NXR Podcast - BONUS EPISODE - A Parable For Conservatives | You’re Not Fearful, You’re Just Wicked
Aired: 2023-02-04
Duration: 19:50


=== Storytelling At The Expense Of Truth (14:41) ===

[00:00:00]  All right, listen, guys, I get it.
[00:00:01]  Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
[00:00:10]  Praise God for you and that endeavor.
[00:00:13]  However, algorithms are a thing.
[00:00:16]  Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.
[00:00:18]  And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry that doesn't cost you a dime is by spending just a few moments leaving us a five star review.
[00:00:31]  Also, perhaps even more effective than that, you can share our podcast with a friend.
[00:00:36]  We hope you'll take the time to do so.
[00:00:38]  Thank you so much.
[00:00:39]  God bless.
[00:00:40]  Speaking to Christians, because that's my primary audience, the fact that we have truth on our side doesn't mean that we should use that as an excuse to make crappy stuff.
[00:00:54]  Stop that.
[00:00:56]  Stop making that excuse, right?
[00:00:58]  Facts over feelings.
[00:01:00]  Yes, facts should matter more than feelings, but here's the problem.
[00:01:06]  You can talk to that purple haired feminist about why facts don't care about their feelings.
[00:01:13]  But they don't care.
[00:01:16]  They don't care about the facts.
[00:01:18]  See, the reason why the wicked are so good at storytelling, I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks as we spent so much time and focus and effort on upping our game in terms of excellent media.
[00:01:35]  I've been thinking about why are those who hate Christ.
[00:01:38]  Why do they make the best movies and the best this?
[00:01:43]  Why are they better at media?
[00:01:46]  And ultimately, really, what it comes down to, why are they better storytellers than Christians and, to a lesser degree, conservatives?
[00:01:55]  Why are the most wicked people on the planet better at storytelling than the people of God?
[00:02:02]  I think the answer is this because they have to be.
[00:02:06]  Because if you don't have the facts, right?
[00:02:08]  So, facts over feelings.
[00:02:10]  Because we do have the facts as Christians, because we do have the truth, I think sometimes we can just lean on the facts, lean on the truth, lean on the message, and not care at all about the medium.
[00:02:21]  Lean on the message without caring at all about the medium, right?
[00:02:27]  The venue of that message, the way in which it's being conveyed, how it's being portrayed.
[00:02:33]  And so, but if you're wicked, what I'm saying is if you're a liar, because that's what we're talking about, right?
[00:02:39]  If you're Joe Biden, you're Nancy Pelosi, right?
[00:02:41]  You're Chuck Schumer, if you're just a liar, If you're Hollywood, you're a liar.
[00:02:46]  I mean, that's what you do for a living.
[00:02:48]  Then you better have good sets.
[00:02:51]  You better have great lighting.
[00:02:53]  You better have great actors.
[00:02:55]  You better have a great plot.
[00:02:57]  You better have a great story.
[00:02:59]  You better be good at storytelling if you are a liar.
[00:03:04]  Liars have to be good at storytelling, they have to, because that's the only way that they could persuade anyone.
[00:03:12]  Right?
[00:03:12]  I mean, listen to false teachers, right?
[00:03:14]  Get away from politics and get away from Hollywood and entertainment and media for a second.
[00:03:19]  Just think about within the church.
[00:03:20]  And when I say that, I don't mean true churches, but the church institute.
[00:03:24]  Think about that prosperity.
[00:03:25]  Think about Joel Osteen, right?
[00:03:27]  Think about Benny Hinn.
[00:03:28]  Think about Jesse Duplantis.
[00:03:30]  My goodness, he'd be a great example.
[00:03:31]  Jesse Duplantis, false teacher extraordinaire.
[00:03:34]  What is, if they teach, preach a sermon for, let's say, 40 minutes, 30 minutes of that sermon, what is it going to be?
[00:03:43]  A deep, meticulous biblical exegesis?
[00:03:46]  No.
[00:03:47]  Storytelling.
[00:03:49]  So the other day, blah, and I remember, and pulling on your heartstrings and doing this and doing that, it's manipulation.
[00:03:56]  But here's the deal.
[00:03:57]  They have to manipulate because the actual contents of their message, the facts, aren't facts.
[00:04:04]  In fact, they're blatantly false.
[00:04:07]  They're obviously false.
[00:04:09]  It's clear to anyone with an ounce of common sense, even an unregenerate person, even a non Christian can watch Benny Hinn and say, yeah, that's a charlatan.
[00:04:19]  That's a liar.
[00:04:20]  This is a Ponzi scheme, right?
[00:04:22]  It's so obvious.
[00:04:25]  So they have to be excellent.
[00:04:27]  At storytelling, because what they're trying to sell you is so clearly false, it's so clearly untrue that they have to dress it up and they have to dress it up extravagantly well, very, very well.
[00:04:43]  And for those of us who agree with Christ, are submitted to Christ and his Lordship and the truth of his word, because we have the truth on our side, because we have the facts on our side, the good, the true, and the beautiful, because we don't think that the beauty is needed.
[00:05:00]  Hey, to persuade someone, all I need is this pie chart.
[00:05:04]  Because the pie chart clearly says in statistical science that I'm right and these liberals and progressives are wrong.
[00:05:14]  Well, yeah, it does say that.
[00:05:18]  But there's a lot of people who don't care.
[00:05:20]  And if we get good at storytelling, there's a lot of people who still won't care.
[00:05:23]  I get that.
[00:05:24]  I'm aware.
[00:05:26]  But some people might be won over.
[00:05:28]  They might.
[00:05:29]  And you might say, well, we shouldn't win them over with storytelling, just win them over with the truth.
[00:05:34]  Talking about storytelling at the expense of truth.
[00:05:36]  I'm talking about the good, the true, and the beautiful.
[00:05:38]  That's a package deal.
[00:05:40]  That's a triple braided cord.
[00:05:42]  They're not separated.
[00:05:43]  These aren't independent.
[00:05:44]  The true is what's beautiful.
[00:05:47]  Truth is beauty.
[00:05:49]  So convey it as though it's beautiful.
[00:05:52]  Convey the truth in beautiful ways.
[00:05:55]  And so that's one of the things that we want to do on this channel with this ministry, Right Response Ministries, is we want to tell the truth.
[00:06:01]  We want to tell the truth courageously, right?
[00:06:04]  We are not.
[00:06:05]  Winsomely, winsome, winsome, winsome guys, right?
[00:06:08]  We're not the gospel coalition.
[00:06:10]  Just put it out there.
[00:06:11]  No, there's going to be courage.
[00:06:14]  There's going to be a few based moments from time to time where you might even cringe.
[00:06:18]  Did he really just say that?
[00:06:20]  Repeal the 19th Amendment.
[00:06:21]  Did Joel actually say that?
[00:06:23]  You know, those kind of lines, right?
[00:06:24]  You've heard me say a few of those and you're going to hear plenty more.
[00:06:27]  So there's going to be courage.
[00:06:28]  There's going to be truth.
[00:06:30]  But we also want there to be excellence.
[00:06:33]  Excellence.
[00:06:34]  Because Christ is worthy of it and because Christians should be the best.
[00:06:39]  We should be the best.
[00:06:40]  We have the worldview that actually makes sense of the world God created.
[00:06:45]  We have the truth.
[00:06:46]  And therefore, if we have the truth, we should also have beauty.
[00:06:50]  Christians have a monopoly on beauty.
[00:06:53]  And as the world continues to go apostate, as our nation in America, specifically for those of you who are listening locally, who are fellow American citizens, as our nation continues to apostatize and to turn its back on God, his truth, and his mercy in previous generations, that will be reflected in every realm of life.
[00:07:13]  It won't just be their doctrine.
[00:07:15]  See, doctrine matters because what a person believes affects, it has implications on every other thing that that person does, right?
[00:07:23]  If you have bad theology, guess what?
[00:07:26]  You're a bad artist.
[00:07:27]  And it's finally starting to show.
[00:07:29]  As our nation and our culture and political rulers and civil magistrates continue to abandon Christ, his principles, and his word, that's starting to show up in the culture, that's starting to show up in legislation, and that's also starting to show up even in art.
[00:07:47]  To where there's an unveiling of some big monument, and the response from even just the average person is, Oh my, that's embarrassing.
[00:07:58]  That's ugly.
[00:07:59]  Not just ugly, but it's like it's perverse, it's shameful.
[00:08:05]  Certainly, you can't be proud of this monstrosity, right?
[00:08:09]  And so, as the world apostatizes from God, it's not just that they're becoming more false and less true, it's also becoming more ugly.
[00:08:20]  And less beautiful.
[00:08:22]  And as we continue to further commit to true doctrine, to the truth of God's word, we should be increasing not just with truer facts or more true facts or however you want to say it, but also excellence in everything that we do.
[00:08:39]  Not just what we say, but how we say it, how we convey it, everything that we do, right?
[00:08:44]  If you're in construction, you should make beautiful things in construction, like this wood wall behind me.
[00:08:51]  If you're media and video, you should do excellent media and video, like what you're seeing right now.
[00:08:59]  And if you don't have much of a budget, a lot of people say, Well, I want to do those things.
[00:09:05]  I just can't afford it.
[00:09:06]  Then be faithful with little.
[00:09:08]  Take what the Lord has given you.
[00:09:10]  I think too many Christians complain and say, A lot of Christians just don't care about beauty because they don't see the correlation between truth and beauty.
[00:09:16]  That's what I've been addressing so far.
[00:09:18]  But beyond that, another problem that Christians run into is they'll say, Okay, well, I see how truth and beauty relate to one another.
[00:09:25]  And yeah, we should do things that are excellent and beautiful, but we just don't have the resources.
[00:09:30]  Hollywood has billions of dollars for their productions.
[00:09:32]  We just don't have.
[00:09:33]  Okay, that's fine, but are you being faithful with what you do have?
[00:09:39]  Or are you being like the wicked servant?
[00:09:41]  That's what Christ calls him the wicked servant who, because he was given one talent and his peers were given two and five, instead of taking the one talent he has and working with it and getting as much mileage out of that one talent for the good of the master, That he possibly can, he takes it and he buries it.
[00:09:59]  He buries it in the sand.
[00:10:02]  Right?
[00:10:02]  I think there are a lot of Christians who, rather than applying the principle of faithful with little, be faithful with much, they're saying it's too little.
[00:10:10]  And so I won't do anything with it at all.
[00:10:13]  I'm just going to bury it in the sand.
[00:10:14]  And here's the thing about that parable I'll say this real quick and then I'll take some questions.
[00:10:19]  But the interesting thing about that parable is that we often think of that servant who was given one talent, his two contemporaries were given five and two.
[00:10:28]  And we think of him as burying his talent in the sand because, well, out of fear.
[00:10:35]  Out of fear.
[00:10:35]  We think he's the fearful servant.
[00:10:38]  He's not the fearful servant.
[00:10:40]  He's the wicked servant, is what the Bible says.
[00:10:43]  Why is he described as wicked rather than fearful?
[00:10:47]  Well, because the fearful are wicked.
[00:10:49]  Yeah, you could make a biblical principle for that, certainly.
[00:10:52]  That there's an association between righteousness and courage, and therefore fearfulness and evil.
[00:10:58]  There is an evil to fearful apathy, certainly.
[00:11:03]  But I think it's beyond that.
[00:11:05]  The reason why this guy is not called the fearful servant, but the wicked servant, is because he actually wasn't fearful.
[00:11:12]  He claims to be fearful, but the master in the parable calls him on his bluff.
[00:11:17]  See, this is what he says.
[00:11:19]  He says, I knew you to be a hard man.
[00:11:23]  When the master returns to get back his investment, he says, What's going on?
[00:11:31]  Where's my money?
[00:11:32]  Why haven't you?
[00:11:34]  Grown it?
[00:11:34]  Why haven't you increased it?
[00:11:36]  And he says, Well, I buried it in the sand.
[00:11:39]  And he says, You know, my reasoning?
[00:11:41]  Well, my reasoning is because I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow.
[00:11:48]  Reaping where you did not sow.
[00:11:50]  That's the first problem.
[00:11:53]  There is nowhere where the Master has not sown.
[00:11:59]  The Master reaps everywhere because the Master has sown everywhere.
[00:12:04]  It all belongs to the Master.
[00:12:06]  Everything we have was given and sown by the Master.
[00:12:11]  The breath in your lungs comes from the Master.
[00:12:15]  Your IQ comes from the Master.
[00:12:18]  If you have two working arms and legs, it comes from the Master.
[00:12:23]  Your children come from the Master.
[00:12:24]  Your marriage comes from the Master.
[00:12:26]  Your house, your money, everything you have comes from the Master.
[00:12:29]  God has never, never attempted to sow or to reap where he has not sown because everything in this world was sown by God.
[00:12:40]  Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.
[00:12:45]  He created all the cosmos ex nihilo out of nothing.
[00:12:49]  And all we ever do as creatures, he alone is the creator who makes out of nothing.
[00:12:56]  But we, as creatures, what we do is we take what God has created, those initial resources, the cosmos that he's given us, the life he's given us, the breath that he's given us, and we steward those things in such a way that they grow.
[00:13:11]  So anything that we have developed, it's not something that we made out of nothing, it's something that we took from the Lord and multiplied.
[00:13:20]  So, there is no place where the master has not sown.
[00:13:23]  And so, in this parable, going back to the parable, he says, If you knew me like that, right?
[00:13:29]  The servant says, I knew you to be a hard man.
[00:13:31]  What he's saying is, I knew you to be a harsh and unreasonable and unfair man, unreasonably hard, a hard man without cause, without just cause for being so hard, a man who would unfairly and unjustly reap where he didn't even sow.
[00:13:53]  That's who I knew you to be.
[00:13:56]  And the master calls him on his bluff.
[00:13:57]  He says, No, that's not fear speaking.
[00:14:00]  That's not actually what you thought.
[00:14:02]  You're claiming that's your narrative.
[00:14:04]  That's the line you've been rehearsing, planning for my return, but that's not actually what you believe.
[00:14:10]  And he calls on him by saying this He answers the fool according to his folly.
[00:14:14]  He says, Let's follow that line of logic for a second.
[00:14:17]  If that were true, if you were just fearful because you misunderstood my nature, my character, Because you would be wrong.
[00:14:25]  I'm not a hard man who reaps where I don't sow.
[00:14:28]  But let's just say that you thought that, that you had a misconception, a misunderstanding about my character, about what kind of man I am.
[00:14:35]  And you thought that I was an unfair man who goes around reaping where he's never even sown.

=== Not A Hard Man Who Reaps (05:09) ===

[00:14:41]  Well, even if you thought that and you had this, you know, you were the fearful servant rather than the wicked servant, here's what a fearful servant would have done.
[00:14:50]  He would have, at minimum, invested my money with the bankers so that.
[00:14:54]  Upon my return, I would at least get my investment, my initial investment back with interest.
[00:15:01]  But you didn't do that.
[00:15:03]  See, if you actually believe what you're saying, if you were actually a fearful man, a fearful servant, this is how you would have behaved.
[00:15:12]  This is what a fearful servant would have done.
[00:15:14]  No, you're not a fearful servant.
[00:15:16]  You're a wicked servant.
[00:15:18]  You buried my money in the dirt to do nothing, to get zero return, not out of fear, but out of resentment.
[00:15:29]  You hate me.
[00:15:30]  You're not afraid of me.
[00:15:32]  You hate me.
[00:15:33]  And you hate me because I gave more to the other servants than I gave you.
[00:15:39]  And you didn't think that was fair.
[00:15:41]  And you were bitter and jealous.
[00:15:45]  And you held a grudge against me.
[00:15:48]  And because I gave two talents to your friend and fellow servant over there, and five talents to your friend and fellow servant over there, and only one talent to you, you took offense at me.
[00:16:04]  And you wanted to get back at me by ensuring.
[00:16:08]  This was no accident.
[00:16:10]  This wasn't just fearful apathy.
[00:16:12]  This was deliberate.
[00:16:13]  You wanted to deliberately ensure that I wouldn't get a dime back on my investment.
[00:16:20]  You're not the fearful servant.
[00:16:22]  You're the wicked servant.
[00:16:24]  You're the wicked servant.
[00:16:27]  And my point is this as Christians, you may have less resources, but first, step one, you should associate, draw the correlation between the true and good.
[00:16:40]  And the beautiful truth, goodness and beauty is a triple braided cord.
[00:16:47]  It goes together because we have the truth.
[00:16:51]  Let's not say, because we have the facts, we don't need to be good at telling stories.
[00:16:56]  No, let's have the facts and tell a glorious story that lives up to that it's, it's worthy of, of the quality of the facts and truth that we've been given.
[00:17:07]  So first, correlate truth, goodness and beauty, Don't sever them.
[00:17:12]  Secondly, when it comes to beauty, and you maybe don't have all the resources that you would like to have, be faithful with little, trusting that eventually, if it be the Lord's will, he might give you much to be faithful with much.
[00:17:27]  And lastly, be faithful with little and don't be a fearful servant, and certainly don't be a wicked servant.
[00:17:37]  Don't say that because God has given you less than somebody else, right?
[00:17:41]  You know, because we have $15,000 to work with with our studio and Ligonier has, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, then we're just not going to do anything.
[00:17:50]  No.
[00:17:51]  No, we're going to make the very best thing we possibly can with $15,000.
[00:17:57]  And by God's grace and His grace alone, we did.
[00:18:01]  And you get to enjoy that now.
[00:18:03]  And not just in this video, but every single video from here on out, Lord willing, until we eventually do something even better.
[00:18:13]  Can I be frank with you for just a second, right here at the end?
[00:18:16]  Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry, and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you.
[00:18:23]  I cannot thank you enough.
[00:18:25]  However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it.
[00:18:29]  In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it.
[00:18:32]  Let's be honest.
[00:18:33]  I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy.
[00:18:37]  Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID.
[00:18:47]  We have written checks that we simply cannot cash.
[00:18:51]  It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession.
[00:18:55]  We are living in a recession right now, regardless.
[00:18:59]  Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.
[00:19:04]  You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you.
[00:19:10]  But you could still help us tremendously.
[00:19:13]  I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, Take one minute of your time.
[00:19:18]  Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be.
[00:19:26]  This is the way the system works.
[00:19:28]  We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.
[00:19:32]  We need to be strategic.
[00:19:34]  You leave us a five star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.
[00:19:39]  And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of life gets out there.
[00:19:48]  Help us get it out there.
[00:19:50]  Thanks for tuning in.