Why The Resurrection Matters | Ep.24

This week is all about the Resurrection of Christ. We challenge sloppy thinking that drifts from Christian doctrine, from spiritual warfare doubts to viral claims that turn anything heroic into “Christian”. We land on Easter Sunday where the resurrection stands as the make-or-break truth, shaping communion, new life, and what we actually believe. 

• spiritual warfare as an enemy strategy to keep people from Scripture 
• why calling Harry Potter “Christian” confuses basic doctrine 
• prosperity gospel criticised without condemning success or blessing 
• Bryce Crawford and Kenneth Copeland as a case study in discernment 
• the “Easter is named after Ishtar” claim as bad etymology 
• Passover roots and why English naming does not define meaning 
• the resurrection as the cornerstone of Christianity via 1 Corinthians 15 
• communion as meaningful participation rather than “just a symbol” 
• why symbolic acts must be grounded in physical reality 
• Romans 6 and the call to die and be born again 

Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and He's coming back soon!

Transcript

Spiritual Warfare And A Heckler

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to episode 24 of the Ministry of Man podcast. And I hope you're all doing amazing. I hope you all I hope you are all having the best day of your life. And if you're not, then I hope you do have the bet best day of your life. And if you haven't yet, like if you're listening to this later in the day, I hope that you know you have the best rest of the day of of your life. I hope you have the best rest of the day of your whole entire life. For whatever time it is now to whatever time your day ends, that that portion of the day is the best that that portion could potentially be compared to any other portion of your life. Now let me just I don't even know if any of that made sense, but that's okay. Because lots of things don't make sense. There was a guy that sent me a comment last week I speak about uh spiritual warfare, right? And I had a clip up about you know potential things that demonic spirits might do to uh disrupt your life or to stop you from being closer to the Lord. And someone comments on one of the videos and they say something along the lines of, hey man, what do your friends think of all this demon talk, or something like that? And I was, I was, I asked to clarify, I was like, Do you mean like do my do I have some friends that think that it's weird or something and that I'm talking too much about that? Or is that what you mean? And he said, Yeah, because what you're suggesting here is that there's evil forces that are preventing people from reading their Bibles, dot, dot, dot. And I'm like, well, yeah, that I'm not just suggesting it, I'm actively espousing that. That's that's my claim. So like that's exactly what you would expect expect. Like, if you're going to read the Bible for one and believe things that are in the Bible, then you're gonna believe that there's demonic spirits as well. It's kind of par the course, it's it's a whole it's a package deal. Believing the things that are in the Bible, you can't just pick and choose and cherry-pick parts of the Bible. It's like it's either all true or it's like none of it's true. It's so I'm like, what do you think these evil forces are are doing? The thing was, he didn't even try to say that it's weird to speak about demonic spirits or evil forces. He was saying, you're implying here that evil forces are preventing people from reading their Bible. It's like, what else would an evil force want to be doing? Like they're not they're not tricksters, they're not like pranksters, they're not evil forces running around tying your shoelaces together. Like they're not like they're not doorbell ditching your house. Like they're gonna, if they're gonna be doing anything, they're gonna be trying to stop you from getting closer to God. Like, surely that's their main thing. It's like one of the main things. Well, you're uh you're suggesting here that there's demonic forces preventing people from reading their Bibles. It's like yeah, dude, that's exactly right. That's exactly what I was doing. I just thought that was that was funny.

Why Harry Potter Is Not Christian

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Um another thing that's been coming up, and this is like puzzling for me. I see this video of a guy, and I've seen a couple of different posts about this, but a guy goes, Here's the top three books that point to Christ without you realizing it or something. Number one, Harry Potter. Oh, it's either laugh or cry because like if you read Harry Potter and you go, This is a Christian story, it's like what world are we living in where the kid that goes to the school of witchcraft and wizardry is a is a Christian story. Like, what are we doing here, man? Like, not to mention there are like hundreds of people being like, Yes, I've always thought this about Harry Potter, it's super Christian. If witchcraft is Christian, I don't know what they what they think Christianity is. Like, have we gone so we strayed so far from just like I don't know, the most elementary level of Christian doctrine imaginable that we think Harry Potter, like if Harry Potter's Christian, then what what everything is? Like everything is, and some of the reasons is like, yeah, you know, they've got the good versus evil aspect, and it's like so does diehard is diehard Christian? Like every single action adventure fantasy movie ever made has got a good guy, bad guy element. Is everything Christian now? It's like, should we say that Norse mythology is also Christian because Odin died on a on a tree, self-sacrifice himself on a tree? Like, is everything just Christian? That's just you can mildly link some some elements to it. The Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood and he go gets on an arc and survives a world flood that wipes out everyone except for Gilgamesh. Is the Epic of Gilgamesh Christian? Because it's got some similarities to that in the Bible. Like, what are we doing here? Like if we if we're calling like it's one thing to say like Harry Potter's not evil. It's one thing that people I've heard people say that and they go, Well, you know, it's a story about a kid that's been you know had a rough life and then he comes into becoming a hero and it's a heroic tale, and you're like, okay, like that's one element. So you can you can make a case for that all you want, whatever. But to say that it's Christian and that it's pointing to Christ is like if last week I spoke about doctrines of demons and how demons want to like you know coerce people into pushing the line. Like, if if there if there is anything that's gonna be like a doctrine of demons, it's saying, yeah, these movies about witchcraft are Christian, Christians should be should be watching this because you'll find Christ in that. It's like, what are we doing, man? Like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes. Like, this is like the like the most obvious ones. The most obvious ones. And people are like, uh, it's like, what hope do we have? If all Satan needs to do is just put some mild heroism into a story and make it somewhat kid friendly, and but then like lace it with like seances and Ouija boards. Like, not that that those are in Harry Potter, but like you can just put you can just do whatever you want, then you can just just make anything satanic, just make a kid-friendly version of it, and then it's fine. And then it's fine. Just put a make just make sure that the good guy wins in the end, because then it's a good story. If the good guy wins, but then it's fine. You can put whatever you want in it. It's not demonic. Yes, they're casting spells, and yes, there's dark arts and all of this, and yes, we have the main characters using these spells and witchcraft and all this stuff. It's like it doesn't matter, it's pointing to it's good, dude. It's like so naive, man. So naive. Yeah, it's crazy, dude. I mean, the just the lack of general logic that Christians seem to have is it's just bewildering to me.

Prosperity Gospel And Public Confusion

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Bryce Crawford is uh a young uh evangelical kind of, I don't know, he's kind of popping off on social media. I don't know what you'd call him. He's a speaker, he's uh maybe a Christian influencer. Uh he has this podcast and he gets on this guy, Kenneth Copeland, who's preaches this what's called a prosperity gospel, where the idea behind it is that God wants everyone to prosper, and you have to claim these things. Like he in in the sense of he wants everyone to prosper materialistically, he wants everyone to be rich, he wants everyone to be successful, he wants everyone that you know that's this this gospel of God wants the best for you and all of these things. So there's obviously there's a lot of criticism against that gospel because it's definitely not a biblical uh lesson that you should when you read the New Testament of the Bible, you shouldn't be coming away thinking God wants me to be have heaps of money and heaps of things and heaps of materialistic things. He actually says that's a much, much harder life to live. If you're materialistically rich, Jesus says it's easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get to heaven. So I don't think God is actively trying to get ever to make everyone wealthy materialistically. Uh but it's not to say that that is that he would, you know, that that's necessarily a bad thing, but you look at the life of some of the people in the Bible, and they they did not live that type of life. Like Paul, who was who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, was not wealthy wealthy like that. Like he was not materialistically wealthy. He worked as a tent maker, he traveled around and he preached and he spread the good news of the gospel, and he was beaten multiple times. He was stoned, he was imprisoned, he was cast out of cities multiple times, he was shipwrecked, bitten by snakes, like and then eventually he was martyred, he was killed in the end. And so, like, he didn't live a materialistic life. I mean, he lived a more devout life to Christ than anyone I've ever heard of, and he definitely wasn't uh prospering in the materialistic sense. And so Bryce Crawford sits down with this guy, Kenneth Copeland, and he kind of presses him on this prosperity gospel. And um, a lot of people after it started attacking Bryce because they go, Well, hang on a second, Bryce, you're really wealthy, like you get 25 grand to go and speak somewhere, or or you know, sometimes more than that, maybe sometimes less. But you've also got these businesses and you sell merch and you're doing really well, yeah, you know, you're wealthy kind of kid. Now, and they're kind of saying, like, oh, what a hypocrite. He's he's against the prosperity gospel, but he seems to be prospering, and it's like you're completely missing the whole point. Like, he's never saying like Christians should be in poverty, he's just saying that the gospel isn't a a manner of materialistic prosperity. You can God can still prosper you materialistically, but it's just not the focus of the gospel, it's just not the message that's being sent. And like people just could not figure out, like to draw the line to say, you know, just because someone happens to be blessed and prospering, that doesn't mean they're advocating for a prosperity gospel. It's two completely different things. In addition to that, you don't even know what he does with his money either, by the way. Like he doesn't have a flashy look, doesn't like you know, Kenneth Copeland, for example, who flies in a private jet and you know, he he drives really he wears really expensive suits and drives expensive cars, and it's like you don't really see Bryce Crawford doing that. He just wears kind of regular clothes, and um, so we don't know first of all what he's doing with his finances, but more to the point, it doesn't matter if someone is against a prosperity gospel but is still prosperous, it's the same the gospel is the gospel. Whether you're prospering or not, it's the good news. You can it's like whether all that's taken away or it's given to you, it doesn't matter. God is still good either way, the gospel is still good news either way. I'm sure that if Bryce was taken to a point where the finances that he has God took away, he would still be like, Yeah, well, look, you know, God giveth and God taketh away. It's what it is, what it is. I mean, if if the prosperity gospel was true, a lot of people would have the mindset of, oh, well, maybe God just doesn't like me because I'm not prospering. Maybe God, maybe I'm just doing something wrong because I'm not rich. It's a crazy gospel, but anyway. The point is that like people just why can't people use their brains anymore, man? Like, like I'm not smart enough for so many people to be this clueless about how to think. Like, it's just there's a question that's asked that gets posed sometimes, and it's like, would you rather, keeping your same intellect now, would you rather be the smartest person in the world or the dumbest person in the world? And so, in that scenario, in the would you rather, you remain your you remain at your own intelligence, but everyone else would either get substantially smarter than you, and so you end up becoming the dumbest person, or everyone gets substantially uh less intelligent than you. And like, there is not a world in which I would choose to be the smartest person in the world. Like, I would want to be the dumbest person 10 times out of 10, 100 times out of a hundred. It is just like the whole oh man, ignorance is blistered. But anyway, I shouldn't be so down because you know why?

Is Easter Pagan? The Name Myth

SPEAKER_00 13:49

I shouldn't be down because I'm recording this on Easter Sunday, and that's a beautiful day. This is the day that Christ rose from the dead. This is the fundamental aspect of the Christian faith. Christ dying and rising again on the third day is the most important part of the Christian story, which is why Christians celebrate Easter. And so I do want to talk a little bit about it because it is Easter. And if I'm not talking about Easter on Easter, then maybe my priorities wouldn't be in the right place. And so one thing I want to I want to clear the air with, and if a lot of people have spoken about this, but there's still some wild rumors, just rumors, just rumors, floating around about Easter and like the the origin. Easter's pagan. They try and say Easter's pagan because they go, that's what they say, they go, Easter is named after Ishtar. So Ishtar is apparently some fertility goddess thing and from some pagan deity, something like that. And they say Easter and Ishtar, uh, they say we get Easter from the word Ishtar because they sound similar. And people hear that and they go, Oh, they do sound similar. Oh, I didn't know. Well, there you go. Easter's pagan all along. And you're like, Do you have any idea how low IQ that kind of ideology, like that, that kind of thinking is? That just because words sound the same, that they're related in some way. Like, to say that specific and Pacific must have the same etymological root is just like the lowest IQ thing I could I could imagine. Like, just because a word sounds the same, doesn't mean they're related. They're different words and they have different meanings. Like, wait till you hear about homophones. Like homophones are like if you think like if you think words sounding similar mean they have the same root and the same meaning. Finding out about homophones is gonna ruin your life. Like the word night, you've got the night as in the night sky, and then you've got the like a night of the round table or something, is like obviously they're the same sound exactly, but they're completely different. Like they've got no relation to one another whatsoever. Buy to buy items or say bye to someone, no relation. Flower to make a cake or a flower from the garden, peace, like a piece of cake and peace of mind. They're just, or you know, to to be at peace. The same words that have no meaning at ever. Like thinking that words sound the same or are the same the same, just have the same meaning, is just a terrible way to to think or to conclude an idea on. And so that just is is insane. That that's all it takes for some people to believe. Well, they do sound similar. And in most languages as well, like Easter's an English word, by the way. Easter, in most other countries that don't speak English, they don't even call it Easter, they call it Pashka or Pasha, which is like uh in Greek or Spanish or Portuguese, some Scandinavian countries, they don't use Easter as their word, they use Pashka, and all Pashka means is Passover. It's like from the Hebrew word for Passover, which is what we're celebrating, like the Passover. So, like it's not even uh like Easter's an English word. Easter is actually derived from so this is another thing that people think Easter was developed from or that it's pagan from, is that Ostre, uh Ostre is a Mesopotamian god, goddess. Ostre Monath, I think that's how you say it, Ostre Monath means Easter month. And so because the Passover, the Pashka, was during Easter month, which is April as we know it, people say, Oh, well, it's named after that. Easter's named after Ostermonath, Easter month or Ostre. People say, Oh, well, then Easter's pagan. And it's like, just because it happens to be named in Easter month doesn't mean that it's named after the the thing that it is, right? So Thursday, for example. Thursday means Thor's Day. Thursday comes from a Germanic Norse god, Thor. That's what Thursday stems from. Look it up. Do you do your fact checking? All of the days of the week, like why do you think the days of the week are named what they're named? So Sunday is literally the day of the sun, Monday was the day of the moon or moon's day, sun's day, moon's day. And some of these are named after German or Norse gods. Thursday happens to be Thor, Wednesday is from Odin, and so just because something happens to be on a Thursday doesn't mean that it's related to Thor. In the same way, Easter happens to fall on Ostre doesn't mean that it's after the pagan goddess Ostre. And first of all, like that name, there's only one source of that name anyway, of Ostre, which was referenced by a Catholic scholar named St. Bade, and there was no reference of it being like a fertility goddess or anything like that. It's just the fact that it that it was a goddess that people worshipped. So, yeah, I mean it just makes no sense because some people go, it's it's Ishtar. Sorry, Ishtar is the is the Mesopotamian goddess, Ostre is the Anglo-Saxon goddess, and so Ostre is named after the the Anglo-Saxon goddess. Ishtar is named after the Mesopotamian goddess, and so obviously, like first of all, it can't be both. So you've got to pick one. It can't be both Mesopotamian and Anglo-Saxon because they're both they're both completely different etymologies, completely different functions, and completely different history behind them both. So, yeah. The more likely, and just the the one that has the most grounding in truth because it's reality, is that it's Pashka and that happened to be in Ostre Month.

Why The Resurrection Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Now, now that I've got that out of the way, I want to talk about the importance of specifically the resurrection, the resurrection of Christ, Christ dying and then being raised from the dead. Because one thing is clear if if Jesus did not literally rise from the dead, in a literal sense, the whole all of Christianity is basically flawed. It isn't a faith worth pursuing. It guts it, it guts the whole faith, basically. If Christ doesn't isn't risen from the dead, the entire faith is gutted from within. It it the whole point of us being able to be new creations and be born again is because of what Christ did on the cross. Like everything around Christianity revolves around the cross. Christ dying on the cross and then rising again, being brought back to life, defeating death, defeating darkness, destroying the works of darkness on the cross. It was prophesied from way back, way back in the old testament. There's God saying to To Abraham, when he's going to sacrifice his son Isaac, I will provide the lamb. I will provide the lamb in substitute for you for Isaac. So this this is how serious Paul takes, Paul who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, this is how serious he takes Christ rising from the dead. He says this in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, 20 to 22, he says, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins, then those who also have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. So the crux of the crucifixion and rising again is that by one man, which is Adam, all are all are now dead in sin, but through Christ, who has defeated death, all can be made alive with him. It's the the cornerstone of Christianity.

Communion, Symbols, And True Meaning

SPEAKER_00 23:19

And so one thing that we do as Christians is we part we participate in something called communion. Some denominations or some Christian factions will call it the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper. There's a few different names for it. But what it is, is it is when Jesus says to his disciples, he says, To partake in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood. And what he's saying is, he will give them bread. He goes, This is this bread is my body, this wine is my blood. Take this to in remembrance of me. So that's the the command that he gives when in the last supper, as he gives to to go and be crucified. And so there's a lot of dispute over what Christ means by that. When he said it, people thought that he he meant literally eat his actual flesh and drink his actual blood. And first century Christians had to defend and say, no, it's like they got accused of cannibalism, and they had to say, no, it's not it's not actually that. It's not actually literal flesh and blood, even though Catholics believe it is. Catholics believe that the elements of the bread and the wine transform into literal flesh and blood, which is mind-numbingly stupid. It is mind-numbingly stupid that they that that's what they think. And it's a real discredit to Christianity, I think. That they just don't get it. They just don't get it. Like Jesus says so many things. He just like Jesus rebuked him for just taking everything literally all the time. No, not literally. Not literally. So anyway, in in communion, when people do this, they're they're remembering the sacrifice of Christ, they're remembering his body and his blood. So his body was beaten, broken, his blood was shed. Take the take the bread and take the wine as a as a in remembrance of me. And so some people say that, you know, the Catholics say that it literally transforms. Other denominations will say, you know, Christ is really present there. So he's present in the spirit, or he's present in some sense of when you take the elements. The thing that bothers me is that Baptists are accused of it being just a symbol. They'll say, Oh, or there's some Protestant denominations that will take communion or the Eucharist and they'll say, Oh, yeah, but they they think that it's just a symbol. And like the term just a symbol is kind of a contradictory term. Nothing can really be reduced to just when you're talking about a symbol. Because a symbol is the is significant by nature. Like a symbol can't be only a symbol. It's it is the essence and the meaning behind everything that it's symbolizing. So the the symbol is the significance of the thing. In order to recognize a symbol, you have to understand the meaning of what it's symbolizing. A symbol is known and recognized by the meaning that it holds. And meaning is how we're able to see the world around us and actually make sense of it. So we can't see something that doesn't have meaning because without it having meaning, it just becomes absurd. It just becomes shapes and figures. So what you look at, if you don't know the meaning of it or its purpose and its function, which is its what is its meaning, then you it's just an absurdity of an object. So if you look at a car, you would just see shape and you would see like circles and rectangles and shapes, and you're just like, what is it that I'm looking at? And then when you understand its function and what it does, well you then you and and why someone would use it, and you go, okay, well, now I I know what I'm looking at now. So like let's say when it comes to words without meaning is just a gibberish sound. Like if I said to you, Jim and Yuabany, and you're like, well, that is just gibberish. If I said gloomstun, you know, okay, well, that means nothing. It's gibberish, it's absurd. If there's no meaning behind it, it is just absurdity. So meaning, you understand things through what they mean. In the same way, I could say a word that you do know what means, but it like I could say a word that you do know the meaning of, but without knowing the meaning of why someone's saying it, it still becomes absurd. If I say the word shoebox in a conversation, if I just go up to someone and say shoebox, like the first thing you'd think is like, okay, well, like I know what that word means, but like I don't know why you've said it. So what do you mean by that? Like, what do you mean when you say that? So meaning is what structures how what you see and how you see it. Meaning is the structure of everything in in life. So, in the same way, what you what you look at, so the reason that you might see a person is because you value that person or what they're saying, if you're listening to them, you value what they're saying more than anything else that's in your vision. Or like whatever it is that you're looking at, whatever has your attention in that moment, you're valuing that thing more than anything else because you're neglecting everything else. If you're focused on one thing that is at the expense of focusing on anything else. So if I look at a cup, I'm also at the same time not looking at all the other things surrounding it. And it's a helpful thing because you it's it's dysfunctional to be able to comprehend everything that's in your line of sight. Like if you're looking towards a direction, there could be a hundred or a thousand different things that is in your scope of vision, but you don't register anything that you don't, that you aren't fixated on, or that you're not valuing the highest in that particular moment. So when you're driving a car, for example, you're looking directly at all of the things that you value the highest in order to preserve your life, basically, because you don't want to crash. As soon as you stop valuing the person in front of you or what they're saying, your focus will shift to something else. So if you're listening to this right now and you find yourself drifting off into other thoughts, maybe you're not valuing that so much as another potential thought that might pop up, which is fine. But the point is that you're not, you can't have two focuses at once. You can't be both reading a book and listening to the dialogue in a movie at the same time. You can shuffle back and forth and in between, but you can't be comprehending what you're reading and what someone is saying and fully comprehending both things at the same time. So there has to be something you're valuing higher in the moment that you're that you are comprehending it and understanding it. So meaning is everything. Meaning precedes seeing, and we see things by way of what they mean. So I say all that to say when you are taking communion, in that moment, you're putting your focus and your attention, and therefore you're you're valuing what it is that you're looking at more than anything else in that moment. So when you when you do communion, you're saying, okay, this as a symbol represents Christ, what he did on the cross. And in that moment, you're submitting yourself to say, I am valuing this at the highest uh above all else in that very moment. I'm saying this is the thing that I'm currently fixed on, I'm currently focused on, that has my attention, and that I understand its meaning for one, I know what it means when I when I get the bread and I get the wine, I know what it means, and on top of that, I'm valuing it at its highest point. So I'm I'm neglecting everything else in the moment to take this communion, and I understand the meaning behind it. That Christ died for you. He died so that all might live, that you're no longer dead, you you can be born again and and risen with Christ. Now, that's the meaning, that's the value. The importance of the actual action in doing it. So the fact, because you can just say, like, well, what if I just think about it? Why do I actually have to like eat the bread and drink the wine? Why can't I just think about it and just have it in my mind as being the, you know, I'm valu as long as I'm thinking about it just in my head, like, why do I have to physically eat it? Why can't I just look at bread and wine and just remember it in that way? So a symbolic action is only real if it's rooted in a physical reality. It has to have actually taken place. Like things have to have actually taken place for it to be rooted in reality. We know that the prod this, let's say, the story of the prodigal son, where a son goes off and squanders his inheritance, he comes back and he's greeted with love by his father. And he didn't think that he was going to be. He thought, I, you know, I'll go back to my father and at least maybe I could I can work for him as a slave. And his father embraces him and gives him a cloak and shoes and a signet ring and throws a celebration for him. So, like that is only true symbolically, because we know that that that is true in a in a physical reality, and we know that it is in terms of the most loving parents would obviously accept their children back. Like anyone that's a parent that genuinely loves their children and their children were coming back in in this state of despair, that they would welcome them back in open arms. And that there has to be some sort of reality, a physical reality. I can't tell someone, you know, uh, you know, there's this story of how this guy he decided he he was going to try and eat all the tastiest foods uh that that he could possibly find. And so he started eating chocolate and pizza and McDonald's and all the all these fast foods, and he was eating as much as he could, as often as he could, for every meal. And and what he found is that he actually got uh a lot stronger and a lot smarter and he got healthier. And so the moral of the story is you just have to do the most pleasurable things in life because of this this story. And it's like like anyone would know, okay, that that story obviously isn't grounded in reality, it's not true literally or physically, and so it can't be true symbolically. The stories that are, let's say, fantasy stories. So you you could have a story of let's say a dragon, someone's slaying a dragon or something. You know, you say dragons aren't real, and so all that is is like the dragon is just a proxy for a bad thing or like a giant difficult trial, and so and then you know, the hero of the story saving the princess or something like these are the like the hero's journey is a popular story because people live that out all the time. There is a sense of reality in which those stories happen. The you just swap out certain characters, but in a in a made-up story that doesn't have any physical rooted reality, you can't really do that. Like in in the story of just eating, doing things that are immediately gratifying, self-gratifying things that are in the immediate, never pay off in the long run. Like delayed gratification is where the story should be found because that's the reality we live in, is that things that um you delay in gratification are typically the things that are better for you to do. And so there needs to be a reality involved, there needs to be a physical action of doing something. And so this is how we know that love is a verb, for example. You can't just say loving things to someone, like you have to actually live out that love. To express love for someone in words and ideas and loving thoughts is that that's one thing. But if those sentiments, they don't, if they don't translate to anything physical, then they don't really have the same meaning. Like it's just if push comes to shove and you're you're not actually doing anything that would say that you love them. Like if I say to someone I love you and um and say all these nice words, but then I steal from them and I lie to them, well, is that love actually real? Like, no, obviously it's not. Like you wouldn't do that if you if you did love them. So, like, words and thought, you can you can have thoughts about, yeah, I really do love that person, but unless there's some action involved in it, then it needs to materialize in some sense. And so without it, without it materializing, I suppose the meaning of it is is vapid and it's it's um it's empty. So, I mean, of course, like you can fake it, you can fake doing loving things for people, you know, you can do things that would appear to be loving, but oftentimes, like it's a strategy in order to get something back in return. Someone isn't going to be self-sacrificially loving someone because like that is that is actually loving them, like it's uh like so it's like saying the the whole thing you can't fake courage, it's either you aren't being courageous because you're just not afraid, or you are afraid and you do the thing anyway, and that is what courage is. And so, like, courage isn't really something that can be can be faked, uh maybe it's similar to that, but but yeah, the the fact that the whatever the thing is, whatever the symbolic thing is, it needs to be materialized in some sense in order for it to really matter and for it to really be real. And so when it comes to something like communion, it's a voluntary act to say that I'm going to participate in this, I'm going to materialize what Christ said to partake in his body and his blood, and give my utmost attention and value to what it is, and and consume the elements and and materialize the sentiment, I suppose. This is just one aspect, I think, of of communion. And obviously, like communion is it's an important thing. It's something that the Bible is, especially Paul speaks of it in a way that you don't want to take it in bad spirit. In 1 Corinthians 11, 27 to 30, it says, Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. To examine yourself, examine your heart, why are you taking this? Why are you actually doing this? Is it because you want something from the Lord or you want to be seen in a certain way? Or is it because you understand the meaning and the sim, what what the symbol actually is of what you're participating in? Because it isn't a small thing, communion. It's a the the symbol itself is the is the biggest thing. It's the biggest thing.

New Life, Evidence, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 40:44

The resurrection itself, it's important because Jesus rising from the dead literally, he had to have obviously he had to physically in in reality rise from the dead. Not just an idea or a symbolic thing that he rose from the dead in some sense. He literally rose from the dead, and it's important that he did, because we are to rise from the dead as well. Now, we are to to die and to be born again, that is the Christian call, is to die and to be born again, to become a new creation, to no longer be under the seed of Adam, but we're now under the seed of Christ. So we're different, born again. In Romans 6, verse 4, it says, We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. So Christ's resurrection allows us to, so his the physical sense of him rising from the dead allows us to literally, but also spiritually walk in the newness of life. In verse five, it says, For we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. So it matters. It matters that it really, really happened. And this is the big dispute. This is why Christianity gets attacked or Jesus gets attacked, because they know if they can sh put any doubt in the mind of any anyone really that Christ may not have risen from the dead, then it throws out all of the Christian ideas and throws out the doctrine, it throws out the religion. You can't have it without the cross. There is a it's it's a fundamental part of Christianity. So that is why uh it gets attacked. I mean, there's never been a more documented person, I don't think, in all of history to know that Jesus existed, for one. I mean, the the most naive thing people can say is that like that they don't believe Jesus existed as a person. It is just unanimous in in terms of the consensus that Jesus was a real person. The contention that lies is obviously was he God or the Son of God, and what was he doing the miracles that he was saying that he was doing or that people claimed that he was doing and wrote that he was doing? That's where the they try and throw doubt on, and they try to throw doubt on the fact that you know he rose again because if they can throw enough shade and doubt onto that, then they by proxy throw shade and doubt onto the whole to the whole religion. So but people died for this. A lot of people died for the testimony of Christ. People don't typically die for a lie. People don't get crucified for a lie. You know, some some people got beheaded, some were in prison, some were burnt alive. They died in some really horrific ways. They aren't. Doing that for something that they're making up and that they lie about. It's yeah. So praise the Lord. He rose again, he is risen, and he loves you. And he in Christ is king. He is the name above all names. And he is coming back. He came once, and it has been prophesied that he will return. He came first as the lamb. And when he comes back, he's not coming as a lamb again. He's coming as a lion. And uh and you want to be ready. You want to be absolutely ready for that. So thank you for listening. I love you. Jesus loves you. You're amazing. And you you you look great as well. You're phenomenal looking. All right, peace.