Cliffe Knechtle confronts modern moral chaos, tracing relativism’s rise over 45 years of student engagement to a culture where truth is subjective, likening it to treating humans as disposable. He links societal dehumanization—from fraternity objectification to fading concern for the poor—to Christianity’s decline, while distinguishing Old Testament justice from New Testament grace, citing Exodus and C.S. Lewis. Using My Lai and Judas’ betrayal, he argues evil stems from both free will and spiritual forces, rejecting evolutionary optimism and Rousseau’s innocence myth. On abortion, he sets 6–8 weeks as life’s threshold, equating termination to murder, while critiquing predestination as incompatible with divine love. Optimistic about Christian revival amid persecution—50,000 Nigerian martyrs post-2000—he frames suffering as a catalyst for faith, urging truth-seeking despite censorship like YouTube’s suppression of their discussion. [Automatically generated summary]
Two lesbians at Texas State University a couple of years ago, a few years ago, stepped out of the crowd and said, Do you love racists?
And I said, Absolutely, I love racists.
I hate racism.
I do not affirm racism, but I affirm the fact that those racists are human beings created in the image of God.
I don't really give a rip whether you're Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant.
I care about what you think about Jesus Christ.
Have you put your faith in him?
And I got a boatload of Catholic friends who have put their faith in Christ, a boatload of Greek Orthodox friends who put their faith in Christ, and a boatload of Protestant friends who put their faith in Christ, but it's simply not the issue.
There is a spiritual force of evil that is at work in the Mili massacre.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
The idea is basically this, Tucker: who defines right and wrong?
I only know of four options: either the power elite define right and wrong, or the majority define right and wrong, or I define right and wrong, or God does.
Now, if the power elite or the majority or me defines right and wrong, it is relative.
It's just a creation of the human mind.
But if there is a God whose mind precedes the human mind, then of course, this mind, this character of God, which is good, can define right and wrong, which turns it into an objective moral absolute.
No God, morality is a crapshoot.
Morality is a taste.
What do you like?
Broccoli or spinach?
Well, this is my taste.
Well, what do you like?
Loving people or hating people?
Well, it's my taste.
No, according to Christ and according to the Bible, morality is not just a taste.
Instead, human beings really have innate value and dignity, and that is why to dehumanize a person and trivialize a person is really wrong.
So moral relativism is tragic.
And yet it's basically, as you have said so many times on your podcast, basically sin is deifying my opinion, deifying myself, putting myself at the center of the cosmos, which I could not agree with more.
And a follower of Christ is someone who's allowing God to be at the center of the universe.
And that's what worship is.
That's what faith is.
Worship is allowing God to drag me out of the center of the universe and allowing God to be the center of the universe, which means all of a sudden morality is not totally relative.
So I think you just explained why many books have been written on this.
Why did the 20th century give rise to totalitarianism in a way that the world really had never seen?
Now, the obvious explanation is, well, technology made it possible.
Okay.
But it has always struck me that's an inadequate explanation.
It may be that societies at scale, big societies, big civilizations, that don't acknowledge God inevitably become totalitarian because there are no limits on the behavior of the leaders.
Well, obviously, when it comes to the issue of sexuality in our culture, it is tragic, absolutely tragic to watch people say, I don't know whether I'm male or female, but wait a second.
I'm the one who defines it.
Because everything is relative.
So if I want to define myself as an individual or as they and them, that's cool.
If I want to be he today, she tomorrow, they the day after tomorrow, that's okay.
Because truth is something I create in my head.
It's simply my perception.
So if my perception today is I'm a he, tomorrow my perception is I'm a she, and the day after tomorrow my perception is I'm a they, that's all equally valid.
Because it's all just a cosmic crapshoot.
That's all life is.
It's ultimately meaningless because God didn't create me.
No intelligent mind put me here for a purpose.
Life is ultimately meaningless.
So I'll just create it according to my own desires.
I feel like you're at the heart of something that I don't fully understand.
But if you don't mind explaining it a little more fully, why does that statement, I can change my sex because I'm self-created, I'm God of my own life.
Why does that affect the way that I feel about you or you about me?
Why does that make you less valuable or me less valuable?
And if you rub me the wrong way, and if you cut me off at the knees, I'm coming after you to teach you never to do that to me again.
And revenge becomes the modus operandi.
I have never, ever heard of a porpoise forgiving a shark for eating his porpoise friend.
But we're not porpoises.
We're human beings created in the image of God, which means we have this ability to reflect the character of God, which is gracious and forgiving and also just and holy.
But he was also forgiving, and he created us with this incredible ability to forgive and to be gracious and not just to cut each other off at the knees.
I've noticed a lot that the emphasis in the United States, and I've always been a right-winger and I always made fun of people who braided about the poor and all that stuff.
I was wrong, I just want to say.
But I have noticed that the concern for the poor in the United States has basically just evaporated.
And that 100 years ago, the country was humming with benevolent associations, with what we would call NGOs, basically rich ladies, just like now, trying to elevate the poor, take care of orphaned children, teach them English, feed them.
And that no longer exists at all.
And could that coincide not coincidentally with the declining Christianity?
It's interesting you raise that issue because this winter and spring, like never before, when people ask me difficult theological questions, I try and give a short answer, especially when they start getting into, you know, what about the Catholics?
What about the Greek Orthodox?
What about the Protestants?
You know, don't they really all have problems?
My point is rather simple.
My point is, I don't really give a rip whether you're Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant.
I care about what you think about Jesus Christ.
Have you put your faith in him?
And I got a boatload of Catholic friends who have put their faith in Christ, a boatload of Greek Orthodox friends who put their faith in Christ, and a boatload of Protestant friends who put their faith in Christ.
But simply not the issue.
Are you Catholic, Greek, Orthodox, or Protestant?
The issue is: have you put your faith in Christ?
Then the issue is: are you seeking to introduce people to Christ?
And are you seeking to solve one of the biggest killers in the world today, which is starvation?
If you had a kid who was starving, and I say to you, I'm a follower of Christ, and I look at your starving kid and say, good luck, and I walk away, you have good reason to question the legitimacy of my faith.
If I have the solution for your starving kid and it's called money in my back pocket in my bank account, and I do nothing to help you with your starving kid, oh my goodness, what on earth is going on?
So to get all wrapped up in some of these theological debates, I just don't want to spend too much time on because we got a boatload of work to do: introducing people to Christ, helping them go from hell to heaven, helping them grow as people of integrity, people of honesty, people of strong values, and then people who share their financial resources with those who are less fortunate and solve the world's starvation problem.
You know, one of the most gut-wrenching experiences for me during the 70s when I was at Davidson was I lived in the home of Billy Graham's sister, Jean, and her husband, Leighton Ford.
And I watched the Graham's family struggle through the Watergate crisis.
Because the individual is a sinner the same way I am, the same way we all are.
And the individual is going to make mistakes, going to sin.
How closely do I want to wed that individual with Christ when it comes to communicating Christ to people?
And that's a real challenge that I face.
One of my best lines is, I am a dirty, rotten sinner.
And what I'm seeking to smash is the stereotype that a Christian is someone who claims to be morally superior to everybody else.
That's a lie.
I'm a follower of Christ because I need God's forgiveness because I've messed up.
And if I ever forget that, and if I think that my faith in Christ has produced a morally superior person named Cliff Connectley, I have parted company with reality.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
Was blind, but now I see.
Yeah, that's where it's at.
A story, Tucker, that I use a lot is Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid was being taken apart in South Africa.
Officer Vanderwood was at one end of the court, and a black South African woman was at the end of court.
And the Truth and Reconciliation Commission looked into the face of the black South African and said, man, this officer went to your township, arrested your husband, brought him outside the township, partied, and roasted him over a fire till he was burned to death.
One year later, they did the same thing to your son.
Came to your home, arrested your son, took him out to a party outside the town, and burned him to death.
Now, what do you want us to do with this white police officer?
And this black South African woman said, I got three requests.
First request is, I want this white police officer to take me to the place where he burned my husband and my son to death so that I can gather up their ashes and give them a proper burial.
Second request is, I want this white police officer to come to my township once a month and allow me to mother him because I got a lot of mothering left in me and he's taking my family away from me.
And the third thing is, I want you to allow me to walk across this courtroom now and give him a hug to try and convince him that my forgiveness of him is genuine and real.
And the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said, yes, go ahead.
This black South African woman stands up and as she's walking across the courtroom to this man who was responsible for the murder of her husband and son, a person starts singing, amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see.
I'm free to eat ice cream every night, a whole bowl full of it, or a pint of it, whatever.
Or I'm free to diet.
I'm free to do that in order to play with my grandchildren 10 years from now.
Yeah, if I want to get a good education, I've got to discipline myself.
And if I want to play basketball at Davidson College, I'm really going to have to discipline myself because I don't have the innate talent to do that.
So, yeah, if I want to achieve excellence in life, I'm going to have to discipline myself and put myself through some things that I don't naturally want to do.
And that's what we call living a wise life of excellence, of using the gifts that God has given me to make a difference in this world for good, of using this incredible body that God has blessed me with to serve God by serving people more effectively, to develop this amazing mind, the most powerful muscle in our body that God has given me, by developing that mind so I can think more clearly and help more people.
Yeah, I don't necessarily want to do that, but it's what's best.
Two lesbians at Texas State University a couple of years ago, a few years ago, stepped out of the crowd and said, Do you love racists?
And I said, Absolutely, I love racists.
I hate racism, but I love racists.
They're human beings created in the image of God.
And these two lesbians erupted, you're an idiot.
There's no way that you should be loving a racist.
And I said, ladies, you're really getting mixed up here.
There are some very sinful parts of me.
I do not affirm those parts.
I hate those parts, but I affirm my value as a human being created in the image of God.
I do not affirm racism, but I affirm the fact that those racists are human beings created in the image of God.
And I've got some former murderers coming to the church where I pastor.
I abhor their murdering a human being, but I still respect them as human beings created in the image of God.
And when I worked in a Lawrence County House of Correction in Lawrence, Massachusetts, while I was in seminary, the first visit I would make every Monday night was into the cell of a guy in protective custody who was there for kidnapping little boys, sexually abusing them, and murdering them and burying them.
And after spending an hour with him, talking with him, reading the Bible, praying with him, I would go to the gymnasium to play basketball.
And the other inmates would come up to me and say, hey, man, don't you know what a piece of dirt he is?
How dare you spend any time in his cell talking with him?
And I said, sirs, I abhor what he did to those boys.
But I can promise you, in spite of how he has messed up and defaced the image of God in him, he is still a human being created in the image of God.
And I will seek to reach out to him to offer God's grace and forgiveness to one confused, messed up man.
And I understand that, because that is foreign and it is absurd.
And as you pointed out, it's really radical the way Jesus taught that.
But that's part of why we have so many lonely people in our society today, because we live in a cancel culture, which means you rub me the wrong way and I cancel you.
That's not the message of the Old Testament, which I read last year and was pretty shocked by as I think many people who read it are shocked by the violence in it and shocked by the revenge in it, the genocide in it.
To judge them for sacrificing their babies on altars, which is the same thing the Hittites and the Canaanites and the Philistines were doing.
And God says, You pervert the worship of me in that way to the point of sacrificing your child on an altar to me, you will be judged for it.
And he judged first those Hittites and Amorites and Agites, and then he judged the Jews for that kind of evil.
So you see, I think the real question, Tucker, is: do we give God the right to judge?
Now, here's what's fascinating about this issue for me.
When I step onto a state university campus, I know that the majority of professors are going to basically say, Cliff, if you abuse a young African-American kid and the police come up to you and they say, What are you doing, Cliff?
And I said, Well, this kid deserved it.
I just beat him to a pulp.
If the police officer looks at me and says, Let's go to Starbucks together, you all would be outraged.
What incredible racism, what amazing injustice!
Good.
Don't make the same mistake with God.
If you define God as being love, love-y-dovey, and expect him not to judge me for whooping up on the African-American kid.
If you expect God not to judge me for my evil, then let's be real honest.
That kid doesn't matter to God.
The same way, if the police say to me, let's go to Starbucks after I whoop up on an African-American kid, they're saying something very clearly.
Cliff, that little African-American kid does not matter.
If God doesn't judge, he does not love.
If God doesn't judge, it means people do not matter to God.
And the opposite is true.
People matter to God, and therefore, when we mess with each other's heads and bodies, he judges us.
Jose is holding that little kid in his hands, and all of a sudden he realizes I ain't the daddy.
It gets to the point where Hosea has to go down to the slave market to barter against other men to buy back his wife.
And God is banging on Hosea's door saying, Hosea, do you know the pain that you experience over your wife's sexual unfaithfulness?
Well, that is the same pain that I experience over human beings who've been unfaithful to me, who I created to love me and live in relationship with me, and they turn their backs on me.
I am a suffering God.
I hurt over that, but I am a gracious God who offers forgiveness.
God's patience with a stubborn Israelite people is incredible.
They deserved his wrath long before they got it at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians.
But when you go into a different culture where there are not those kind of practices and good habits, I think that there's a lot of problems that start rising rather quickly.
That is why I'm a lot more patient with people who grew up where dad was just a monger, just roasted his kids.
Yep.
Was so cruel.
I'm a lot more patient in understanding those people than those people who grew up in homes where they had a mom and a dad who really loved him and cared for him.
And I watched 18-year, 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds go for grief counseling because Donald Trump won.
That's amazing.
You talk about emotionally fragile.
Yes.
The difference between a guy sitting up in the Alps watching Hitler's Panzer divisions come and having to have the emotional courage and the emotional strength to handle that versus I got to go to a crying room because Donald Trump just won the election.
If you don't understand love and experience love at an early age, and if you don't begin to understand that at the heart of the cosmos, there's a God who really loves you.
If you don't really begin to understand that Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.
And if you think your value really depends on you winning a ball game, you winning a deal, you having a bigger bank account than your competitor.
I mean, good gracious, how insecure.
And so there's tremendous insecurity that comes from thinking that my value depends upon whether my body's a two, four, six, eight, or ten.
I mean, you think about that.
You think about my value depends upon whether I can put a better selfie up, whether I can post a better selfie to appear to be more together than you are.
I mean, you talk about emotional fragility.
You talk about identity crisis.
I mean, it's scary.
So the breakdown of the family, the whole emphasis of materialism, which is, yeah, it's all about how you look and how much you own.
Yeah, you build your life on that.
And come on.
Things are going to crumble fairly quickly unless you're very successful.
So then this leads to my sort of meta question, which is, why does everyone hate Christianity so much when there are certainly a lot of lousy Christians and hypocrites, of course, using the church for their own ends and their televangelists and, you know, whatever.
I could go on and on and on.
Kid touchers.
But generally, rank and file Christians are, everyone knows this, way happier than everybody else.
I do notice that like the free-to-be you and me people, I've always kind of been a free-to-be, you and me person, by the way, for the record, don't actually want to convert anyone at gunpoint to anything.
Right.
But they draw the line at Christianity.
Like they, you know, you can free to be whatever you want, but the Jesus people aren't allowed.
But you also alluded to the spiritual battle that we are in.
Yeah.
And anybody has a problem with the devil, with the demonic, I would encourage them to read M. Scott Peck, the great Connecticut psychiatrist book, People of the Lie.
And I think he does an incredible job pointing out if you look at the Mili massacre and you walk away saying, oh, that was just human beings messing up.
You're out of touch with reality, bud.
There is a spiritual force of evil that is at work in the Mili massacre.
It's why Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 6: for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
There's a spiritual battle that is raging.
And whether it's Paul, Jesus, or M. Scott Peck, they're all saying the same thing.
Open your eyes and realize there's this personal force of evil called Satan.
C.S. Lewis put it beautifully when he pointed out there are two mistakes you can make in your thinking about the devil.
One is to make too much of him.
Oh, the devil's behind every tree.
Devil always does it.
Everything's the result of the devil's doing.
That's to make too much of him.
But the other is to make too little of him.
Oh, you know who the devil is?
The little dude in the red jumpsuit with a little black pitchfork and black ears.
Aha ha ha ha.
What a ridiculous stereotype.
No, the devil is a very suave, very debonier, personal force of evil who reeks of evil and destructiveness.
Dallas Willard used to be head of the philosophy department at USC out in Los Angeles.
And the way Dallas Willard described the sinful nature was a readiness to sin factor.
We are all born with a readiness to sin factor.
When I was six years old and playing with a little friend of mine in the sandbox, at one point I picked up the metal truck and dropped it on the little kid's head.
Tucker, when my dad was a Swiss Boy Scout, he was walking through the Alps with his Boy Scout troop one day, and they bumped into a group of Nazi officers.
Now, I don't know if this is true, Tucker, but supposedly one of those Nazis was Adolf Hitler himself.
Hitler did not cut my dad off at the knees.
Hitler was very gracious to my father as a little Swiss Boy Scout.
And then he went ahead and did some of the most horrible atrocities imaginable.
All of us have incredible potential for good, and all of us have tremendous potential for evil.
Because there's a type of evolutionary optimism that says we've been evolving for a long, long time and we're at the point where we are really good people.
And even Rousseau, the Frenchman, thought we were all born perfect, and it was society that corrupted us.
The fascinating thing is Rousseau had his nanny dump five of his kids on the steps of the hospital, disowning his kids so they could either be adopted or starve to death.
And you and I live in a culture that is so filled with that type of thinking that we just have to affirm ourselves, affirm ourselves, affirm ourselves to try and convince ourselves that we really do have value.
Well, I'm not trying to say that only one is true, mine, because I've made a lot of mistakes when it comes to defining right and wrong.
What I am saying is, because there's a supernatural God whose character is good, therefore, throughout eternity, good is real.
Objectively real.
It's not a subjective taste.
It's real.
And God has hardwired you and me in such a way that we have consciences and rational minds.
And by exercising our consciences and rational minds in a responsible way, we can really begin to understand what is good and what is evil.
I mean, Tucker, to be honest with you, the biggest ethical dilemma that I face in life is, in light of the fact that we have the solution for starving babies, why do I keep as much money for myself?
Why do I not give more away?
So for me to come riding into town on some ethical high horse is a little ridiculous because I've got my own blind spots.
I've got my own prejudices.
But what I seek to do, Tucker, is to point people to Jesus Christ, to point people to have a relationship with him, to pray to him for wisdom, to ask his Holy Spirit to sensitize their consciences so they can begin to distinguish between what is good and what is evil.
What is morally responsible and what is morally irresponsible?
My first point is I have to apologize to the gay lesbian population for the way they have been viewed as inferior pieces of dirt by certain, quote, Christians, unquote.
That is false.
Gay bashing is not an option for a fall of Christ because a fall of Christ understands all people are created in the image of God.
That is the basis for our value and dignity.
Second point: the Bible insists that all of us were created for a purpose.
And according to Christ, the purpose of life is to love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.
In the same way that God made us for a purpose, he made our sexuality for a purpose.
And we read about this in Genesis 2:24.
We read, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So it's not the federal government that created marriage.
It's not culture that created marriage.
God did.
God created our sexuality.
God could have happened, could have had procreation happen at the end of a Q-tip when a man and a woman mixed their earwax.
Little babies could have been born from that.
He didn't.
He chose to create us male and female.
And that is beautiful.
That is a precious, precious gift from him.
Now he says it's such an important gift that it's to be experienced within the context of a lifelong commitment.
You separate sex from a lifelong commitment, you're going down a destructive path, Christ says.
So, third point would be: I have perverted the gift of sex that God gave me.
Through my heterosexual lust, I have perverted that gift.
I desperately need God's grace.
I need His Holy Spirit to change me to live a sexually pure life, and that's not easy for me.
That's hard.
When anybody ever says to me, Cliff, I was born this way.
I often look them in the face and say, Yeah, I was born a heterosexual male.
Do you think my heterosexual sex drive motivates me to have sex with just one woman?
Obviously, we heterosexual males do not have a sex drive to have sex with just one woman.
Instead, we have to exercise self-control, make a commitment to just one woman, and then enjoy sex within the context of a lifelong commitment.
That's marriage.
So I communicate that as clearly as I can to people.
They don't like what they hear.
And it's fascinating, Tucker, over the past 45 years to watch the gay lesbian groups on university campuses around the United States become the most highly organized, the most passionate groups on campus.
I think that's changing, though, recently.
And I'm so excited over that.
But there has been a clear agenda, a very clear agenda.
Oh, I think that there are certain stereotypes that exist.
And for some reason, being a white male is not cool.
I mean, one of the things that spiked our popularity on TikTok was a blonde-haired woman at the University of Texas came out to our open-air meeting and really went after me.
You got to be kidding me.
You, a white male, are standing out here telling us that we need God, that we need Christ?
Are you kidding me?
This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen.
And I said, no, wait a second, wait a second.
What does white have to do with it?
What does me being a male have to do with it?
We're talking about Jesus Christ, and I'm not Jesus.
We're talking about an historical figure who lived, taught, died, and rose from the dead.
The historical evidence is he's reliable.
I'm not asking you to join me.
I'm asking you to seriously consider Christ and to put your faith in him, for he is reliable in a way that I am not.
You don't know me from Adam.
So walk away from me.
But please read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for yourself and ask yourself, does the historical evidence of the way Jesus lived, taught, died, and rose from the dead point to his credibility, his trustworthiness, or not?
Well, she didn't like it.
But it's, you know, there's so many stereotypes out there, so much prejudice.
I kind of, I mean, by the way, if evolution is real, then why haven't we evolved past that?
We seem to be evolving toward it.
And I was taught as a kid in the 70s that like prejudice like that, writing people off immediately on the basis of the way they look was like the one thing you weren't allowed to do.
I mean, in 1980, no one could have stood up in public and said, shut up, black man, shut up, white man, shut up, Jew, shut up, Christian.
Like, you absolutely could not say that.
But now it's just, it's everywhere.
Why?
Why is a culture committed to non-discrimination becoming ever more discriminatory in ever dumber ways?
Not discriminatory in the sense that like I like fish, not steak, but discriminatory in like, you know, anyone, appearance is the most important factor about somebody.
Well, a great man once said, I'm looking forward to the day when my children's value is not going to be determined by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
That's like considered incredibly racist now to say that.
It's like, and I do think it has something to do with what you so eloquently described at the outset of our conversation, which is once you stop acknowledging the human soul, which can only be granted by God, like if there's no God, there's no soul.
Yeah.
You're just a hunk of meat.
Once you discount that, then the most important thing about you becomes the way you look or who your parents were.
So the question becomes, when does human life begin?
In every major university hospital in the United States, if a body lying on a bed in an intensive care unit has brain activity and heartbeat, doctors and nurses are legally, ethically responsible to do everything within their power to sustain that life.
So between six to eight weeks after conception, that quote, little piece of skin in a woman's womb has both brain activity and heartbeat.
So I would hope that the majority of us would be able to agree.
Between six to eight weeks, that's no longer just a piece of skin.
That's a human life.
It's got brain activity and heartbeat.
So let's not abort after eight weeks.
Hopefully we all can agree on that.
Then the next question is: well, what's the difference between a one-minute old fertilized egg and an eight-week old fertilized egg, an eight-day-old fertilized egg, a 60-year-old fertilized egg?
And I would argue the only difference is in kind.
Excuse me.
The only difference is in degree of maturation, not in kind.
It just seems like that debate, which is a debate about specifics, has been replaced with slogans shouted back and forth, pro-choice, pro-life, which are phrases that I personally hate because I don't really know what they mean.
I notice that people begin to listen a lot more attentively.
The same way if you give a good answer to a difficult question, then suddenly if people are thinking, they say, ooh, I dismissed Christ because I thought he was a joke.
The evidence is he's not a joke.
I'm going to have to begin to think more deeply and seriously.
Jesus describes biblical faith as heading towards the evidence.
This whole idea that faith in Christ is anti-scientific or anti-reason is total baloney.
In John 14, verse 11, Jesus says, believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father's in me, or believe me because of the miracles that point to me being the truth.
He doesn't say just believe.
He says, no, look at the miracles, buddy, and allow the evidence to drive you to faith.
Do you think that people who, you know, participate in a murder and don't acknowledge that it's wrong and don't ask for forgiveness for participating in it?
And God was going to judge them, and Job had to pray that the Lord would not judge them for that screwed up advice they gave him.
Counsel.
John chapter 9.
The disciples come to Jesus and say, hey, Jesus, this guy born blind.
Who sinned?
This guy or his mom and dad?
Jesus said neither.
This happened that the power of God might be displayed in his life.
Does sin lead to death?
Absolutely.
Is there always a one-to-one correspondence between sin and suffering?
No.
One of the main points of the book of Job is life is unfair.
God is fair.
Don't get the two mixed up.
The challenge when I suffer is not to clench my fist and wave it in God's face.
That's misplaced anger.
The challenge when I suffer is to understand I'm born into an unfair world.
Now, maybe I am suffering for some of my sin or from the sins of somebody else.
That's possible.
But it's also possible that because I'm born into an unfair world, the flack is hitting the fan in my life, not because of anybody sinning or me sinning, but because of the unfairness of this world.
Now, the unfairness of this world is a result of, you push it all the way back to Adam and Eve rebelling against God, telling God to get lost, and creation begins to unravel.
So yes, we're born into a world where there are horrible genetic birth defects, and life is unraveling.
Life is unfair.
And the reason I think that's so important to remember is if I have the false expectation that life is supposed to be fair, I'm going to be really disappointed with God.
In the last sermon I preached, I used an illustration from South Africa.
In a very, very fine South African seminary, it was taught Afrikaners are the chosen people, which means they are superior to blacks, coloreds, and Indians.
I would argue that is a total misunderstanding of the word chosen in the Bible.
I would argue that when the Bible talks about God choosing the Jewish people, it doesn't mean all Jews are going to heaven.
It doesn't mean the Jews are superior to Gentiles.
It simply means that when God chose to reveal himself more clearly than simply through creation, general revelation, he chose the Jewish prophets and he spoke through the Hebrew prophets.
And then when he chose to reveal himself most clearly by becoming a human being, he was born a Jew.
I worship a Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.
It does not mean that the Jews are God's pets.
No, they're valuable human beings, created the image of God.
But a Jewish thug is a thug.
The same way a Hamas thug is a thug.
The same way a Hezbollah thug is a thug.
The same way a Palestinian thug is a thug.
We're all human beings created the image of God with a free will, and we are responsible for what we do.
So we got to be real careful how we handle that word chosen.
And no, I do not think that God chooses certain people to go to heaven and he chooses others to go to hell.
What was so scary was the guy who invited me said, Cliff, that guy grew up in a home where his dad was a minister and he had a brother.
And one day, their father looked them in the face and said, he said to the other brother, you're predestined to go to heaven.
And he looked into the face of the guy who's now the religion professor at Stanford, but this was years ago, so our doubt he's there now, and said, and you're predestined to go to hell.
Can you imagine that?
What an incredible perversion of the whole idea of predestination, of the whole idea of chosen or elect.
And yet here's a Stanford University religion professor who was treated that way by his own father, was a minister.
If he's yelling at you, yeah, for like talking about the gospel, which is like, you know, nonviolent, love-based religion.
Yeah, if you're mad about that, like there's something, you know, you're the problem, I would say.
But not to be mean, but there does seem to be, and I, of course, could be misreading it, probably am, but at least one section, maybe a couple, where Jesus says, you know, like, no one can come to me except those who are chosen to come to me.
Since the year 2000, over 50,000 Nigerian Christians have been slaughtered by terrorists for their faith in Christ, beheaded right outside the church or inside the church building.
That's tragic.
That is so sick, so sad.
And yet it's real.
And yet I'm convinced that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
I'm convinced that to spread Christianity, I must not kill others, but be willing to die for my faith to be killed.
And that's exactly what happened in the first, second, third century.
And there are some people I think are a little too concerned about that.
I am not concerned.
I think university campuses are still very safe places, although I know there's been some problems.
But no, I'm, and I know ultimately, Tucker, that my life is in the hands of Christ and I'm safe and secure.
And I have a great deal of respect for the Apostle Paul when he writes in Philippians 1.23, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.
All I know is the past year, I have met more excited followers of Christ on campuses than ever before.
I am very excited the way young people are taking Jesus more seriously.
I do not think it's a health-wealth gospel.
I do not think it's a think-positive gospel.
I think it really grapples with good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, justice and injustice in a biblical way, not in an elitist way in the United States.
So I am very, very excited about what's happening.
One of the reasons we all need Jesus Christ is because we all experience alienation.
And too many of you in this crowd right now know exactly what I'm talking about.
Because your mom and dad were so alienated from each other that they divorced.
And you don't need me to tell you how much pain that brought into your life.
And I'm sorry.
It's wrong.
It's not right.
But what I plead with you is realize that there is a good God who wants to be your father in heaven, to really protect you, to really care for you, who has your best interests in mind.
Don't take it from me.
Read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
And that's why when forgiveness is pictured in a very graphic way and the practical nitty-gritty boots on the ground description is given of forgiveness, hopefully it's going to begin to make a little more sense.
And the importance of it is going to become highlighted because they watched mom and dad who could not forgive each other and reconcile.
I'll use promiscuous lifestyle, the thrill of orgasm.
I'll do whatever it means to take care of the pain, the meaninglessness, the angst of life.
Yeah.
Christ says, come and follow me.
It's not going to be easy.
You're going to have to do some hard work, but come and follow me, and I will give you abundant life, a life that really flourishes, that's really good when you submit to me and trust me.
And it's fun to watch more and more people begin to take Christ seriously and say, you know, I don't think drugs and alcohol are really the way to deal with my pain.
I mean, you know, I love to ask students the question: if you could ask God one question, what would it be?
Well, I like to still play basketball.
I don't really play basketball, Trucker.
I waddle out there in the court.
But there was this one guy out there in the Duquesne and YMCA who I went up to and I said, hey, if you could ask God one question, what would it be?
Four minutes later, the guy comes back to me and he says, Guess what?
I don't ask questions of beings I don't think exist.
Oh, I thought that was pretty abrupt.
But I liked his honesty.
A few weeks ago, he comes up to me and says, I'm started to pray.
I said, Really?
I thought you didn't need any.
I thought you thought that God didn't exist.
He said, I almost killed myself with alcohol.
I began to realize I got to pray in order to live.
I said, Wow, that's great.
I'm walking out of the Y and getting in my car, and all of a sudden, from the other end of the parking lot, hey, remember, Cliff, faith without works is dead.
That's right out of the book of James, the end of the New Testament.
So here's this kid who told me, I don't pray because I don't talk to a God who doesn't.
And I'm not going to ask you a question about God because I don't ask questions about beings I don't think exist.
Now he's gone to, now I pray, and now he's gone to quoting the book of James to me.
That's why when people really go after me out in the open air and people come, you know, humble people come up afterwards and say, Cliff, are you all right?
I mean, I mean, that guy was awful mad.
He was awful offensive, wasn't he?
I'm saying, wait a second, I respect the guy totally.
Because I, as a follower of Christ, understand that God is ultimately sovereign.
History is not a string of accidents.
History is ultimately God's story.
He began it in the beginning.
God created the heavens and the earth, and he's going to bring it to a close when Jesus Christ returns in power and great glory.
Billy Graham was playing golf with President-elect Kennedy.
And after their golf game, Kennedy was driving them back to their residence.
And all of a sudden, Kennedy pulls the car off to the side of the road and looks at Dr. Graham and says, Do you really think that Christ is going to return a second time?
Graham swallowed hard and said, Well, the Bible teaches that, and all the church creeds teach that.
Well, just think: if you have a worldview that says there is no God, history is a string of accidents.
And history is going to end when we all blow ourselves to bits in a nuclear holocaust or when the sun burns out and we all freeze to death.
Entropy.
No.
Jesus Christ insisted that history is going to end when he returns in power and great glory.
That is why I, as a follower of Christ, have hope for the future.
Jesus rose from the dead.
Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.
We as followers of Christ affirm life more than anybody because we know that there's eternal life out there.
We as followers of Christ want to work harder to change our country, to change our world.
Because you don't work on roads that lead nowhere.
And life is not a road that leads nowhere.
Life is a road that leads to eternal life in heaven when you trust in Christ.
So you begin to get involved in politics.
You get involved in your corporation.
You get involved in your family because you know that life is significant and you know that there's an incredible future out there because ultimately Jesus is going to return a second time.
So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show.
On one level, that's not surprising.
That's what they do.
But on another level, it's shocking.
With everything that's going on in the world right now, all the change taking place in our economy and our politics, with the wars on the cusp of fighting right now, Google has decided you should have less information rather than more.
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It's immoral.
What can you do about it?
Well, we could whine about it.
That's a waste of time.
We're not in charge of Google.
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