00:04:22 and now they've come and found him again
00:04:25 on the other side of the sea.
00:04:28 And Jesus calls them out and says,
00:04:30 you're not here for my preaching.
00:04:33 You're here for another free lunch.
00:04:36 You ate the loaves and had your fill
00:04:38 and you want to be fed again.
00:04:40 and so then he preaches about that. Jesus has fantastic church shrinking strategies. If you
00:04:47 ever want to know how to shrink a church, Jesus is the master. He says, unless you eat my flesh
00:04:54 and drink my blood, you have no part in me. And you could almost hear the 12 in that picture 0.98
00:05:03 saying please give a disclaimer
00:05:07 please provide some nuance
00:05:11 if you could only be just a little more winsome
00:05:15 tell them that you're not being literal
00:05:18 Jesus you're okay you're not a cannibal are you
00:05:23 tell them that and Jesus just
00:05:27 kind of sits back and they all the text
00:05:31 says leave except for the 12. Now notice the difference is not that everyone leaves because
00:05:39 they don't understand that Jesus is being symbolic rather than literal but the 12 stay because they
00:05:45 understand. Now Jesus is preaching in Mandarin and none of them speak Mandarin including Peter 0.59
00:05:52 and the 12. So what's the difference? Why do the 12 stay? Because they understood what Jesus meant
00:05:59 and therefore are not offended?
00:06:02 No.
00:06:03 It's what a person does when they're offended.
00:06:06 It's not whether you're offended.
00:06:09 It's what you do when you're offended.
00:06:12 Particularly when you're offended by Jesus.
00:06:16 I have been offended by Jesus many times in my life
00:06:22 because I am a very great sinner.
00:06:25 the difference by his grace alone not to boast in myself but the difference is that when i've
00:06:33 been offended by jesus the words of jesus the teaching of jesus the person and work of jesus
00:06:40 like the 12 instead of departing from christ i lean in further to christ and i say with peter
00:06:52 where else can we go you have the words of life i don't know what you mean eat your flesh and
00:07:01 drink your blood i don't like it frankly i'm a little bit disgusted by that sermon jesus 0.69
00:07:07 but you're the only preacher there is where else are we going to go 0.63
00:07:12 we don't have any alternatives there's no alternate option
00:07:19 so offended or not we're sticking with jesus we're sticking with jesus why because we're his sheep
00:07:32 we're the sheep of his pasture we know his voice we don't always like what he says
00:07:40 But we know that voice.
00:07:45 It's the voice of life.
00:07:48 And he preaches the words of life, even when we don't like them.
00:07:55 And there is salvation nowhere else in heaven or on earth, but in the name of Jesus.
00:08:03 so at the end of this epistle the author encourages his listeners by saying that although many have
00:08:13 fallen away and you've watched their apostasy you've watched them come with you for a short
00:08:19 while but then turn back to judaism turn back to jerusalem turn back to the temple turn back 0.51
00:08:28 to the ceremonial rituals and codes,
00:08:31 hedging their bets,
00:08:33 putting partial trust in Jesus,
00:08:36 but not really hedging their bets.
00:08:40 You've seen many fall away.
00:08:44 And although there are serious warnings
00:08:47 that should be given,
00:08:48 and these warnings have been given
00:08:50 throughout the entirety of this epistle,
00:08:53 here at the end,
00:08:54 the apostle, the final nail,
00:08:58 is not one more warning about trampling
00:09:01 the blood of the covenant underfoot,
00:09:03 going apostate and having no opportunity to repent.
00:09:06 No, that's been said.
00:09:08 It needed to be said.
00:09:09 It has been said.
00:09:11 The final nail in his coffin is not another warning,
00:09:14 but it is an infallible and unbreakable consolation
00:09:20 that my sheep, they can't lose themselves
00:09:26 even if they tried.
00:09:28 if you belong to me you will always belong to me
00:09:34 because as deuteronomy says the people of god who've been saved truly saved by grace through
00:09:43 faith in christ alone they are his treasured possession can i be frank with you for just a
00:09:50 second right here at the end look some of you guys you're financially supporting this ministry
00:09:55 and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I cannot thank you enough. However, some of you,
00:10:02 you just, you can't afford it. In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest.
00:10:09 I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian political 0.94
00:10:16 elites lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks that we
00:10:24 simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession. We are
00:10:30 living in a recession right now regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs
00:10:38 at the grocery store. You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should
00:10:44 you, but you could still help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so,
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