0:00:00 - 0:00:33 Um many things have been said about life and death. Many profound quotes are available. I want to share some thoughts here. Um A man who has not found a reason that's worth dying for has not truly lived. We are all facing death but not all people truly live. It's very important for a man to find I'd 0:00:33 - 0:01:03 say more than one reason worth dying for. But starting at one, it's a good place to start. Some of us amass many reasons worth dying for. Turns out that there are things, people, situations of value that exceeds the value of human life, especially your own. I was watching an interview today uh this morning 0:01:02 - 0:01:28 , I was listening to it while working out. Uh Jordan Peterson interviewed Tim Ballard and Jim Cavazo about um their movie, The Sound of Freedom. I took my wife to go see that today and I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it. Um I love that actor. Um He's on the short list of people who I'd really 0:01:28 - 0:02:00 like to meet what I admire about him among other things is his sincerity. Uh He's an outspoken disciple of Christ and uh I think we get along in that regard. But it might surprise you to hear that. What I admire the most about him is his sincerity. One of the topics I'll be writing a lot about, I am 0:02:00 - 0:00:00 writing a lot about, I'll be publishing a lot about is sincerity and it is so utterly important. There are so many things in the gospel that people don't even realize they're in the gospel and they're the real meat of it. But anyway, sincerity is one of these topics. And in this interview, Jim said, 0:00:00 - 0:02:52 I, I think Jordan Peterson asked him about how this movie changed him. And his answer was, I don't remember the exact question, but his answer was um that he would die. He would, he would give his life if it ended the problem of child trafficking. And Jim is a man who has causes he would die for. And 0:02:52 - 0:03:23 um I think I've spoken about this before, but I've met many people of other faiths or of, of no religious persuasion, uh as they suppose, who have causes for which they're willing to die. And I admire that. Uh no matter how much I agree with or don't agree with the cause. Um I, I was um admitted into 0:03:23 - 0:03:47 the home of a Jehovah's Witness once, only once I met a lot of them, but I've only been invited into their home once. Um I could tell you some funny stories about that. Um They would detract from my message here. But uh I felt the holy ghost so strong in that house. Um because the, the man whose house 0:03:47 - 0:04:17 it was was so sincere, he truthfully believed what he believed. And uh I, I mean, I just, I, I was so grateful to be there. It was like an oasis in a desert. We all have the power. We each have the power to be an oasis of light and a sea of darkness. One reason you should go see that, that movie. It's 0:04:17 - 0:04:45 because you probably don't understand how dark this world is. I don't know how you could without seeing the things that without seeing the hearts of the men and women who we think are normal, turns out normal is not so good. It turns out evil goes a lot deeper than any normal person imagines. The fact 0:04:45 - 0:05:14 is no one is ever going to be as good as they could be until they realize how evil uh certain people are in this world. No one's going to be as good as they can be until they realize how evil things are in this world. No one's going to realize how good it's possible to be until they comprehend how evil 0:05:13 - 0:05:58 people can be. And are I am not going to share with you my process for learning this. But it is very possible for people to experience things in this life in greater magnitude and frequency uh count than anyone I've met yet. Seems to realize and, um, as that happens, it changes you, it changes you and 0:05:58 - 0:06:19 you, you come to a point where you can't go back, you can't go back. There's this movie, I put it into a huge bucket of movies. The label says, movies that my parents let me watch that. I would never let my kids watch. But there's this cartoon called All Dogs Go To Heaven and maybe you've seen it And 0:06:19 - 0:06:39 there's, this dog is about dogs and there's this dog Angel and she tells this dog Charlie, the, basically the plot is spoiler alert that all dogs go to heaven if you didn't guess that from the title. But the thing is, is that they only get one chance and if they go back and they're, they're not good 0:06:39 - 0:06:58 dogs, they can't come back a second time to heaven because, you know, everyone loves dogs, they get to go to heaven the first time. That's the, that's the premise of the movie. But this, this dog Angel says to Charlie, if you go, you can never come back. And she, she just, they just hear this echo through 0:06:58 - 0:07:23 the movie. You can never come back, you can never come back. And, uh, there are a lot of experiences in life where you can never come back. And, um, some of those are sin. There's certain sins we've talked about this before. You can be forgiven of them in eternity, but they will burn bridges in mortality 0:07:23 - 0:08:02 that cannot be rebuilt in this life. But, um, there are things that you can experience where you will never be the same. And, uh, I wish I could tell you that, that it's always upward and onward. Right? But there are evils in this world and they're all in the hearts of men, there's evil in this world 0:08:02 - 0:08:32 , a willingness to do evil. Then once you see it, once you see it, you will never be the same and not in a good way. No, I mean that being said, the redeeming quality of those experiences is that you become a much stronger warrior for truth and light because you know what people are capable of. If you 0:08:31 - 0:09:02 don't have it memorized, you should go back and reread the last two verses of John chapter two, Jesus learned this at an early age. There are misconceptions about what his early life consisted of. You see this in depictions and artwork and also just uh discussion about it. But one thing that people don't 0:09:01 - 0:09:27 seem to realize that there's the positive quality of this in terms of what he knew, didn't know how he was, how he wasn't what, how he wasn't what miracles he did or didn't do. When et cetera, there were a lot of harsh things in jesus' life and there were enough of them that by the time he came of age 0:09:26 - 0:09:52 , John, the end of John chapter two was true that he knew what was in the hearts of men. He didn't need anyone to tell him and also he couldn't take very seriously any statement of love or fidelity or friendship that anyone said because he knew what people were capable of and he knew just how few steps 0:09:52 - 0:10:26 they were away from that kind of betrayal. So there's abundant evil in this world and things are gonna get darker before they get lighter. Well, they'll get lighter at the same time, but it, it just doesn't take hold at the same rate and the light will overcome the darkness. Um Some of us who fight these 0:10:26 - 0:11:05 battles more directly in greater intensity, uh will be changed forever. And we'll get to a point where something or somewhat higher than this world is required to take that pain away, to wipe away those tears and that time will come, the time will come. You know, it's an interesting thought to consider 0:11:04 - 0:11:30 what it takes to comfort someone truthfully enduringly. You can't just have this vacuous hope that things will get better. You have to know how they're gonna get better. And part of that is probably a willingness to be the person who's gonna make it right, or at least to lift up the load that will get 0:11:30 - 0:11:58 us closer to that point. And that's why I highly respect people who have found something worth dying for, who have found a meaning that exceeds the value of life. I'll tell you that part of discovering that is coming to realize that there are things far worse than death. And like I said before, those 0:11:57 - 0:12:29 things, they all go through the heart of another human. A lot could be said about all of this. And I just want to touch on this very, very, very briefly, we are created in the image of God and inherent in us is this latent intensity or potential for intensity. And people just don't get it. They don't 0:12:29 - 0:12:53 get that. They don't get the degree of intensity that's possible. And they don't understand the people in whom it is active, they shy away from it and pretend that they don't see it and they try to stay away from it. And if you're one of these folks who can't deny it and it embraces you, it, it uh engulfs 0:12:52 - 0:13:26 you, you roam through life like a stranger in a strange land or like a survivor in a zombie apocalypse because everyone around you is so empty and you can see it and you can feel it and it's, it's like death. It's like being around death all the time. But our capabilities, they call us to something more 0:13:26 - 0:13:59 . And those that um those in whom the voice is more well developed, they answer this call and they, they draw closer to it only to find fewer and fewer outlets for their ever increasing awareness and desire for that intensity. God is the most intense being. It's not I have to say this carefully. I was 0:13:59 - 0:14:29 gonna say it's not the case that his presence is this fountain of gentleness and calm. It is the epitome of those things for those who have lived sufficiently to see it that way, but it is not that way for those that shy away from the intensity. I think people look at folks like Jim Cava and I think 0:14:28 - 0:14:57 he's some kind of nut and whether he's 100% right on 100% things or not, 100% of things or not, he is tapped into not something extra, but exactly how things really are as far as intensity goes. If you, if you truly believe God is anything like what we've been told by those who know Him, how can it be 0:14:57 - 0:15:34 anything less then super intense to be in his presence? How can this life be meant to be anything but extremely intense? And when you try to short change that in some way, you lose out on so much, you have to, you can't, it's like having a Ferrari and not realizing that the thing's a car and you think 0:15:33 - 0:16:03 it's like a storage in it or something, you know, and, and it just stays wherever it was when you saw it and you put your junk in there and forget about it. This world is full of evil people and you don't realize that just because they have not yet been given the opportunity to manifest the depth of 0:16:03 - 0:16:34 the evil inside of them. One reason that um child porn and trafficking exist in the first place today to the extent that they do is because human nature is typically subdued by the historic situation of mankind, which is uh subsistence is poverty. But we live in a time of unprecedented unmerited wealth 0:16:33 - 0:16:55 where everybody and their second cousin is drowning on wealth. It might not seem that way. But if it doesn't, it's just because you've never been to a third world country to see what real poverty is. And even there increasingly, it's, it's a relic of the past, increasingly not, not anywhere near where 0:16:55 - 0:17:24 we are here, but in the, in North America and most of Europe. So when you feed human nature, you get more of it. When you, when you give resources to holy people, you get more holiness and when you give resources to the natural man, you get more of the natural man. Um when I wake up and it's a rare event 0:17:24 - 0:17:49 , but if I get 67, very rarely, eight hours of sleep in a night, I mean, I normally jump out of my bed when I have four or five hours of sleep. When I get six or seven, I feel like the Kool Aid man. I jump out. I feel like I fly out of my bed. I could burst through a wall. I forget what the Kool Aid 0:17:49 - 0:18:11 man said. But that's what I would say. I would remember if I got eight hours of sleep because I'd be busting through a wall. Oh, yeah, that's what he said. Oh, yeah. Um, so I bust through a wall, you know, because I, I feel great when I have that kind of energy, we've talked about the Sabbath day before 0:18:10 - 0:18:30 . It's just a quick recap. The Sabbath is given as a trial run for how you would act if you were freed from the need of toil. I don't have any doubt how I would act. I know I'm on vacation right now. That's why my house is partially painted. That's the big project is painting the exterior of my house 0:18:29 - 0:18:52 over vacation. I'm kind of splitting time between that and having a little bit of time with the kids doing some fun stuff and, uh, and doing some extra writing and, uh, I know exactly what I would do. If I didn't have to work for a living, I would write a lot more and I would spend a little more time 0:18:51 - 0:19:18 with my kids and that's it. Right. I would, I would, I would, uh, take advantage of impromptu opportunities to help other people. Uh, but I kinda already do that. So, um, I think the big change would just be, I'd spend a heck of a lot more time writing. So, instead of an average of six or so hours a 0:19:18 - 0:19:40 day, it would be 12 hours a day every single day and that would be lovely. That would be lovely. But, uh, what would you do if you had that time? Because you probably just fool around. You probably just have fun. Quote unquote. That's not what we're here for. We have a higher purpose. No one ever died 0:19:39 - 0:20:00 for having fun. I mean, people have died while trying to have fun. But if you really knew the cost, no one would say. Well, yeah, that's worth it. That's worth it. In fact, wise people avoid certain extreme sports and such because they know how stupid they would feel if they died doing that thing. Right 0:20:00 - 0:20:25 . Uh I've jumped out of planes before for work and, uh, I don't have any clue why people do it for fun. I mean, I got a lot out of it but it was a spiritual experience. Uh, you wanna rush, try having two premature twins as your first child. It's two Children. But you know the first birth, that's a, that's 0:20:24 - 0:20:47 a rush. Um, well, I think I've sort of said my piece on this for now. I'll probably think of a lot of things. I wish I had said after I hit stop here. But you need to find a reason worth dying for because without that, you're not gonna be able to face the things that are coming. They're already here 0:20:46 - 0:21:09 , but you just don't see them yet. God could show you through revelation if you had more faith. But he doesn't take us to places that we're not ready to go to unless he has no other choice. So, in this movie, if you, if you go see it, the main character Tim Ballard, he struggles a lot with the things 0:21:08 - 0:21:30 that he has to see for his job and it, it really changes him because you can't, you can't gain a better grasp on the evil that's in this world without feeling an impulse to be a much better person. And that includes doing things that you never would have done before, even at a high personal cost, even 0:21:29 - 0:21:58 at the greatest personal cost. But that's, that's really, that's really the issue in a nutshell is that we don't see the true cost and benefit of things. A lot of um let's see in the lives of the Holy, you will always find examples of what others will write off as extreme. But if you understood what 0:21:58 - 0:22:20 they understood, understand, if you understood what they understand, it wouldn't be extreme at all. You'd see that it's, it's precisely the right thing. And so it's, it's in the, in the understanding of cause and effect that the Holy deviate from the common because the common people, they don't understand 0:22:20 - 0:22:47 cause and effect. They think things are, um they think worthy things are less expensive than they are and they don't get just how much of what they value uh is actually without value to God. If not abominable to God and vice versa. So I hope you get out to see that movie, it might change your life. Um 0:22:47 - 0:23:09 , but even if you don't help you seriously think about whether you have anything that you're worth dying for or anyone that you believe is worth dying for. And if you don't, then you should really, really think about that. Take as much time as you need because if you haven't found something worth living 0:23:09 - 0:23:14 for, sorry, something worth dying for. You've not yet lived.