Podcast appearances and mentions of steve croft

Do you remember the famous video Steve Croft asking Nancy Pelosi about this weird IPO with this little company called VISA? So why now is the DOJ going after VISA We'll talk about this and much more with Zach Abraham, Chief Investment Officer, Bulwark Capital Management. What does God's Word say? Psalm 37:13-15 13 But the Lord laughs at those who do evil.    He knows the day is coming when he will judge them.14 Sinners pull out their swords.    They bend their bows.They want to kill poor and needy people.    They plan to murder those who lead honest lives.15 But they will be killed by their own swords.    Their own bows will be broken.Mark 8:36-3836 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.”Episode Links:The video that started it all. Pelosi being asked about buying pre-IPO Visa $V shares while serving as Speaker of the HouseJustice Department accuses Visa of debit network monopoly that affects price of ‘nearly everything'FTX fraudster Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison, ordered to forfeit $11 billionSo The Economy Now Depends On Stocks Which Depend On Front-Running The Fed... And This Is Fine?Alan's Soaps https://www.alansartisansoaps.comUse coupon code ‘TODD' to save an additional 10% off the bundle price.Bioptimizers https://bioptimizers.com/toddStart your journey to better health with MassZymes. Visit bioptimizers.com/todd today to get your MassZymes 10% off.  Bonefrog https://bonefrogcoffee.com/toddMake Bonefrog Cold Brew at home!  Use code TODD at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase and 15% on subscriptions.Bulwark Capital Bulwark Capital Management (bulwarkcapitalmgmt.com) Learn about Bulwark's strategies with their FREE Common Cents Investing Guide.  Get yours by calling 866-779-RISK or go to KnowYourRiskRadio.com.EdenPURE https://edenpuredeals.comUse code TODD3 to save $200 on the Thunderstorm Air Purifier 3-pack.GreenHaven Interactive   https://greenhaveninteractive.comGet more customers. Dominate Google. Renue Healthcare https://renue.healthcare/toddYour journey to a better life starts at Renue Healthcare. Visit renue.healthcare/Todd

Former Utes horse Steve Croft came from behind to win the Fox Hollow Am over Devin Tovey. Croft joins the pod. 

For centuries, humans have gazed at the night sky and wondered if any intelligent life forms like us might be out there.  In 2015, the Breakthrough Foundation gave a $100 million grant to the University of California at Berkeley to undertake the most comprehensive search for signals from an extra-terrestrial civilization. Dr. Steve Croft, of the University of California, Berkeley, SETI Center,  describes the project, introduces the many radio telescopes around the world it is using in the search, and explains how modern technology, including AI, is being used to  include more stars, more frequencies (channels) and more ways a signal might be sent.

Christ calls on us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him if we wish to go to heaven. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - I. The Relentless Difficulty of Christ’s Demand Turn in your Bibles to Mark 8:34-35. We'll be zeroing in on these verses on the most difficult command that Jesus has ever given to His disciples, a relentless commitment to follow Him. Look at the words again. "He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.'" This is such a difficult command to us because it is relentlessly opposed by our three great enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Therefore, at every moment, world, flesh, devil are fighting against obedience to this command. Years ago, I thought about this as I was preaching through the parallel text in Matthew, and the illustration came to me of the arduous and dangerous journey that the Alaska king salmon makes. You picture the salmon swimming 2,400 miles upstream against whitewater, against waterfalls, jumping upward against gravity to make it back to actually the original tributary where they were spawned, and they breed and die. That's the image that's in my mind for this. Their journey is a natural one, though arduous and difficult and defies reason, defies logic. Our journey is a supernatural one. We cannot make a single step in this journey without the power of God in us. So my desire is to kind of lay a heavy weight on you with this command. I really just want to get out of the way of the words and let Jesus lay that heavy weight on you as He intends to do, but then also to point you to the greatness of the power of God at work in you, if you're born again, to fulfill these words, so both of them. The reason this is so difficult, the central reason, is the nature of the flesh, the nature of the self. Each human being is born with a dedication to self, to pleasing self, to preferring self, that could best be described as fanatical. It is the central idolatry of the human race. We will do almost anything to please ourselves. Only good parenting teaches an infant gradually the lesson, this fanatical commitment to self, so that we can somehow fit into a world of almost eight billion other such people, each of them also fanatically committed to self so that we can do life together. The flow of the personality of a human being is an even greater force of nature than that whitewater gravity that you can picture in your mind with the salmon as they're swimming upstream. It is purely natural after Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden, natural for every descendant of Adam and Eve to be fanatically devoted to self, to pursue selfish interest in every conversation, every food choice, every move we make in our cars, every shopping choice we make online or at a mall, every website we go to, everything we do with social media, every text we write. Every solitary choice we make, commitment to self is a more powerful force than that Alaskan whitewater. We're called by this command to fight against it, to swim upstream constantly against your desire to save yourself, feed yourself, please yourself, promote yourself, prefer yourself, choose yourself, coddle yourself, cherish yourself. Jesus is actually calling on you to deny yourself, to be willing to die for Him and to do it continually, like I prayed in Romans 12, to be a living sacrifice, just constantly dying, all the time dying on the altar to God, to die in small and large acts of self-sacrifice. Some, a very small percentage of His followers in this world, are called on literally to die physically for Him, for the gospel as martyrs, but all of us a kind of a living martyrdom continually. That's the life that Christ is calling every disciple who follows Him to take. That is the only life that leads to heaven. It is the life that Christ Himself lived, and it is the life He calls on us to live. It is absolutely astonishing to me how much Christ gave for us. As Jesus died on the cross in our place under the wrath of God, His lifeblood was pouring out of His body. His clothes, His little pile of possessions that He had that was left were being gambled over in order to fulfill prophecy and mark Him as the Messiah. There was absolutely nothing He held back for us. It is also absolutely astonishing to me how much Jesus gives to us, inconceivable the riches of the grace of God, inconceivable the value of full forgiveness of all of your sins, past, present, and future in the eyes of God, a new heart, a transformed inner nature so that you're a new creation in Christ, the gift of adoption into the family of God, to be called a son or daughter of the living God, to receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity living inside you, ministering Christ to you constantly. The promise of a fruitful life lived for the rest of your life, a life worth living, not vanity of vanities like the writer of Ecclesiastes says, but something of eternal consequence laid out before you. Then when you die, glory, intimate face-to-face fellowship with God, seeing His face, and in the end, a resurrection body that is glorious and powerful and incorruptible and spiritual. It's inconceivable almost what Christ gives to us. But just as amazing in this text is what Christ demands from us. The answer is everything. He gives everything for us. He gives everything to us and, in this text, He demands everything from us. That's the call of Christian discipleship. That's the cost of discipleship. Anything less than your very best every moment of your life is less than this demand. So let's walk through it. Let's look at the context of Christ's demand. "He gives everything for us. He gives everything to us, and in this text, He demands everything from us. That's the call of Christian discipleship." II. The Context of Christ’s Demand We're in the Gospel of Mark, the theme right from the beginning, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It's the consummation also, in the centurion after Jesus died said, "Truly, this man was the Son of God." [Chapter 1, chapter 15]. In the middle, we're in chapter 8, seems to be the crux, the centerpiece right in the center. All four Gospels are to bring you to a confession of faith. This is describing what that life will be like if you make that confession, so these are very, very important verses. We're in Caesarea of Philippi. Jesus is on retreat with His apostles. On the way, He asked them, "Who do people say that I am?" They talk about it. "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" The most important question you'll ever face, as I preached last time, the central question, who do you say that Jesus is? Do you believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God? That was Peter's confession in Matthew's fuller version, Matthew 16:16. There in that chapter, Jesus then immediately promises, "On this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I'm going to build my church. I'm going to build my kingdom on this rock." But Jesus then told them what the cost would be to Him, what He would have to do to build His church. Mark 8:31-32, "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, teachers of the law and that he must be killed and, after three days, rise again." He spoke plainly about this. Peter couldn't handle it, he took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, "Get behind me, Satan." He said, "You do not have in mind the things of God, the things of man." The significance of this is weighty. Peter's conception of where they were heading, the kingdom and all that, was all wrong. It was too human. It was too self-serving, too selfish, too carnal, too fleshly, too human-like. Jesus has had to strip them, all of them, of their human conceptions of this kingdom to establish that He Himself will have to die on the cross to pay for it and that all of His disciples have a similar pattern to follow in order to go to heaven and to build His kingdom, a daily denial to self, a willingness to die to self. Look at the full statement again. Verse 34-38, "Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what could a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone's ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His Father's glory with the holy angels.'" As Christ's disciples deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him in obedience to His commands, then Christ's kingdom will be built, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Essential to that is that His disciples be willing to deny themselves, lose their lives in this Earth so they can save them in eternity. They have to understand that their eternal souls are worth more than anything this material world has to offer. They have to fight the assault this God-hating world will lay on us that we should act ashamed of the gospel and of Christ because only by boldly, clearly proclaiming Christ and His gospel will the kingdom be built. That's the whole section here. The fullness of these themes is so weighty, I believe, in my judgment as a preacher, that we can't deal with them in just one sermon. So we're going to deal with them in three. I do believe that this is the crux. This is the center. This is the call, and we need to understand it. This week and then two more weeks, you're going to hear the same scripture read, Mark 8:31-38, for three straight weeks. III. To Whom Christ Makes His Demand To whom does Christ make this demand? Remember that Peter interestingly took Jesus aside to rebuke Him. One of the more interesting moments in the Peter/Jesus relationship, "Hey, Jesus, do you have a moment just privately over here? I just have something to say." Isn't it nice how Peter was trying to protect Jesus' reputation? Isn't that kind of him to do that? The arrogance. Jesus didn't go private with His rebuke of Peter. He rebuked Him in front of all the apostles because He knew they're all thinking the same thing, Peter just voiced it. Then He expands with this statement to everyone, to the whole crowd. He wanted everyone within earshot to hear this. This is not a secret, private teaching here. He wants anyone who's evaluating Jesus and the cross to count the cost if they're going to follow Him. It's a heavy dose of realism here for all of us. Look to whom it's addressed. "If anyone would come after me," that's anybody, to the entire world He's saying this. What does it mean to come after me? To follow me in imitation of me in this life, but then also in terms of destination. Where are we going? It brought to mind John 14:1-4. There, Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I'm going there to prepare a place for you. If I go there and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I'm going." I think of that in terms of, if anyone would come after me, if anyone would go where I'm going. Then He said in John 14:4, “'You know the way to the place where I'm going.’" Then Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?’" Then Jesus said famously, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." If anyone would come after me, so “to come after me” means to go to the Father, to go to the place I'm preparing, to go to heaven. But also He said, "You know the way." They said, “We don't know where you're going." "I am the way." So “to come after me” means also to imitate him. He is the way you get to heaven. So to believe in him, imitate him, saturate yourself in him, if you would come after him, that's what He's saying. IV. Understanding Christ’s Demand Let's understand, the demand comes in three parts. There are three parts of it, three aspects. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. So first, deny yourself. What does that mean? Say no to you. Deny what your flesh wants to do. Say no to your selfishness, your fanatical commitment to self. Picture that salmon swimming upstream. You want to follow Jesus today? You have to fight for it. It's going to be hard today. The world of flesh and the devil will be opposing you today because of, as I already mentioned, our fanatical commitment to self. Every single baby born on the face of the planet is born with one thing in common. That's that fanatical commitment to self. We get it from our first father, Adam, who turned away from God to “embrace me”, embrace himself, and we're born into that. What's in it for me at every moment? We feel it every moment. We can't say it's like genocide or rape or serial murder or some other things. We can't understand how anyone could be that evil. Well, I understand that. But we know this, how could anyone be so evil as to completely be committed to self? “Now wait a minute, now you're starting to meddle. You're talking about me." Yes, we're talking about all of us. We understand this one. Jesus is saying, "Deny yourself. Turn away from that gravitational pull within you to be all about you, to be all about you. Kill your selfishness. Kill it every single moment.” Richard Baxter in his classic, The Christian Directory, said this, "Selfishness is the radical," that means the root, "positive sin of the soul comprehending in seed form and, as a primary cause, all other sins." Everything starts with selfishness. It starts with self. Selfishness is the cause of all wars, all marital squabbles, all lawsuits, all luxury and poverty, all addictions, all parenting struggles, all church splits, all vaunting, ambition. Basically, all trouble between human beings starts with this one, selfishness. Consider how sweet life would be on this planet if this one sin could be eradicated, this love of self, but you’ve got the wiring. Then Satan cleverly has crafted a world to pander to you, to tell you you deserve the best. You deserve luxury. You deserve the weekend away at the spa or the best luxuries that you ... It's all about you. It's lying to you, and everybody is receiving that lie and actually part of it, perpetuating it. That's the world system, and Satan's cleverly pressing it in. "All trouble between human beings starts with this one, selfishness." We're surrounded every day by people who are driving and pushing and striving to meet their own self-interests, who if you let them go first, they'll assume that's the way it should be. They'll probably look on you as weak. But if you don't let them go first, some of them at least will show what they really feel about that. You know what I mean out on the highways, the whole merge moments in life. Car A, car B, neither one wants to give an inch. That's it. That's what we're dealing with. That's exactly what Jesus is telling all of us to deny. All of us are, at best, en route on this one. No one has arrived. The church has definitely insufficient sanctification on this. Richard Baxter again said this, "Selfishness is the hardest sin in the world to overcome. The person that seemed to have put sin to death the best, if you do but cross them in their self-interest or opinion or seem to slight them or have a low esteem of them, what swellings, what heart burnings, what bitter censuring, what proud impatience, if not schisms or separations will result.” Just look at yourself. If somebody disagrees with you, are you awesome with that? Somebody takes something you wanted. Somebody metaphorically or literally takes the last cookie. It's just in us, and none of us is done with this. Nobody's arrived on this one. Deny yourself. It's a constant battle. I say it's the bitterest battle of your life. Second, take up your cross. Be willing to stoop down and pick up what all of those Jews back then knew was an article of execution by the worst possible way. That's what the cross meant to them. It wasn't theoretical or abstract to Jesus' disciples. It's estimated that in Jesus' lifetime, the Romans executed over 30,000 people. Every single day, they saw people nailed to crosses. Jesus, and I don't think He's made it clear yet at Caesarea of Philippi, but He will very soon make it clear that's how He's going to die. He's going to be lifted up. He's going to be crucified. I don't know that He's used that language yet. But they can well imagine if the Romans are involved, that's how He's going to die. But imagine they're shocked when He tells them that they have to take up their cross, to take up their cross. They have to be willing to die painfully, slowly, to be executed. What is this? What does it mean? Is it a metaphor? Is it a parable? What is the cross? It's not merely some distressing burden in life, like a medical issue, like a chronically sore back or cancer even, or a difficult job or a difficult spouse or rebellious child or some other such thing. Non-Christians have those sufferings. Those are common to all mankind. That's not what it is. People use that expression, "Oh, it's just my cross to bear." Be careful when you say that. Be careful what you're meaning. So what is it? I think it's specifically the suffering you have to go through in the two journeys. What are the two journeys? The internal journey of holiness, growth in holiness, and the external journey of gospel advanced through evangelism and missions. Those two journeys are hard journeys, and it will hurt you to make progress in them. That's what it means to take up the cross. You have to die to yourself, and that death will be painful if you're going to grow in holiness, and if you're going to take the gospel to lost people. That's how I understand the cross. On the external journey, it is this, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” I mean I don't want any of that to happen to me. That's the cross. It's going to hurt. It's going to be difficult. Then in terms of the internal holiness, Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." To die to what you want, your dreams, aspirations, preferences, pride, to die to your desire for approval from others, your desire for comfort and security in this world, your yearning for love and success and money and pleasure and fun and all of that, die to it. Thirdly, "Follow me," Jesus says. Follow Jesus. It's a life of imitating Christ, of following His self-denying example, especially in His death on the cross. He willingly drank the cup the Father gave Him in Gethsemane saying, "Not my will, but yours be done." What does He mean there? We're not going deep into the Trinity and think that there's different wills between the Father and the Son. Not at all. He's saying, "Every fiber of my being as a human being is towards self-preservation, toward that I would not suffer and die. But I'm willing to lay all that aside for your will to be done in me, not my will, but yours be done." To follow Jesus, 1 John 2:6, "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." It's an imitation of Christ in this self-denying life. Obedience is essential to this. Jesus said in Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you to do?" Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus is to obey Him meticulously. Just whatever He's commanded you to do, to do it. Or again, John 14:15, "If you love me, you'll obey what I command.” In one of the Synoptics, Luke's Gospel, he adds one word, but it's an important word. Luke 9:23, "Then He said to them all, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'" No days off, no hours off, no moments off. It's relentless. "Take up your cross daily and follow me." V. The Paradox of Christ’s Demand Jesus gives us a paradox. There's a paradox to Christ's command. Look at verse 35, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." It's interesting. People who prefer themselves and give themselves what they want are frequently the most miserable people. I don't know if you remember years ago the movie, Chariots of Fire. It has Harold Abrams, who is a Jewish man who is the fastest runner in England and all that. He's contrasted with a Christian man, Eric Little, who was just as fast or almost as fast. They were definitely contrasted. It's really clearly a compare and contrast because when Harold Abrams wins his gold medal, which he sought for the last number of years through relentless sacrifice, he gets the gold medal and he's out with his coach. They're getting drunk in some French bar, and there's no one around them. The barkeeper says, "It's 3:00 in the morning, go home," and that's it. He's clearly depressed. One person lamented, "I spent my whole life climbing the ladder of success only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall." Almost 20 years ago, Tom Brady, at that point, the New England Patriots quarterback, was being interviewed in 60 Minutes, by a journalist named Steve Croft. Brady said these amazing things. "A lot of times I think I get very frustrated and introverted, and there's times where I'm not the person I want to be. Why do I have three Super Bowl rings?" Stop. Now he's got seven, but then three. "Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean maybe a lot of people would say, 'Hey, man, this is what it is.' I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think it's got to be more than this. This is it. I mean this can't be what it's all cracked up to be. I mean I've done it. I'm 27." He was 27 then, 45 now. He said, "What else is there for me?" And then the journalist, Steve Croft, said, "Well, what's the answer?" And Brady said, "I wish I knew. Wish I knew." That just seems like someone who's lost and just doesn't know. I mean they got what they wanted. They got everything that this world says you should go after, and it's just straight empty. You find your life, you lose it in this world. The book of Ecclesiastes already knew this. Ecclesiastes 1:14, "I've seen all things that are done under the sun. All of them are vanity, a chasing after the wind." But more than that, eternal judgment follows such a life of selfishness. We're going to discuss this more next time. It's such a weighty topic. I don't want to get into it. But what would it profit someone to gain the whole world and lose his soul? We're going to talk about the soul and what it is to lose it next week. I think this is what it is. It's to hear these dreadful words spoken about you. "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Whoever finds his life will lose it eternally. It's terrifying. But whoever loses his life in the pattern He's commanding will find it. Jesus is the treasure hidden in the field, who the man when he found it, in his joy, he sold everything and bought that field. It's worth everything you have in your life. That's how valuable. What is the treasure in the field? Is it not Jesus in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Is it not Jesus, the Glorious One? Jesus is the finding of the life. It's what you get if you lose your life. You find it in Jesus. More on this next time. VI. Practical Applications Let's make some practical applications. First and foremost, for me, just as a preacher of the gospel, to call you to follow Christ, to repent of your sins, and trust in Christ. In order to do that, you have to understand these words. Jesus is standing here as your evangelist telling you, "You want to save your soul? You want to save your life? You want forgiveness of sins? Then you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow." He's very honest about this. He wants you to count the cost before you become a disciple. There are a lot of evangelists these days that do some kind of benefit evangelism or Jesus as life enhancer kind of thing. That's not what Jesus would do. Jesus is not life enhancer. Jesus is life itself. So He's not going to lie to you. True evangelists, true evangelists, true missionaries, true pastors will not lie to you and tell you if you follow Christ, you'll get all of the things you want, the prosperity gospel stuff, health and wealth and success and all that. That's not what this text is saying. "Jesus is not life enhancer. Jesus is life itself." But you will get life forever and all of those rich benefits I described at the beginning of the sermon when you come to Christ. What are you waiting for? Come to Christ. Don't lose your soul. Don't lose your life. Then if you have come, I just want to say to you, don't be discouraged by this. I'm telling you the truth. The text, Jesus is telling you the truth. This is the Christian life. This is the life you need to keep living, but God's going to help you. Jesus said, "I'll not leave you as orphans. I'll help you." [Philippians 2:12-13] This is all the help you need, but there's a lot of other verses like it. "So then as you've always obeyed not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to do according to His good purpose." Praise God for that. He will give you what you need every day to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. He will strengthen you for it. He will help you. So follow Him. Understand this. Understand this is the call of Christian discipleship. This is the real thing. So in the future, if you're not in this church anymore, go to a church that will help you obey these commands. Go to a church that will tell you the truth and say, "You need to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus daily." That's the Christian life. Then you'll have brothers and sisters around you in small groups and in worship, and you'll hear preaching that will help you do this. That's a healthy church. Find it. In the meantime, this is what we're committed to do for all of you and for ourselves, and you do it for us, that we're going to help each other follow Christ to heaven. Along with this come all kinds of detailed sub struggles that come, slaying sin, putting sin to death. It's part of this. Denying yourself, take up your cross, and follow means mortify your sins. Romans 8:13, "If you, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live because those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” That's what it means. You're going to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus to the point of slaying temptations, putting sin to death in all those categories. Then just daily life, your prayer life, it's like, "I want to have a good prayer life." Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. You know what's going to happen. Your alarm's going to go off tomorrow. You had to set it a little earlier because you want to grow in prayer. Good. It's going to take time. Good. You want to spend more time in prayer, more passion in prayer. The alarm goes off saying, "I'm here to help you. You wanted me." It's like, "No, no, no. I changed my mind." Your alarm, being the weak-willed friend, says, "I have a snooze mechanism. You can just push me, and I'll circle back with you in 10 minutes." If you want to grow in grace, you've got to deny yourself. If you want to grow in prayer, You have to deny yourself. Once you're on your knees and you're praying, your flesh wants you to stop, wants you to stop, and you got to keep pressing on to pray for all the people God has laid on your heart. Prayer life. Your Bible reading's the same. I know back on January 1st, you made a commitment. "I'm going to read through the Bible in a year." If you've been faithful, that's great, it’s a daily thing. It's a average of about half hour or more a day. But if you're still waiting to get started, it's now more like 45 minutes a day or 40 minutes a day. But you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow to be faithful in Bible intake. So also with your church life as a fruitful member of this church, to just be involved in the life of the church. Come to worship on Sunday morning. You have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow. To be involved in home fellowship, some of you are hosting home fellowship. You have to deny yourself to do it, and we're grateful that you do. There's a self-denial in church involvement. I want to say to you, the elders of this church announced and made it plain in our budget for the year 2023 that we're committed to planting churches, to church planting in 2023. What that means is that we're going to farm off a significant group of you to not be here anymore and to go to a church plant that will have, I promise you, growing pains, and you know it. You're going to have to make financial sacrifices to see that thing get going financially, and the church has to as well. This is a vision that I think the Lord's laid on all of us. Why ? Because it is healthy, local churches that plant other healthy, local churches, not institutions that do that or state conventions and all that. It's healthy churches. We have an obligation. This region is growing numerically, population. There are people pouring in here who are unchurched. We need lots of local churches, healthy, local churches to meet that need. Churches like ours have an obligation to plant churches. I want all of you throughout this year to feel the weight of that, whether you go or not. We're not going to guilt manipulate anyone into going, but we're going to ask you to say, "Should I be part of that?" At least go to the informational meetings whenever they start. Even if you don't go, just say, "I want to make a financial contribution," or, "I want to at least pray for it, and I want to be encouraging people that are going." We cannot plant churches, not just in 2023, but going forward without deny ourselves, taking up our cross, and following. We could go through all of the areas. I've got a bunch of headings here. Marriage, husbands are called on to give themselves up like Christ gave himself up for the church. That lines up perfectly with deny yourself. "To be a godly husband, do this. Lay down your life for your wife." She has to do the similar thing just from this verse. She has to lay herself down for you, too. That's healthy marriage. Parenting, I already covered this briefly. One writer said, "One of the ways that God helps you with your selfishness is to bring someone into your life who's far more selfish than you are." However cute he or she is, I'm telling you, you know what I mean. They have very little interest in making it comfortable for you at 3:00 in the morning. It gets more complex as time goes on. Sorry, you young parents who think it's going to get easier. You're going to get over the hill and then that little thing, and then it's going to be smooth sailing. No, it's not. You're going to have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow to be a godly parent. So it is with all of these areas. The last one I want to leave you with is evangelism. Could it be that there's some specific person that God has carved you out to be the one to reach? They're surrounded by Christians here in this region, but you're the one. You're the one. It could be a workplace thing. It could be a relative. It could be a neighborhood thing. You cannot reach them without denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following. So be willing to do that for the glory of God in the building of His kingdom. Close with me in prayer. Oh, Father, thank you for this incredible, clear teaching from Jesus. In one sense, hard to hear, but in another sense, we're so grateful for the realism, for the truth. The Bible tells us the truth, and we're grateful, Lord, that Jesus hasn't left us as orphans. He comes to us by the Spirit and enables us to do this, but we know it's hard. So help us, oh Lord. Help us to be willing to put sin to death, to get out of habits of wickedness that are entangling us, to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ by means that Jesus has laid out before us in this beautiful text. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Every day, there are always changes. And because of the COVID challenge, people are now looking at their finances a little differently. On today’s podcast, Jen Du Plessis interviews two special guests - Steve Croft from Sterling Professional Group and Dave Forsgren from Financial Growth Concepts – to bring a fresh, new look at the financial landscape and how things have changed with people and their outlook. Steve is a business development manager with over 40 years of domestic and international experience in corporate management. Dave is a financial strategist who provides accountants and financial advisors with advanced growth and tax planning strategies.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How »Join the Mortgage Lending Mastery Community today:kineticsparkconsulting.comBecome a MLM Gold Member!MLM Membership

Doh! I missed that Mitchell Schow tied for the win at the Glen Eagle Am. (Ep 506) Schow and Steve Croft both threw down tasty little 64s to win by 5 over a really good field. Schow joins the pod to talk about his T1 and the likelihood of coming back to play another year at the U. 

Host pro Jordan van Orman takes the Sanpete County Open at Palisades, Dan Horner squeaks in with the win at the Bountiful City Am, Steve Croft runs away with the Glen Eagle Am, and Simon Kwan comes from behind to take the UJGA Jay Don Blake. Van Orman and Horner join the pod. 

Colossians 3:1-17

When a reputational crisis hits, everything comes at your organization at once. Social media, the mainstream media, the alternative media, local and national news outlets. Things will move more quickly than you can imagine. You're in the race. In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Senior Consultant Jennifer Otremba talk through reputational crisis situations and bring their years of experience in dealing with fast-moving challenges. Topics discussed include crisis communications, social media, "fake news", interacting with the media, and "spin". //static.leadpages.net/leadboxes/current/embed.js Episode Transcript   Bryan Strawser:                   Somebody screwed up big time. We've had to terminate one of our senior executives for personal misconduct in the workplace, and they've been let go. So, today was their last day. Jen Otremba:                        Quietly. Bryan Strawser:                   Very quietly. There was an internal announcement that they have decided to leave the company for personal reasons, and we thanked them for their service, and against our advice, the company has chosen not to disclose this individual's departure, and as a privately held company, there's no reporting requirement. That's cool. Jen Otremba:                        And the rumors start flowing. Bryan Strawser:                   And the rumors have started to flow. That was this morning, and now it's 8:05, and we've been called by the senior vice president of communications at this same company, and they just got a call from a producer at 60 Minutes, who has the story. Jen Otremba:                        We thought we were in the clear. Bryan Strawser:                   Thought we were in the clear. They don't know what 60 Minutes knows. They just know that they're calling. Therefore, they must know about the personal misconduct that was committed by this individual. So now we're in the race. We're behind. Jen Otremba:                        We are way behind. Bryan Strawser:                   Way behind, but now the race has started. Jen Otremba:                        We're back at the start line. Bryan Strawser:                   What we're talking about here is really reputation management, and dealing the media from a communications standpoint, and as we talk about ... I think the thing that we hear a lot as a consulting firm is that, "Look, I want to control the spin. I want to control the story. I want to control social media." Jen Otremba:                        Control the media. Yep. Bryan Strawser:                   I don't remember who said it, but there was the famous quote that you shouldn't pick a fight with somebody who buys ink by the barrel. We do this all the ... Digitally now, of course, but it's true, and I think the notion that you control the media is just utterly ridiculous. You can't. They're going to write and say on the radio and appear on television, and say the things that they want to say. Jen Otremba:                        Employees are going to post things on social media. Bryan Strawser:                   Employees are more definitely going to quote things. Jen Otremba:                        They're going to be completely made up stories. Bryan Strawser:                   There were will be some great fake news out there, I'm sure. Real fake news in this case. But while you can't control the media, you can interact with the media, and you can influence the story in a lot of different ways, and I think we always ... When we're talking about communicating in the midst of a crisis, we always talk about the idea of a holding statement. You're using a statement, because what do you mean this time? No, the full extent of what's going on. But we talk about this a lot with like active shooter, and natural disasters, like earthquakes and tornadoes, where there's minimal notice, minimal warning, and then something really bad has happened, and you don't know the content, all the details, but you got the call from the media, and now you're on the phone, and you can't dodge the call when you're on the phone, so what do you say? Jen Otremba:                        On one side, you're trying to figure out what's going on, what are the details? On the other side, you have all these questions in your other ear constantly, so you have to get in the race. Bryan Strawser:                   You have to be in the race. We start with the holding statement, and the holding statement can be, in an active shooter situation, for example, I think our default holding statement we teach people is along the lines of, "Earlier today, at our Memphis, Tennessee location ..." Jen Otremba:                        Or wherever. Bryan Strawser:                   Or wherever, "Shoots were fired, resulting in a law enforcement response to our manufacturing facility. At this point in time, we are working with the Memphis Police Department on the situation and towards a resolution, and all of our efforts are geared towards insuring the safety, and security, and well-being of our employees and the visitors to this facility, and we'll know more and be able to share more in about 30 minutes." That's an effective holding statement. I think the joke I always said was if your mom heard that on TV from you, she'd be proud of you, and you've set the stage that you have some things, you've got some themes across in your communication, and now you're waiting to learn more, and you're going to come back in 30 minutes and you'll be able to share something. Jen Otremba:                        Yeah. And you're keeping the focus where it needs to be. Bryan Strawser:                   Which is on your team. Jen Otremba:                        Right. The team and their families. Bryan Strawser:                   What this does raise is that in any company, we've talked a lot about incidents becoming crisis situations, and this is a great example of one that's just reputational, where you need a rapid response process that is tied or is built into your crisis management process, so that when something happens, you know about it, and you can respond to that in a fast, efficient manner. You can get the right people on the phone through your crisis management process, and you can get the right approvals for communication to deal with something. If you got Steve Croft from 60 minutes calling, you're able to escalate that quickly and come up with a response that you're going to have, because if you say nothing, then that will be the story. The story will be what they already know, and you should just assume they know everything. Jen Otremba:                        And in the absence of anything, they're going to make up a story. They're going to make a story in the absence of you saying anything. Bryan Strawser:                   They're going to make a compelling narrative. Jen Otremba:                        They are. Bryan Strawser:                   And part of the narrative is that you refused to comment. Jen Otremba:                        Yes. It's going to be much more entertaining than what you could come up with. Bryan Strawser:                   So you have an opportunity not to control the situation, but you do have an opportunity apply some factual spin to the situation by telling your narrative the way you want it, and it's interesting to see you can do this by working with the media and cooperating with the story in hopes it will turn out well. You can, also, take an approach that we just saw used in politics, where while instead of waiting to do the interview and telling your story, you can just dump your narrative out and tell it. That's an interesting approach, because it changes the story from what they were going to make it to what you've dropped out as, "Well, here's what's going on." That's a risky strategy, but in the right environment, that can work by going right out and telling your story. Jen Otremba:                        Yep. And being honest, and doing it quickly. Bryan Strawser:                   Yeah. Lying to the media is bad. Jen Otremba:                        Lying to anyone is bad. Your mom will not be proud of you. Bryan Strawser:                   Your mom will not be proud of you. Jen Otremba:                        You can't do that. Bryan Strawser:                   You don't want to be dishonest. You need to be very straightforward, and very factual, and very honest about things. The example that I think we've used previously on the being dishonest with the media story is that during the data breach at Target, Target had told a story about how the data breach had occurred, but they wouldn't release any documentation, and then almost two years later, information security reporter Brian Krebs, who writes the Krebs on Security blog, somebody gave him the after action report, the internal after action report from Target on what had happened, and Brian wrote a whole article about, "Hey, the most interesting part of the whole thing to me isn't how they did it. It's that the factual narrative of what occurred lined up exactly with what Target said two years prior." If Target had lied and the document got out two years later, that would have been a front page story, and, fortunately, it was none of that. It was nothing, because they were honest in their response, as we would expect them to be. Jen Otremba:                        So never underestimate I think the complexity of what could come out. You've got social media. You've got employees that are posting things. You've got the media itself running stories. Don't underestimate that complexity, and so like we've been saying the whole time, if you keep it simple, stick with just the facts, you can keep up with and be a part of that narrative. Bryan Strawser:                   There's definitely a speed aspect to dealing with that complexity, that this process of rapid response and crisis management through a crisis management team in your senior executives, it's got to be a smooth process, where you've thought this, how you can bring those facts forward, craft the narrative that you want, get that narrative approved, and then the right spokesperson providing that to the media, and it will depend a bit on your company's culture, but often we want to see a senior executive who is making that statement, and not necessarily the communications team being the one that's putting the statement out, because it's coming from your CEO or another appropriate senior leader in that situation. Jen Otremba:                        Right. So the media, the people, the consumers of the media, they're going to want to hear it from leadership. Bryan Strawser:                   Right. Right. Coming from communications is going to sound like spin. Jen Otremba:                        Yep. They're not going to believe what they're hearing. Bryan Strawser:                   Right. Jen Otremba:                        They're going to make up another story. So, topics that we've discussed here, so the leadership aspect of it, sticking with the speed, not underestimating the complications that you may see, being truthful, and in general, keeping in the race, staying in the race. Bryan Strawser:                   And I'd reinforce that remaining silent is usually not at all the right thing to do. There will be some situations where being quiet is the right play, but really, you want that opportunity to get out in the race and start to contribute and influence the story, or tell the story on your own without relying upon media to be the channel. But we wish you well as you work through that situation.

One the Greatest Verses In the Bible So as we come this morning to Isaiah 57, I'm going to bring us immediately right to the middle of the chapter. Verse 15 this is one of the great verses in the Bible. And without any delay, I want to go right to the marrow of the bone or the colonel of the nut. I want you to look with me at the words of the text that you just heard read, Isaiah 57:15, "For this is what the high and lofty one says. He who lives forever and who's name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." So in this amazing verse, the God of the universe, infinitely high, infinitely holy, describes himself for us. He tells us what he's like. And not only that, he describes his dwelling place, he describes where he lives. And beyond that, and this is incredibly gracious, he describes people he's willing to live with in that high and holy place. People who are contrite, broken hearted because of their sins. Now this verse is going to occupy a good deal of our attention right at the beginning of the sermon, but really just going to look on it for just a few minutes. We're only going to have a few minutes to swim in the sea of this truth, to drink in the beauty of it and the glory of it. But it's vast and soaring truths are going to occupy our minds for all eternity. We're going to spend actually eternity thinking about these things. We will see in eternity how pure and holy and exalted and lifted up God is. We'll see it with our own eyes. And not only that, but we will have a sense even in heaven, I believe without any regret, without any pain, a sense of how sinful we were and how much we needed a redeemer, Jesus. And that understanding of the holiness of God and our own sinfulness will work together to make us eternally peaceful and filled with praise and glory to God. That'll go on for all eternity, I believe. We are going to fall down in humble adoration at the amazing grace that saved us and brought us to such a holy place. We're going to be amazed, and we're going to fall down as an Isaac Watts' hymn that we're going to sing at the end of this worship time. How sweet and awful is the place? How sweet and awful is the place with Christ within the doors. While everlasting love displays the choices of her stores, while all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast, each of us cry with thankful tongues, "Lord, why was I a guest?" As we unfold, Isaiah 57 we're going to see how sweet and awful heaven is. Awful, I think Isaac Watts meant they're breathtakingly are inspiring, something like that. A kind of holy awe should come over us. I think it came over Isaiah as he wrote these words, when he saw the holy exalted lord on his throne. We sinners can say with Isaiah, "Woe is me for I am ruined. Why am I not destroyed by such exalted holiness? We sinners, how would we ever be permitted to enter such a holy place? Lord, why was I, why was I a guest? How could it be that I would be a guest?" Now this chapter continues the rhythm that we began seeing last time I preached to you, Isaiah 56. The two chapters really go together is there's this rhythm from the wheat to the weeds and back to the wheat again into the weeds. The righteous and the wicked, the righteous and the wicked because this goes back and forth between the two. Remember how I talked about that a few weeks ago from the parable of the weed and the weeds? Matthew 13, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a field that a man sowed with good seed, but at night the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. And then when the wheat sprouted and formed heads in the weeds were also made evident, and this gives us that sense of the mixed up nature of the world we live in. Much of the distress we feel as Christians, even in the political process is because of the mixed up nature of the world. The wheat and the weeds in close proximity. And we know that in the end, as the text says in Matthew 13, the son of man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all of those who do evil. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. That's where we're heading. That's where it's going. Now when we are there in that high and holy place and when we are shining radially with the glory that's not ours. It's the glory of Christ in us. And we will be mindful of the fact that our sins were as great as those that were condemned, no difference ultimately. And we will be filled with awe at God and this high and holy person in this dwelling place. Now the more we can do that now the better. So that's just the whole thesis of my sermon here. The more we can just have a sense right now of the exalted nature of God and of his holy place and of our sinfulness and the grace he's shown us in Christ, the better. II. A Stunning Invitation from the Infinitely High and Holy King (vs. 15) So let's start and look in detail at verse 15. We have a stunning invitation here from the infinitely high and holy king. I actually think verse 15, if you look at it rightly, is a Gospel invitation. Look again at the words of verse 15, "For this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever and whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite." So as I've said, God describes himself, his dwelling place, and the people he delights to dwell with. Now you may ask a pastor, "Those are three points. Why don't you just preach that as your sermon?" It would have been a great sermon, but there's more in that chapter than that. And I want to see all that there is in the chapter. So we're not going to be able to spend as much time on each of those three sub-points as I'd like to. But first, look at how God describes himself. He says he is the high and lofty one. God is infinitely greater than we are. He's so much vastly above all of his creation that the gap between God the creator and every creature is infinite. The gap exists between God and even his holy angels that have never sinned, and there's no defilement in them at all. That's why the seraphim I think in Isaiah six, cover their faces and their feet in His presence. They'd never sinned, they'd never violated any of God's laws. And yet they recognize the holiness of God means that He is infinitely above them. A. W. Tozer, put it in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, he said, "Forever God stands apart in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar, is but finite. While the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite." That's the holiness of God. It's the very thing, the exalted nature, of God that Isaiah saw in his calling to be a prophet. "In the year the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. And above Him there were Seraphs each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two, they were flying and they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And at the sound of their voices the door posts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." Holiness of God. And it's portrayed often in scripture, as exaltation, lofty-ness, height. I remember years ago, I was in Pakistan 1987, I was in the North-West Frontier province. I saw the second highest mountain range in the world, the Karakoram mountains. And I took the Karakoram highway and went through those mountains from Pakistan and China. In order to make that journey cross that border I went through the Khunjerav pass. The Khunjerav pass is the highest border passing between two nations on earth. It's 15,397 feet above sea level, almost 16,000 feet above sea level. It's the highest I've ever stood on the ground. And yet for all of that, as that highway snaked its way up to that pass, and then down into China, for much of that journey, the Karakoram mountains were right up against the highway, and towered vastly above the highway hundreds even several thousand feet right up off the highway. That has the power to make you feel real small, insignificant. Now listen, if finite mountains can do that, how much more of this infinite God who made them. The greatness of God. So the loftiness of God, the exaltation of God is meant to make us feel small, it's meant to humble us. This is what the high and lofty one says. That's how He identifies Himself. He is high and lofty. He also says that He inhabits eternity. I like that translation a little bit better than lives forever. He inhabits eternity. It's kind of like eternity is His personal playground. He's very at home in eternity, it's His living room, that's what eternity is like for God. He dwells in eternity. The eternality of God, He lives unchanged forever and ever. There are no limits to God. He is an infinite being. This is beyond anything we can comprehend. One thing we simply can say, is He cannot die, He is immortal, He inhabits eternity, meaning He will live forever and ever. Hebrews 6:18 says it's impossible for God to lie. I think this text says it's impossible for God to die. He is immortal. He inhabits eternity. He lives forever. His kingdom will have no end. As the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar wrote, "I praised the Most High, I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion as kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'" That's the kingship of God. That was the most powerful man on earth. Daniel chapter four. Nebuchadnezzar writing those words, he was in awe of the eternal king, and that is God. His kingdom, will never end because He lives forever. Also he says His name is holy. That means His reputation is holy. His name is set apart, it's a unique name, a special name. So His reputation, because of His person and His accomplishments because of who He is and what He's done, His name is Holy. It's set apart. So in the 10 commandments we are not permitted to take His name in vain. We should honor and revere the name of Almighty God. And so in the Lord's Prayer, we say "Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be thy name," may your name be held in honor, on earth as it is in heaven. That's the sense of the greatness of the holiness of the name of God. And His name is holy, it means that He is a holy being, separate from all creation, but especially separate from evil, from all wickedness. His eyes are too pure to look on evil, He cannot tolerate wrong. Habakkuk 1:13. "God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." 1 John 1:5. And it says in Hebrews 12, "Let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." The picture of God is a consuming fire, has a sense of His Holiness. This is the God of the Bible, this is how He describes Himself. God Describes His Dwelling Place But He also describes in this verse his dwelling place. He says, "I live in a high and holy place." Let me tell you about my home, let me tell you about my throne room. I want you to picture it in your mind, I want you to understand where I live. God's dwelling place is as lofty is exalted as He is, it is unreachable, absolutely unreachable by any creature-ly efforts. Satan tried didn't he, tried to scale the heights. He tried to scale the heights of divine grandeur and topple God from His throne, he didn't make it. He was cast down to the earth, and condemned. Arrogant humans tried to build a tower to reach God and they didn't come close. God had to go way down and see this little tower that they were making, this tower of Babel. I mean, God dwells in a high and holy place, we can't reach Him through human efforts we can't even scale there in our minds through philosophy. It's just impossible for God to be reached by human wisdom. God dwells in a high and holy place. He's completely set apart from all creation. He's pure, he's set apart from sin, free from any kind of evil, and his capital city in the coming world, the new Jerusalem, will be as holy as He is. Absolutely free, radiantly glorious, free from all evil. Revelation 21:27 says, "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." Those are the only ones that will enter that Holy City. So this is the dwelling place, the throne-room of God. Now, I want you to picture this in your minds eye. I often talk about this in evangelism. I picture the throne-room of God in a kind of a physical way, because that's about all my mind can do. So I picture it this way: A majestic throne-room, like maybe one of those great oriental polatench, something like that. And he's up on this beautiful exalted throne, a glorious throne. There's this Heavenly courtroom with holy angels all around. I always in this image picture a perfectly white, beautiful, silk carpet just filling the throne-room. I picture it that way. And there's a guardian at the door with a fiery sword flashing back and forth to guard the entrance. The place is perfectly clean, it's free from all the filthiness. But here I come, I am a pig farmer. I've been feeding pigs. I'm covered with pig filth, I'm covered with dung, I'm covered with mud, and I approach the throne-room and I'm immediately stopped by the guardian with his flaming sword. You can't get in here, not like that. I'm aware vaguely at that moment of my filth. So I reach into my pocket and I pull out a mostly clean handkerchief, and start to wipe my brow and my face and my hands. "Stop", the guardian says, "There's nothing you can do to clean yourself up. Nothing." This is the plight of the human race. God's described what kind of place he lives in, and we are the prodigal sons and daughters who have traded our Father's inheritance for riotous living with whores and banquets and alcohol, and all manner of wickedness. We squandered the wealth until it was gone, and we found ourselves starving and feeding pigs and covered with filth. And can we clean ourselves up? Now we cannot. The wonder therefore of the Gospel is not that everyone doesn't get saved, it's how does anyone get saved? How does anyone of us, we race of pig farmer, how does any of us get in through the door? How do we end up in that high and holy place? Well, this is the grace of God in Christ. If you will humble yourself, if you will, with broken-hearted repentance look to the atonement of Jesus Christ, His blood shed on the cross is sufficient to clean us of all of our filth. If you will just simply by faith confess that you are a defiled sinner, and you have no hope of making it into that throne-room, but that God can cleanse you and fit you for heaven, and if you'll just accept it as a gift, he will give it to you freely. That's the Gospel, that Jesus shed his blood to clean up filthy rebellious sinners like us, and He will escort you into that high and holy place, and He will dwell with you forever. I live in a high and holy place, but also with Him who is humble and contrite in spirit. To revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite, that's the God that we worship. He will dwell with the humble broken-hearted sinner. You remember the parable Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax collector that went to pray, remember that? Luke 18, "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself." I always felt that must have been a favorite topic. "Prayed about himself: 'God I think you that I'm not like other men: Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all that I get. But the tax collector stood off at a distance, beat his breast and would not even look up to Heaven, but said, 'Be merciful to me oh God, the sinner.' I tell you, this man went home justified and not the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Do you not see it's the same teaching. It's the exact same teaching. God dwells with people who will humble themselves, and by repentance and faith accept His grace. God actually will live with sinners. The question is, what about you my friend? What about you? Has that happened to you? Have you seen in the law of God, in the mirror of God's law that you're a defiled broken sinner, no different, no better than anyone else. Have you seen that? And do you realize you have no way, no hope of getting yourself cleaned up enough for Heaven? You can't, it's just too pure and perfect, and you're defiled. Have you seen that God sent his Son to be a savior, the savior, the only savior for sinners like you and me. And have you put your trust in Jesus for the cleansing of your soul and the forgiveness of your sins, and the gift of righteousness? I'm going to talk more about that one more time at the end. III. Righteous People Rescued by Death (vs. 1-2) Now that's verse 15. We've already gone to the kernel of the nut and eaten it, we've already drawn the marrow from the bone and received sustenance from it. Now let's look at the whole chapter briefly. He begins at verse one and two by speaking to righteous people. Now friends, pay attention to these verses. These are some of the most helpful verses for those that grieve at the loss of Christian loved ones. Let me say that again, these are some of the most helpful verses you will find in the Bible for those that grieve at the loss of Christian loved ones. Look what he says, "The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart. Devout men are take away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace, they find rest as they lie in death." Oh, those are comforting verses aren't they? Is talking about the death of the righteous, it begins right away that chapter begins the righteous perish by this we don't mean like John 3:16, perishing eternally, just means they die, they die, maybe of cancer, maybe of a tragic car accident, maybe of some other way, maybe just simply of old age, they die, the righteous perish and some people do not fully understand why, they are troubled by it, they don't think about it, they don't ponder it properly. No one ponders it properly, they don't take it and ponder it in their heart, they misunderstand what God is doing. They know that death should have been and was in some sense defeated by Christ, they don't ponder that death is the final enemy to be destroyed and we're going to have to co-exist in some mysterious way with death until the very end of the world and so death is going to hurt us again and again and again death is the final enemy, it's an enemy but it's the final enemy. Now Jesus destroyed that enemy at the cross, praise God, Hallelujah! He destroyed it. Hebrews 2:14, 15 says, "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." So this thing of death has been removed by Christ 1 Corinthians 15, says, "Where O death is your victory, Where O death is your sting?" death has been swallowed up in victory. Thanks be to God He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The ultimate triumph over death is given as a gift to those who have faith in Jesus. He said, "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Now, the text says that the righteous perish, they actually die. Godly people die, upright people who walked in righteousness die, we know that. And this verse God shows His gracious kindness to them, they die to be delivered from evil, do you see that? God is being good to them. Effectively the text says, you've suffered enough dear son, dear daughter, it's time for you to come home. No more suffering, no more death or mourning or crying or pain you're done with that forever, you'll never have a divided heart again, you'll never struggle with sin again. The world, the flesh and the devil can touch you no longer, you're free, you're spared from evil, that's why God does it and it's good for us to celebrate that. For me said Paul, to live is Christ and to die is what, gain hallelujah. So what does that mean for us? Don't grieve like those who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4, "We don't want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, that is die or grieve like the rest of humanity that has no hope. We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him." So yes, we must grieve, we will grieve we must weep, It's appropriate to cry but don't cry like those who have no hope, it's kind of a mystery its sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Hope filled tears, maybe you're just weeping for yourself, I think you probably are, you're weeping for yourself because you weren't delivered yet. And now you have to deal with the world of flesh and the devil minus one of the greatest helps God's ever given you that Godly person and it is going to be harder for you and so you grieve and it's appropriate but just know this, God is with you, He'll never leave you, He'll never forsake you, He will continue to protect you and someday He's going to do for you what He did for that person, He's going to deliver you from evil. Verse 1 and 2 hold on to it, go back to it later study it, it's going to be useful to you sometime in the future. IV. Idolatrous People Exposed and Blown Away (57:3-13a) Now, in Verses 3-13, he goes back to the weeds, he talks about the wicked. We go from the wheat to the weeds to the wheat to the weeds back and forth in these two chapters. Look what he says here in Verse 3 and 4, "But you come here you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes, whom are you mocking and whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?" Now I don't deny that Isaiah is a challenging book to read but I think here he's turned away from the topic of the righteous perishing and how they're delivered to talk about the wicked who were probably at least in part, instrumental in making life miserable for the righteous. And he calls them false worshipers, he calls them sons of sorceress, Now the Jews of Isaiah's day and beyond were constantly tempted to mingle Canaanite pagan religions with the true religion, that's called syncretism, to mix together the religion of the surrounding culture with the biblical religion. And they mixed it together and they generally leaned more and more toward pagan Canaanite-ish type practices in their religions and it was very tragic. God is a jealous God, He's jealous over the affections of his bride and He becomes very passionate and angry when His bride Israel gets drawn away into wickedness and paganism. And so these Jews who are following these Canaanite pagan worship practice, are called out here. They mock the true worshippers, they stick out their tongues in mockery, they sneer, they attack, they slander, they lie and they live lives of rebellion against God's commands and they are summoned in verse 3 and 4 to judgment by Almighty God. "Come here, you sons of a sorceress" He calls them for judgment and He exposes their idolatrous worship in Verses 5-13, these Verses describe the wickedness of the pagan worship practices of those days, they included sexual immorality, they included child sacrifice, they included occult practices and pagan rituals, dark things. Look in verse 5-10, He says, "You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree. You sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags. The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion. Yes, they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In the light of these things, should I relent? You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill. There you went up to offer your sacrifices. Behind your doors and your door posts you have put your pagan symbols." You see this hidden paganism in this wickedness and sexual immorality and child sacrifice. That's what He's calling them out for. "I see everything you do. I see it all." And God speaks as a spiritual husband who is deeply offended by the adultery, spiritual adultery, of His people. Look what He says. "Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened wide. You made a pact with those whose beds you love and you looked on their nakedness. You went to Molech with olive oil and increase your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away, you descended to the grave itself. You are wearied by all your ways, but you would not say it is hopeless. You found renewal of your strength and so you did not faint." Isn't it amazing? All this wickedness, these bad religious practices, this immorality. And they grew weary of it, but they didn't repent. They said, "All right, we got to try harder. And these things are not satisfying us, so we'll do them even more. Maybe they will satisfy." The wickedness and the foolishness. They refused to give them up. They renewed their strength in sin and they kept on doing it. Now verse 11 in the NIV I think is very, very helpful. I know it's different than the ESV, but just follow the NIV translation for a minute. It is very powerful. This is God speaking to unbelievers. "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?" It's powerful, isn't it? Let me say it again. "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?" It's because God seems to do nothing. It's like He seems to not even exist because he doesn't respond, especially to evil. He just seems to just do nothing. And they misunderstand the apparent silence of God. Atheists think that because God doesn't speak and strike down the wicked right away that He doesn't exist. Some time ago I came across the story of an atheist public speaker named Robert Ingersoll, and he used to do these challenging debates and discussions in which he would challenge God and he would utter horrible blasphemies and he culminated in this display. He said, "Now I read in the Bible how God struck blasphemers dead for their blasphemy. I'm going to give God five minutes to strike me dead for all of the blasphemies I've spoken today." And it's very dramatic, you know, he counts off the minutes. One minute, two minutes. Five minutes is a long time for public speaking. If I did it right now, you'd be like, "Please don't do that, pastor." That's a long time to wait in silence. But it was very dramatic at that point. I mean, people fainting, people screaming, all of that. Well, at any rate, the five minutes passed and Robert Ingersoll was not struck dead. The story was later told to Joseph Parker, a British pastor, who said this. "And did the American gentleman think that he could exhaust the patience of the infinite God in just five minutes?" Now you can't, even by great wickedness, exhaust God's patience in five minutes, but at some point it will end. Ingersoll's dead, he's been dead for a century and a half. "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?" Elie Wiesel, a Jewish writer after the Holocaust, wrote his book called Night. I saw this in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. This is what he wrote. "Blessed be God's name," question mark. "Blessed be God's name? Why, why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including the Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz and Birkenau and Buna and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations, yes, chose us to be tortured, day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, ended up in the furnaces? But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I now felt very strong. I was the accuser and God was the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God and without man." Well, I think Isaiah 57:11 addresses that. It's because God was silent and seemed to do nothing that he did not fear Him. The hiddenness of God, especially when so much suffering happens in the world, is distressing to many. It's distressing to Psalmist. How many Psalmists basically complain about why God seems to do nothing? It's in there a lot, like Psalm 44, "Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep? Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?" But here God says, "That's why you don't fear me, because I seem to have done nothing. But someday, though now I only speak through the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms and I speak through Scripture, someday I will speak plainly and you'll see what I think of wickedness. There'll be no doubt at that point what I think, and it will be clear. In the meantime, what you have is you have the Scripture." And God will speak to you through that Scripture and you'll hear Him speak in Scripture, or you will not hear Him at all and you'll think that He's silent. Idolatrous Worshipers Blown Away with their Idols Now, these idolaters worshippers are going to be blown away with their idols. Look at verse 12 and 13, "I will expose your righteousness and your works and they will not benefit you, and when you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you. The wind will carry all of them off a mere breath will blow them away." So, idolaters who follow idols are light weight and the wind of God's judgment will blow them away, and there'll be nothing left. Nothing left of all of their efforts and their works, all of them gone. Now, right in the middle of verse 13 do you notice he switches back to the weed again or back to the righteous, "But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain." V. God Dwells with Humbled and Healed Sinners (57:13b-19) And so, there we have in the middle of that section, this beautiful verse 15, that we begin with. The humble and contrite are welcome to dwell with God. God addresses the man who humbles himself, and makes God his refuge his true refuge. He will not be blown away in the judgment. The wind of judgment will not blow him away. He will survive that. He will inherit the land and possess God's holy mountain. More than that, he will effectively build up roads or highways along which the righteous will travel. Look at verse 14 and it will be said "Build up, build up, prepare the road, remove the obstacles out of the way of my people." Now you may think he's talking about the restoration of the Jews back to the promised land, and it may be, but let me tell you these words soar far above that. Why? because the very next verse. Look at the combination of verse 14 and 15. And it will be said "Buildup, buildup prepare the road remove the obstacles out of the way of my people. For this is what the high and holy one says, He who lives forever and whose name is Holy: 'I live in a high and holy place. But also with the contrite and lowly.'" The connection between the two verses is the highway that's built up in verse 14 is the journey by which we get to that high and holy place. And friends. I'll tell you his name, His name is Jesus. He says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And I get to be, and so to all of you who are believers in Christ, the righteous road constructors who lay the road of Jesus in front of lost people and say, this is the road travel in it. This is Jesus. This is the way you're going to get to the high and holy place. There's no other road that leads to heaven. We get to be spiritual civil engineers and build these roads for lost people." That's what's going to happen. Now, these contrite sinners, they have a lot to be contrite about. I remember Winston Churchill was talking about a fellow member of Parliament. He said he's a humble man with much to be humble about. I thought, "Man, he's a mean guy. I would not want him as a friend, a humble man, with much to be humble about." Well, we are contrite people with much to be contrite about. That's the point of verse 16 through 19. Do you see it? I will, this is God speaking about the righteous. "I will not accuse forever nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me, the breath of man that I created." Look at Verse 17, "I was enraged by his sinful greed. I punished him and hit my face and anger yet he kept on in his willful ways." Verse 18, "I have seen his ways but I will heal him. I will guide him and restore comfort to him." Verse 19: "Creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel, 'Peace, peace to those far and near' says the Lord 'And I will heal them.'" So this is talking about the righteous who are the humble and contrite that God will spend eternity with. He was really angry with them. He had a record of their sins. They were wicked in his sight. They pushed his patience. So they were idolaters. They had a record of sins that was standing against them and it says in Colossians 2, that God took that record of sins that stood against us and was opposed to us and nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ and were free. And God's anger is gone forever. He is propitiated. His wrath is gone. He is not angry at us. He will not always accuse and instead He will heal us of our wayward ways. I have seen God is saying "Your wayward crooked ways and I will heal you." You already said how in Isaiah 53. Jesus "was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him." What's the next part? "By His wounds we are healed." I've seen his ways. Isaiah 57, "And I will heal him through Jesus, through his wounds I will heal you." That's the promise he's making here. It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Jesus came to heal us of sin and He will. And so in our text. Look at Verse 18, and 19 "I have seen his ways but I will heal him, I will guide him. I will restore comfort to him creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. 'Peace, peace, to those far near,' says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them." So, the result of all this? We get to spend eternity at peace with God and praising him for our salvation. He's going to create praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. We're going to spend eternity mindful of our sins, but not hurt by them, instead worshipping God for our salvation. He's going to create praise on our lips and we're going to be at peace with him forever. For it says in Romans 51, "Having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And not only that. But he's going to do it for those near and far. Do you see those words there? Oh, don't miss significance of that. "Creating praise in the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace to those far and near. For me as a gentile adopted son of Abraham, I'm really excited about that." You know from Ephesians 2, it speaks to Gentile believers in Christ, Ephesians 2-12-13, it says, "Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That's who you were, you were far away. "But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ," creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Those both near and far, that's us Gentiles and Jewish believers in Christ praise for God for the salvation He has worked. And He will heal us. You know what? He's going to give peace to the healed. The healing goes together with the peace. Go on in your willful wicked idolatrous sinful ways, He will not give you peace. There's no peace in that way. But as He is healing you through sanctification, He's strengthening your righteous living, he pours out a sense of peace in your conscience and a sense of the peace of God, the peacefulness that comes from your status of peace with God. He heals you and you know you have peace and some day you're going to be totally healed. Like I've already said, when you die and you depart from evil, you'll be free forever. VI. God Condemns the Wicked to Endless Restlessness (57:20-21) Now, the chapter ends going back to the weeds one more time. Look at verse 20 and 21: "But the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 'There is no peace' says my God for the wicked." Friends, these words describe the world. Do you not see it? This is a churning tumultuous wicked difficult world in which we live, and these two verses at the end of Isaiah 57 describe why. These people, these lost people that we live with have no rest, no peace inside their hearts. They're churning and restless and never satisfied. They don't find what life is all about. And so they are restless like Satan roaming over the surface of the earth or like the demons that go through the... Go out of the man in Matthew 12 and they go through arid places seeking rest and they don't find it. And they're restless and they're looking for something. Think about all the political unrest in the world. Think about the riots and the demonstrations and the violence. Think about the restlessness of the Muslim world leading many young Muslim men in particular, to seek an outlet for their restlessness and their rage in Jihad and terrorism. Think about the constant turmoil of nation rising against nation, a series of wars after wars after wars and it never seems to end. And why? Because people are restless in their hearts. Think about the simple restlessness of the world as seen in the nightly news reports, local news and CNN, whatever. Local and worldwide, restlessness, no peace. They are like the churning sea casting up mire and muck. They're looking, constantly looking for something. Think about the restless hearts of people who are addicted to prescription, pain medications. And they can never get enough. They seek their peace in the narcotic. Stunning levels of people who are addicted now to these opioids. Also, more and more people addicted to heroin and morphine, they're seeking peace in the drug. It's not any different than those that seek it in alcohol. They're looking for an escape, peace and they're not finding it. Think about restless people who look for peace through psychiatry and psychology and counseling. It's estimated over 600 million people suffer from anxiety or depression, clinical depression, 600 million. Many of them are literally restless, they can't sleep at night. They have chronic insomnia. They're filled with anxiety, they go to psychiatrists and counselors and psychologists and get drugs, and there's no peace. Think about the relentless drive and ambition of even successful, wealthy people who attain all their goals and they don't satisfy them. Some time ago, I saw an interview and many of you perhaps have seen it, with Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback after he won his third Super Bowl. There's a 60 minutes interview with journalist Steve Croft and he said these stunning words. When I was going over the sermon this morning, it's hard for me to read this even without crying. Brady said this. This is Tom Brady: "So a lot of times, I think I get very frustrated and introverted and there's times where I'm not the person that I want to be. Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people say, 'Hey man, this is what it is, this is it.' I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think. God, there's got to be more than this. I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be, can it? I mean, I've done it. I'm 27. And what else is there for me?" I mean, he's saying this on tape. Croft said, "What's the answer?" And he said, "I wish I knew." I wish I knew. Friends, I'm telling you there are people like that around you every day. They're like, "I don't... Even when things go well, for me, I know there's nothing in it. It's emptiness." I mean, this man's as successful as you could ever want to be in a worldly sort of way but he says, "I wish I knew." Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's living in a high and holy place with God by faith in Christ. That's what is satisfying, nothing else. What else matters? Few verses capture the reason for the world's misery better than this one: "The wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace says my God for the wicked." Now that last verse of the chapter seems to read to me like a decree. There can be no peace says my God for the wicked. Not as such. VII. An Invitation from the High and Holy So God gives us an invitation. Go back one more time, as we close to verse 15. This is what the high and lofty one says. He who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is humble and contrite in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite. God has promised in this text, He's seen all your ways, he's promised to heal you. He knows how you live, he knows what you do, he knows everything. He said I'm going to heal you, verse 18, I will guide you, and I will restore comfort to you. And I will not always accuse, I will not always be angry. Effectively, the New Testament invitation that lines up with this, is this one, Matthew 11. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened said Jesus and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am humble in heart and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So that's my appeal to you as non Christians. For you Christians, I would urge you to meditate deeply on verse 1 and 2. Get it ready for when you lose a loved one in Christ. Just get ready for it, or when you face your own death. Just realize God is good to take righteous people out of this sinful world. He's just... He's just good. Secondly, see if there's any restlessness in you like that of the wicked, and repent from it. God's not going to bless that kind of wickedness, even in his own children. He will discipline you out of it, so the sooner you repent from it, you will find peace in your repentance. Thirdly, meditate much on the staggering words of verse 15. I just give them to you as a gift, they're not mine to give, but I just like, here they are, read them. Just read verse 15 and swim in the ocean of greatness. And then finally, at the very end, the last two verses, understand the turmoil of the world is essentially spiritual. It's because people are out of fellowship with God that they don't know what life is about and they are so churning. We need to give them peace in Christ. Whatever happens on Tuesday, whatever happens with the election, just understand this, true peace is found only in the kingdom of God. Close with me in prayer.

This week on In The Conversation, Damien and Ali and guest host Elle Clay welcome Melo from the "Respect Life" YouTube Series, Boom Pacino, to discuss writing and editing the show, filming and living in Bed Stuy, working with the police while shooting the show, Steve Croft's affair, and a lot more. Check it out. Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/dlemoncomedy ... twitter.com/mrmuhammad ... twitter.com/LaughingVlad ... twitter.com/boompacino ... twitter.com/StandUpNYLabs Follow Elle on Instagram: @southernelle Keep up with the conversation on Facebook: facebook.com/intheconversation Check out all the other podcasts on this network at standupnylabs.com

On the show this week we talk to UC Berkeley astronomy researcher Steve Croft about the science of supermassive black holes.http://patreon.com/inquiringminds

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Steve Croft is cheating, Oil Tycoon Sends ex- $1 billion dollar check