Overcoming a Toxic World | The Cure Week 1

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I am touching a snake

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and I am not afraid.

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Our world is toxic

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and we're experiencing the side effects:

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fake news, social media, influencers,

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conspiracy theories, cancel culture.

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There is a cure that leads to freedom,

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and that's what we're going to explore today.

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- Hey, I'm Kyle. - I'm Hannah.

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-Welcome to Crossroads.

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You're joining us for the first week

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of a brand new series called The Cure.

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- Yes, and this is an important series,

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because it's no secret that our world is overwhelming,

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tiring, sometimes exhausting, and borderline toxic.

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- It is, and in just a minute you're gonna hear

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from our senior pastor, Brian Todd, who is going

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to talk about how we can address those toxins,

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what to do about them.

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- Yeah, and how to move forward.

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But first, honestly, he's on a journey for the cure.

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Where on the journey to find the cure for those toxins.

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That's what Kyle and I are here for,

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that's why we're dressed like this,

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it's why we're ready to go.

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- And we're going to look in the typical places

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where everybody else looks.

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We're going to look at the places

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that no one's looking at all to find the answers.

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- Got to go above and beyond.

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We might even win some prizes, some award.

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This is how serious this is.

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So, Kyle, where do we start today?

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- We're going to start in a place that I think

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is one of the most overlooked places

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for the cure in the world.

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- Okay. - Birdwatching. So just get --

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- Okay, birdwatching. - I've got binoculars.

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I packed some in the bag there for you.

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- Nice, thanks, dude.

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- Get these things out and you're going

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to look up in the trees and anything --

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- Kyle, there's none in here.

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- Is there a hole in the bottom? I don't know.

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- Whatever, it's fine.

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- So you've got great eyesight though,

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just looking in trees, we're going to find the birds.

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If it looks like the cure, tell me first,

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- Okay. - Just look up in there.

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- Do you know what it looks like?

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- Something. - There.

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- Okay. You stay there, I'll get it first

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just because I just want to get it first. Okay, right.

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But actually I'm going to need --

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I'm going to need a boost from you.

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- No.

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- If you could just -- I'm almost there.

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I'm almost there. I was almost there.

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Okay, you got it. - That's fine.

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- What have you got?

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- I don't know. What are we looking at?

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Oh, self help books. Yeah.

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The answer, this is where everybody looks.

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- So is this the cure, like we found it? Is this it?

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- Yeah, definitely.

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The birds probably left the for us up there.

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- This feels like not right, like maybe there's more.

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If it was this easy and self help-y,

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wouldn't everybody do it and wouldn't it work

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and we would not be on this journey?

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- Right. We probably wouldn't need all these books,

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there'd probably be like one book.

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- One book. Okay. - Right.

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- So maybe Brian Tome knows the answer

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Yeah, so check in with him.

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- Yeah.

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- Deep in the South African wild, the black mamba snake

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is one of the deadliest in the world.

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The snake's fangs act like a hypodermic needle,

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injecting venom quickly and efficiently.

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It only takes two drops of venom

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to spread toxic poison throughout the bloodstream.

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Luckily, if you act quickly, there is a cure

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and you can survive.

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First, a tourniquet is used to stop

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the spread of the poison through the body.

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Next, oxygen and respiratory support is given

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because the heart and lungs are weakened

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from the spread of toxins.

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Finally, the antidote to the venom

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is injected directly into the bloodstream

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to neutralize and eventually overcome the poison

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that is being spread.

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Now, while few of us will actually

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ever encounter a black mamba,

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maybe even more dangerous are the toxins

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we encounter every day.

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Navigating our current reality can feel like

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a dangerous and terrifying jungle

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full of snakes ready to bite.

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And just like a snake's venom

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travels through our bodies and attacks our organs,

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the poisons of racial injustice and polarizing politics

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that assault us in our news feeds

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and social media accounts can quickly spread

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through our minds and hearts to damage

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and shut down our healthy thoughts, beliefs,

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emotions and actions.

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The good news is that while deadly,

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there is actually a cure to everything toxic in our lives,

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an antidote within our reach that will restore

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health and vibrancy to our minds and hearts.

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Just like treating a deadly mamba bite,

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we can cut off the poisonous polarization

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that is penetrating our souls by turning away from sin

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and towards the cure of forgiveness.

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When our bodies and souls are shutting down

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under the stress of daily life, we can fill our lungs

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with life sustaining support from the Bible,

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the Word of God.

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And when it feels like our broken hearts

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will never heal and there is no hope,

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we can inject ourselves with the truth of God,

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the antidote that will neutralize the poison

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affecting our entire world.

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- Have you noticed how toxic our culture is?

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I mean, we are so unhealthy and the problems

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just keep magnifying and multiplying.

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We're going to help you understand that today.

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And when you understand it,

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you can actually get to a better place.

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I'm here inside of a zoo slash nature center

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slash green house, and it's indicative of

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the thing we're talking about,

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which are the toxins that are in our culture

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and sometimes the physical actually mirrors

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and can tell us something about the spiritual.

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One of the toxins I've had in my body

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or the problems I've had with my body is a bad back.

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For most of my life, about once or twice a year,

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I'm going through my life doing my thing,

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all my back muscles, my lower back muscles

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just go (sound effect) they tense up

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and they go (sound effect) and I go bam,

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I fall down face first on the ground.

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I've been known to be curled up in a fetal position,

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one time naked on the floor

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of an athletic gymnasium locker room.

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It was very humiliating, awful.

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You've never lived until you've had to have

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a grown man help you put on your own underwear.

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Difficult, tough stuff.

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And I would live in fear of this problem,

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this toxicity in my back

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because I didn't know what was going on.

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Then finally, I started learning what was going on.

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I learned that my muscles of my core were undeveloped.

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I learned that I had a vertebrae

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that was out of alignment.

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I heard about what chiropractors

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like to know as subluxation and through

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a friend of mine who is a chiropractor, Paul Baker,

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I got on a completely different path.

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It's now been years since I've had a massive back issue.

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It used to be once or twice a year

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I'd be down and out and I'd be in bed

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and I couldn't even roll over in bed.

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I started to understand the problem.

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When I understood the problem, I could fix it.

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And even if I couldn't fix it,

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just knowing what the problem was helped me.

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We have toxins in our culture that we are exposed to

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that are creating massive problems,

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not just for our culture, but for us personally.

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How do you get exposed to toxins?

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Well, there's a number of different ways.

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You can ingest it, you could swallow it,

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food, drink, some other substance.

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You just take it into your body.

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Another way this happens is by contact.

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We touch something and we get those toxins.

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Or inhalation, we just (sniffs),

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we get it through the air, which is why

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so many of us are using these lovely, beautiful things.

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All of these contaminants, these mites, these germs,

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these organisms get into us

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and then we become toxic ourselves.

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There's a toxin that's in our culture, it's in our lives.

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And that toxin, we don't want to talk about it.

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We don't like to say the word.

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We don't understand the word.

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It's such a misused or unused word in our society

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that we have the hair on the back of our necks

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stand up when we hear it because it sets us off.

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I'm going to use it anyway.

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I'm going to use it anyway, because I want to help you.

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I want to help us to see it.

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And when you understand this thing,

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your life will change, honestly, it will.

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Your perspective will change.

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You will be able to get to be healthy.

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It's until you understand COVID

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that you can understand how to be healthy.

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And it's not until you understand, here it is: Sin.

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Sin, not a four letter word, a three letter word, sin.

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It's not until you understand the toxin of sin

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that's in the air, that's on the things that we do,

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that we ingest, that you can ever have an understanding

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of what our problem is and how to get to another side.

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That's what we're talking about for the rest of our time.

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- Here at Crossroads, we believe the church

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is about making a difference in the world.

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- Yes. And you can get in the game

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to support health care workers

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by hand writing notes of encouragement,

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as well as participating in a supply drive.

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That can happen via drive through drop off

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or an Amazon wish list order.

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And we're doing this kind of stuff all the time.

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So we don't want you to miss out on an opportunity.

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- At Crossroads we GO.

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In every community right now,

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health care workers are feeling tired and forgotten,

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which is not okay. - Yeah.

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- So we're launching Fuel for the Fight,

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a way to refuel and refresh our health care professionals.

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And we need you.

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- To participate, you can visit Crossroads.net/GO

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to get in the game.

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- Another way to get in the game is to give.

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Have you ever heard the phrase

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"put your money where your mouth is"?

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That's because our money really shows

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what we actually care about.

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Like a lot of mine goes to my kids,

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like a whole lot of it.

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That's because I really love them

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and it's worth it, or so I'm told.

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- And you know what? In the same way,

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my relationship with God, it's a priority.

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And by giving, specifically tithing,

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which is the first 10% of my income to the church,

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God puts my money to work

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and does things that I could not imagine on my own.

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- Explore why we do this, where the money goes,

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and how to give it Crossroads.net/give.

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- Now we're going to keep looking for the cure.

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So let's pick back up with Brian.

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- I want you to find a cure for the toxic problems

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that you and I find ourselves in.

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To do that, we're going to have to go all the way back

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to patient zero, who had it first.

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We've got to go all the way back

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to the Bible's first book, The Book of Genesis.

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We're in the book of Genesis 3, here's what says:

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God creates this beautiful paradise, if you will,

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for them to live in and eat

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all the beautiful fruits and vegetations

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and have all kinds of freedom.

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He says, "There's one thing,

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I don't want you eating from

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the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil."

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Why is that?

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What's going on there?

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It's hard to say what in Genesis is actual literal

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and what is metaphorical,

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and I don't want to get into all that right now.

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But why knowledge of good and evil?

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I think it's because you don't have to have

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any knowledge of evil, because there is no sin.

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There's no evil at all.

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But as soon as you rebel

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and as soon as you're about yourself,

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you're going to open up a whole Pandora's box of problems.

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And the way this box gets opened up

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is there is a person with the personality

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who's known as the evil one or the devil or Satan.

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Woo, booglie words.

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And he starts talking to Eve

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and he comes in the form of right here, a serpent.

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Yes.

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Look, I am a man.

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I am touching a snake and I am not afraid.

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Actually, I am kind of afraid.

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I don't like snakes.

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I believe the only good snake's a dead snake.

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I'm sorry. It's just a metaphor.

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I've never actually even killed a snake.

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I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you.

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I know you're a wonderful snake.

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I know you've never sinned all.

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I know you're beautiful.

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Everything at the Cincinnati Zoo is beautiful,

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but snakes just kind of, they just oogi me out.

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There's probably a lot of people like me, right?

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- Oh, yeah.

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- You go along and you go eat some field mice

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or something like that. Thank you very much.

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- Thank you.

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- He's a sweetie, he is. (cringes)

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Trying to put my man face on here, but it's tough.

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It's nonetheless very, very tough.

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But that serpent gave Adam and Eve the options

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that they hadn't considered, which is:

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rebel against God, do what you want to do.

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And this opens up toxins that's unleashed in our culture.

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Back in the days when people were homesteaders

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or out in the prairies, when you had a problem

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in your life, you had the problem.

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You had to find the cure.

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You had to look inside.

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You couldn't blame the government

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that the water wasn't coming in right.

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You couldn't blame community council.

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You couldn't blame people on the right or on the left

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because you're there in the middle of nowhere,

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homesteading, farming, whatever was,

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and your problems were yours.

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Well, now today, with social media and media blown up,

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we have all kinds of people we can blame on.

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"Well, it's the right. It's the left.

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It's this person, that person. It's these."

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And everyone is a victim.

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No one ever actually looks internal

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when bad stuff happens.

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And yet bad stuff is happening

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and actually it has to happen.

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I'm a big movie guy. I like watching movies.

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But the hardest part of any movie for me

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is the very beginning, because at the beginning

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is when the bad stuff happens,

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it's when the tension takes place.

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It's when the murder takes place.

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It's when the divorce happens.

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It's when the sexual assault happens.

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And you almost want to turn away sometimes.

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You go, "Oh, I don't want to -- I don't want to watch that."

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But you realize, this is where the tension is.

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All the story hangs on that tension.

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The beginning of the Bible,

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we have the tension that's coming out of sin.

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Sin is the default.

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Sin is the default mode within which we operate,

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which causes us to blame people on this side,

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blame people on that side,

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and not see that I have a sin problem.

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Where I live is a sin problem.

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And until you understand this, until you get this,

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you can't get forward in your life

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because you are clueless.

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I'm a bit of a history buff,

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IN World War II,

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which was an unbelievable moment in world history,

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two characters that I think are relevant for us today,

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there's one, Neville Chamberlain.

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He was the ambassador of Germany for England.

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And he just refused to see the sin in Germany.

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He refused to see the sin in Hitler.

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He just kept thinking that things will get okay.

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"We're misinterpreting. We're misunderstanding.

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Things can't be that bad.

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We don't have to actually fight here.

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We don't actually have to exert ourselves.

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It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay."

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And of course, it wasn't okay

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and he's a historical laughing stock

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because he was dumb, he was deluded.

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He didn't understand that sin is present.

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Another key figure was FDR.

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Obviously on the other side of the prospect,

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the a hero in World War II.

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But in the beginning, he struggled to understand it.

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This comes out in his memoirs

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and some of the other things that he's written

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and people have written about him.

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That at the beginning of World War II,

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when the atrocities were coming out,

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long before he spearheaded America getting in,

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he didn't understand this.

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How in the world does this happen?

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He was a liberal humanitarian, meaning he believed

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that human beings were endlessly evolve

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and be better and nicer,

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and everything was going to take care of itself.

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And yet all that he saw in Germany was blowing that up.

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He couldn't get it.

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Finally, somebody turned him on to

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the works of Soren Kierkegaard, a famous Lutheran pastor,

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who helped him understand the presence

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and pervading influence of sin,

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that helped him to get in touch with reality,

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that helped him to spear his leadership

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to get America going to a different place.

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You and I have fallen in a pit and we cannot get up.

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And it is our default mode.

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We are broken.

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I've got a lot of collar bone right here that floats.

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If I had this jacket off, you could see it.

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It floats here because I had a motorcycle accident

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and just it just pops up. So it floats.

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It also affects why I can't do many pushups.

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Chuck Mingo recently beat me in a push up contest.

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It's only because of this thing right here.

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I would beat him into applesauce if I didn't have this.

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Anyway, this thing.

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And it's helpful when I take a look at the --

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What's the word I'm looking for?

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The X-rays and I see the thing floating,

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I go, "Oh, that's right, I'm broken."

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And knowing that my default condition is brokenness

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actually helps me.

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Your default condition, when you understand

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your default condition is sinfulness,

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it actually will help you.

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Facts are your friends, embrace them, they're real.

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I bought a hunting backpack recently,

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which is a bit of a different thing.

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You put all of your stuff in normal backpacks,

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but then the whole backpack itself unclips

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and falls away from the frame

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and the frame you can pack all the meat

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of the animal that you've just killed.

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And I had this backpack and I went on --

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I'm doing these training hikes.

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I'm going to Idaho to hunt an elk again.

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Hopefully I can see one

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and have some meat in the freezer.

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But I was noticing as I was hiking,

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this shoulder was really bothering me

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because with all the weight was on this.

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And I realized, "Oh, I understand the problem.

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I know the problem that helps me solve it."

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So I adjust my straps. I made -- I can't remember

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if I made this one low or higher, or this one lower,

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but but I adjusted them and evened out my weight.

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When you know that you have a problem, and that is sin,

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it helps you to get your life going

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back in the right direction.

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Cornelius Plantinga in a book entitled

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The Way Things Ought to Be

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or Not The Way Things Should Be, something like That.

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He says this. He says:

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And we do this because it is our default mode.

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But the problem is, sin has infected our minds,

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our hearts, our attitudes, our actions,

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our filtering mechanism to the point where it's deceptive.

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Sin is deceptive.

00:18:28

We don't even see it in ourselves.

00:18:30

We maybe see it in other people,

00:18:33

but we can't see it in ourselves,

00:18:35

refuse to see that we are toxic,

00:18:38

that we are part of the problem,

00:18:40

that we are infected and affected by it.

00:18:44

And James 3:16 it says that:

00:18:55

Why do we have such disorder in our culture,

00:18:57

in our lives?

00:18:58

Because we have selfishness and we can't even see it.

00:19:03

We have selfish ambition.

00:19:05

We're driven to do things

00:19:06

that we shouldn't be wanting to do

00:19:07

and have things that we shouldn't be wanting to have.

00:19:10

And it causes us to not honor God.

00:19:12

And we can't even see it because we're deluding ourselves

00:19:15

that somebody else is the problem.

00:19:17

No, I'm the problem.

00:19:19

The sin in me is the problem.

00:19:22

I'm trying not to define all the isolated mistakes,

00:19:25

and I'm really not willing to make this

00:19:27

an individual thou shalt not talk.

00:19:29

I'm not trying to run through things and say,

00:19:31

"Feel really bad that you do this."

00:19:33

I'm not trying to say, "And here's the sin

00:19:35

that preachers love preaching against."

00:19:37

I'm not into that today.

00:19:38

I'm just trying to help us understand

00:19:40

the cosmic goop of sin that we've been born into

00:19:44

and that courses through our veins.

00:19:47

And some of us, even that we get bothered by it, because

00:19:49

we think, "Oh, but that's why I don't like the Bible.

00:19:52

What? Why? Why would I have to be held accountable

00:19:56

for Adam and Eve and what they did?

00:19:58

If I've inherited this, why does it still affect me?"

00:20:02

Sometimes it's just not about you.

00:20:03

I know you think it's all about you.

00:20:05

It's not all about you.

00:20:07

Sometimes there's just spiritual realities

00:20:08

we have to wrestle with and embrace.

00:20:13

Adam and Eve did things that

00:20:16

you and I would have done anyway.

00:20:18

If we were in their place, we would have done it anyway.

00:20:20

And those things are in the atmosphere,

00:20:24

they're in the ecosystem.

00:20:25

I'm in a physical ecosystem right now,

00:20:27

but they're in the spiritual ecosystem that we live in.

00:20:31

And in that ecosystem, unlike this ecosystem

00:20:34

that's very, very healthy

00:20:35

and it's dripping with condensation

00:20:37

because it's really beautiful.

00:20:39

We live in a spiritual ecosystem that is destructive

00:20:42

because sin is destructive.

00:20:46

It destroys us and it is destroying us.

00:20:50

That's why we're doing this series

00:20:51

and that's why we need to see the spiritual truth.

00:20:54

It's not by accident that everything is coming apart.

00:20:57

It's because that's the way things function

00:21:00

when we keep listening to the serpent.

00:21:03

God gives words to the serpent,

00:21:06

He gives words to the serpent, He gives words to the woman,

00:21:09

He gives words to the man

00:21:10

after this sin is unleashed

00:21:12

inside of the environment of the Earth.

00:21:15

And I want us to see what He says to them.

00:21:17

First, He says to the serpent, who was Satan,

00:21:19

he says this:

00:21:30

God seems to indicate here,

00:21:31

the Bible seems to indicate that the reason

00:21:33

why some of us are freaked out by snakes

00:21:35

is that there is a natural enmity

00:21:37

we have towards us and that creature.

00:21:41

And that creature or that evil, if you will,

00:21:44

keeps trying to come up and snap at us and bruise us

00:21:48

and bruise us, but eventually there is going to be

00:21:51

a person who comes out of Eve's DNA,

00:21:54

and his name is Jesus, who's going to actually

00:21:57

crush the head of evil and to crush it.

00:22:00

And He declares this, is what God does.

00:22:03

And in these things, He's explaining to us

00:22:06

how sin has affected our world

00:22:08

and then how God is going to sort of, He steps back.

00:22:11

He steps back some of his protections

00:22:13

in the world that are there, and He allows sin

00:22:16

to have more reign that's in the world.

00:22:18

So He says to the woman, he says:

00:22:31

So the reason why we have pain in our world

00:22:33

is because of sin has brought pain,

00:22:35

and specifically pain wasn't always

00:22:37

supposed to be present in childbirth.

00:22:40

And we have painful childbirth now because

00:22:43

it reminds us of the effect of sin.

00:22:45

And we have male female like relationships

00:22:48

all the time that are a tension with one another.

00:22:51

And God says this is part of the curse

00:22:53

of the sin that's come into the world.

00:22:54

And then to Adam, he says:

00:23:17

We have funerals where we say

00:23:20

ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

00:23:22

It comes from this part of the Bible

00:23:25

reminding us that we will all eventually die,

00:23:28

but we weren't created to die.

00:23:31

We were created to live forever,

00:23:33

but death is a curse as a result of sin

00:23:36

that's here in this ecosystem right now.

00:23:40

And there's also a curse of fruitless labor.

00:23:43

When we labor in the field,

00:23:45

we have thorns and thistles and weeds

00:23:47

that pop up in our beds,

00:23:48

in our gardening beds that we're trying to do.

00:23:50

We have little bacteria that come

00:23:52

and eat at our tomatoes, causing fruitless labor.

00:23:56

If we call on somebody in sales,

00:23:59

we don't get the sale when we should have

00:24:01

gotten the sale because something weird happened,

00:24:03

because some thorn in the corporate system

00:24:05

popped up and kept us from having the sale.

00:24:07

This is called fruitless labor.

00:24:09

Labor isn't the curse.

00:24:11

Fruitless labor is the curse.

00:24:13

And we see all hell literally breaks --

00:24:16

All hell literally breaks loose on earth

00:24:19

and in culture, and is still breaking fourth right now.

00:24:22

Adam and Eve go from having

00:24:24

wonderful communication, wonderful intimacy

00:24:27

to broken communication and broken community

00:24:30

and lack of intimacy.

00:24:31

They start covering themselves up with leaves

00:24:34

because they have a sense of shame over one another.

00:24:37

Their next generation, their offspring,

00:24:38

one offspring kills another.

00:24:42

We're still living in the stew

00:24:45

that was created for us way back when,

00:24:47

and we're actually adding to it,

00:24:49

we're actually putting more sin in

00:24:52

the longer we refuse to see this

00:24:55

and respond accordingly.

00:24:58

We don't even know what we want.

00:25:00

We don't understand spiritual reality.

00:25:02

Consumers don't always know what they want.

00:25:04

If you want to make a lot of money,

00:25:06

here's how you do it in business.

00:25:07

You don't give somebody what they want,

00:25:09

you give somebody what you know that they need,

00:25:12

but they don't even know that they want.

00:25:16

That's what history tells us as far as

00:25:18

invention and making a lot of money.

00:25:20

Nobody wanted a smartphone.

00:25:24

If you go back, and I'm old enough to remember this,

00:25:26

when the whole smartphone thing started coming up,

00:25:28

people said, "We've learned this lesson,

00:25:30

when it comes to technology,

00:25:32

there needs to be single use devices.

00:25:34

The more you try to have a device do,

00:25:36

the less effective it's going to be."

00:25:38

And what you know, Steve Jobs and Apple figured out,

00:25:41

we realize, "Oh, of course I want that.

00:25:43

Of course, I want to know instantaneously

00:25:44

what the weather is in Hong Kong. Of course I do.

00:25:47

Of course, I want a calculator and my newspapers

00:25:50

and to be able to text and emails and phone calls

00:25:53

and of course, of course I do."

00:25:55

No one thought they did, but we do.

00:26:00

And the iPad came out, which I'm using right now,

00:26:04

you see, my sin makes me not want

00:26:06

to tell you this little secret.

00:26:08

But there's this really funky little prompter monitor

00:26:12

that has an iPad that's throwing up a mirror image

00:26:14

that I can actually read my script

00:26:17

and actually look directly at you,

00:26:18

and you don't think I'm even doing it.

00:26:20

You think I'm really smart and really that well thought out.

00:26:23

No, I'm not really.

00:26:24

I just took a lot of notes

00:26:25

and you can't tell I'm looking at the notes or not

00:26:27

because I'm looking at the iPad

00:26:29

that's right in front of the camera lens.

00:26:30

But I remember when the when the iPad came out,

00:26:34

people were going, "Oh, my gosh, that's ridiculous."

00:26:36

People called it the iFad.

00:26:39

"What do we need some bigger version of this for?

00:26:43

The iFad?"

00:26:45

Until many of us start using it, we're like,

00:26:47

"Oh, this thing is freaking awesome. It's awesome."

00:26:49

Steve Jobs knew what we wanted and needed

00:26:53

before we knew what we wanted and needed.

00:26:56

Somebody in authority, somebody envisioned had to see it.

00:26:59

God, as the ultimate authority,

00:27:01

God with the vision has seen what we need,

00:27:04

He's seen our sin problem,

00:27:06

even if we're not willing to see it.

00:27:09

That's what His vision is

00:27:12

and we're trying to get that vision inside of all of us.

00:27:15

The Book of Romans 1:29 and following, it says that:

00:27:42

those who practice such things deserve to die,

00:27:45

they not only do them,

00:27:48

but they give approval to those who practice them.

00:27:52

Man, if you want to be approved

00:27:54

in our culture of toxicity,

00:27:57

just be sinful and watch how people approve of you.

00:28:00

Just say the most libelous things on Twitter

00:28:04

you possibly can see how many people applaud you.

00:28:07

Just be as indignant as possible

00:28:09

and just see how open minded you are

00:28:13

in not allowing your kids to have any rules

00:28:15

and boundaries and never disciplining your kids

00:28:17

and actually chuckling when your kids are disobedient,

00:28:20

and just watch your people approve of you.

00:28:22

Just watch how it is the people who are greedy

00:28:25

and consume only about themselves

00:28:27

and think only about themselves,

00:28:29

how they're constantly defending, "Oh, you deserve it.

00:28:31

Oh, yeah, you should. Good for you.

00:28:33

You should buy another car on more credit

00:28:36

even though you're in deep debt right now.

00:28:37

Good for you,"

00:28:39

because that's what our culture does.

00:28:41

We applaud sin, we applaud it

00:28:44

and we applaud people who applaud sin and encourage it.

00:28:50

Now, despite all I've said, there's good news here

00:28:53

because even though while I've tried to set the stage

00:28:56

for all the stuff being wrong,

00:28:57

all this stuff actually killing us,

00:28:59

and it is killing us, it is.

00:29:02

You can deny this.

00:29:03

You can't deny that it is killing us.

00:29:05

It's killing our culture.

00:29:06

It's killing you.

00:29:07

It's killing your relationships.

00:29:09

It's killing your levity, your lightness, your joy

00:29:13

when we refuse to be forgiving and we're bitter,

00:29:17

when we refuse to understand and we're judgmental,

00:29:20

when we're refusing to put any guardrails around ourselves

00:29:24

and say no to ourselves ever.

00:29:26

When we refuse to do that, we get hurt.

00:29:30

The good news is is there is a cure.

00:29:33

And over the coming weeks, we're going to speak

00:29:36

directly to some of the most damaging results

00:29:39

of the fall, the toxic things that are around us.

00:29:43

Things like shame.

00:29:46

Things like fear.

00:29:49

And we're going to see that the umbrella cure

00:29:51

for all of this is another word we don't like.

00:29:53

We don't like the word sin.

00:29:55

I don't care if you like COVID or not,

00:29:57

you've got to wrestle with it.

00:29:58

It is here and it is real.

00:30:00

And we don't like sin. We've got to wrestle with it.

00:30:02

It is here. It is real.

00:30:03

And in other word we don't like at all

00:30:05

is the word that is the cure, it's the word repentance.

00:30:11

It's a word that means I'm going this way,

00:30:14

I'm going the way that everyone else is going,

00:30:17

I'm going the way of sin.

00:30:19

I'm going the way of approving

00:30:21

of those who practice such things.

00:30:23

I'm going the way of me being the center of my universe.

00:30:26

I'm going the way of getting mine

00:30:28

and judging people who are not.

00:30:30

I'm going and what we do is repent,

00:30:32

we go (brakes sound effect) it's a turn.

00:30:34

It's a turn. It's a change of direction.

00:30:37

I change. I change my mindset

00:30:41

and I change my body

00:30:44

and I go in a different direction.

00:30:49

The cure includes turning from the toxicity

00:30:53

and going a different direction

00:30:57

while God sends me a Savior,

00:31:01

something I didn't know that I needed,

00:31:03

something I didn't know that I wanted,

00:31:05

who isn't a fad. He's a Savior.

00:31:09

Out of Mary's DNA and Eve's DNA, who crushes,

00:31:15

who crushes the head of the evil one,

00:31:18

who crushes him in an astonishing way

00:31:22

that no one saw coming, He crush him

00:31:24

by stretching out His arms on a Cross

00:31:27

and taking the pain of the toxicity on His back,

00:31:33

on His shoulders, and loving us,

00:31:38

and laying down His life for us

00:31:40

so that we could have the opportunity to repent.

00:31:42

Friends, there's going to be a lot in this series

00:31:44

that are going to be very hard for you to listen to.

00:31:46

There's going to be a lot of things

00:31:48

that are complicated that's going

00:31:49

to be hard for you to stay focused on.

00:31:51

And that's part of the problem in our culture.

00:31:53

We've dumbed and numbed ourselves down

00:31:55

to not be able to follow a line of reasoning,

00:31:58

to not be able to follow truth,

00:31:59

to not be able to do the hard work

00:32:01

of understanding the toxicity in our culture.

00:32:04

And this is it, and it is real.

00:32:06

And if you get it and you turn around,

00:32:08

I'm telling you your life is going to be different.

00:32:11

I want that from you and you want that for you.

00:32:15

Let me pray for you right now.

00:32:16

God, I thank You for being clear and giving us

00:32:20

things in Your Scriptures that are so clear.

00:32:23

I know all of us have something to turn from

00:32:27

because all of us have these toxins in us

00:32:29

and around us and we don't want them.

00:32:31

We ask Your forgiveness for falling prey to them.

00:32:35

Jesus, we want to ask You to come in and help us.

00:32:39

We give our life to You.

00:32:41

We ask Your forgiveness.

00:32:43

We ask You fill us with Your Spirit

00:32:45

and with your grace.

00:32:48

We want You and Your ways and the beauty,

00:32:51

the transcendency, and the purity that follows. Amen.

00:33:00

You know, once our mind engages on this,

00:33:02

it's really good to engage our heart on it

00:33:04

before we engage our limbs

00:33:06

when you're done with this broadcast.

00:33:08

We're going to engage our heart with this

00:33:10

by singing together and worshiping together.

00:33:13

Let's do that right now.

00:44:22

- Hey, thanks for joining us.

00:44:23

I hope you've gotten something

00:44:25

that's going to impact your life.

00:44:27

Don't miss next week when Alli

00:44:28

is going to talk to us about The Cure for Shame.

	Kyle And Hannah Search For The Cure 🔍	0:27
	The Black Maba Snake 🐍	2:26
	Brian Tome: What Is The Cure?	4:24
	Brian Tome: Sin Is Toxic	9:38
	Worship: You Keep Hope Alive	33:23
	Worship: We Praise You	36:00
	Worship: Worthy Of It All	41:03

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