Is Jesus Unique

Welcome back to another edition of the Be a Berean Podcast. I am your trusty host, Michael Coughlin. I have been busy lately. Many of you may know from social media that on April 8th, my father died. Then on April 15th, I decided that I would contact... Now, this is an unrelated situation, just so you know.

On April 8th, my dad died. That dad who died is my adopted father. A week later, totally coincidentally, time-wise, I contacted an older sister of mine who I've never met, who I just found out about a few weeks ago. So my dad adopted me. My biological dad had at least four other children that I know of from two different women other than my mom. And I introduced myself to them about two weeks ago.

Today's May 1st. And so I have been spending the last few weeks getting to know a couple of sisters that I never knew. And there hasn't been a lot to deal with yet with my dad's death. We weren't able to have a funeral yet because of the stay-at-home order. but I guess it's one of those things for me where if you ask me if I'm doing okay I'd say yes I'd say things like I was ready whatever but I recognize that sometimes we experience stress in life particularly emotional turmoil as a result of things that we may not even realize.

So, I guess what I'll acknowledge is it's entirely possible that even though on the surface I believe I've been doing okay emotionally with everything going on, that it is possible that it's affected me in ways I haven't realized. and I'll compare it to this, every once in a while I'll get sick. And for a few days I just won't feel very well, but I won't have a lot of symptoms for whatever reason. And then after a few days I realized, oh, I probably caught whatever's going around, but it just didn't hit me as bad.

But it still affected me. But because it was almost asymptomatic, all it did was was bring me fatigue as my immune system fought it and so for a few days I just thought I was just kind of lazy or tired and then all of a sudden I would bounce back and I'd realize oh I bet I was fighting something and it just never got bad enough to notice outwardly so I say all that just to share with you what's going on and I don't I'm not looking for any kind of pity or anything like that. We all go through a death of family members, and I think more people than I realize find half-siblings later in life, and that's not a new situation anyway.

I've known for 30 years that I probably had half-siblings, and I've known for 30 years that I did not know my biological father. So without getting into any too much more detail about that, he is dead, so I never met him. I knew his name and I chose back in the day I chose not to try to find him and I don't know how easy he would have been to find if I had wanted to and I'm not sure how it would have affected me if I had found him.

So it worked out the way God ordained it. But I'm trying to love my new sisters and I'm trying to be a good brother right now to them and at the same time you know it's not like I have a lot of extra time in life so it's not like I have had a lot of chances to talk to him for as long as maybe they'd like I know the one sister likes to talk a lot and she's she's a little older and she lives alone so it makes sense that she would have a little more time than I do but so that's what's been going on with me and i started watching the founders synodoc i don't know what a synodoc is to me it's just the founders movie and so it's called by what standard and if you go to founders website it's founders.org forward slash synodoc no idea what synodoc stands for a cinema documentary I don't know but it is excellent so far and I've really enjoyed studying well not studying but watching it and discussing it with my family and I think it's bringing up a lot of concepts some of which my my teenage children in particular don't aren't aware are out there. And so whereas I've been, I'll say, battling this social justice agenda for years now, and from the very beginning of when it started to take hold, I was affected by it.

This documentary has been really educational, and it's caused some good conversations in my family. But what I wanted to talk about was more problems with Christianity thanks to the Friendly Atheist I have gotten positive feedback on this series and I halfway through and I just want to keep going So we going to jump in We're at friendlyatheist.pateos.com. The blog titled 40 Problems with Christianity, Problem 21.

Our atheist says problem 21 is the Passover prisoner release. So he says there are four Gospels state that the Roman governor over Judea Pontius Pilate was obligated during the Passover to commute one prisoner's death sentence and have him released. There are no Roman records suggesting that such a custom existed. He says further the implication would be absurd and he has his reasoning.

He says, this fictional story was first added to Mark's gospel and then copied by the writers of the subsequent gospels. The author of Mark used this tale, perhaps inspired by a similar story in Homer's The Odyssey, to shift blame for the crucifixion away from the Romans and toward the Jews. It is likely that Barabbas, translated as son of the father, the name of the criminal allegedly chosen by the crowd for release was actually a nickname used for Jesus.

So in effect, the crowd was actually demanding the release of Jesus, finding that his arrest was unwarranted. When the author of Mark was confronted with the folklore that the Jews were asking for the release of Barabbas, he simply made Barabbas into a separate individual and then concocted the myth of the prisoner release tradition. Okay. He basically just says this is false.

And I don't even know sometimes how to interact with this guy anymore. And I hate to be sounding like I'm getting tired of him. but it just seems to me that this guy doesn't make any arguments no roman records suggesting well he's got the four gospels the gospels definitely suggest that this happened no roman records suggest a custom existed well it says there was a custom in the bible right it says here in luke 23 but they all cried out together away with this man and released to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. And so the Jews wanted to kill Jesus and release Barabbas.

And so you look at Mark. Mark says let me find it here. now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner whom they asked okay so remember it says at the feast so this is during the passover time so it wasn't something that happened regularly this was once a year maybe and among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection there was a man called barabbas and the crowd came up and began to ask pilot to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?

So he's mocking them. And he says, free perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up. But the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, then what shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out, crucify him. And so Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas.

And so what we have is a clear description of the events. We have no reason to believe atheist guy over the Bible. And that is really simply put, you're apologetic. So if you're listening to this to learn apologetics, the apologetic is, I have no reason to believe some random guy on the internet over the Bible that someone wrote. The Bible was written by eyewitnesses who had opportunities to have their texts corrected.

So, and those things, of course, didn't happen because the Bible is true. And his argument that the crowd was actually demanding the release of Jesus because they found his arrest unwarranted, and then Mark later made it that they were demanding somebody else's arrest is really interesting because he's acknowledging that something really happened. And so he's saying it's a fictional story about releasing Barabbas, but then he's saying, no, it really happened that the crowd was yelling, release Barabbas, son of the father, but it wasn't really a different guy. and so the atheist can't figure out what he wants to refute in one sentence he wants to say something's totally absurd there's no historical basis for this and it's a fictional story and then in the next sentence he wants to say how this fictional story is actually based on a whole bunch of truthful things and it was just twisted and again he his argument that he's maintained a few times, is that the Bible was rewritten to make the Jews look bad and make the Romans look good.

In this situation, you have a Roman governor who could have released Jesus, who was warned by his wife who had a dream to release Jesus and have nothing to do with him, who knew that Jesus had basically committed no crime, who still had him executed, there is absolutely no part of what Pontius Pilate did that we could say exonerates the Romans even in the story And the Jews themselves though yes they look very bad because the Jews were the ones demanding that Jesus would die instead of Barabbas who deserved to die And so what we have in these anecdotes is we have a picture. We have a type of a situation that we want to be able to understand. And what that is, is that Barabbas is the guilty sinner who deserves death.

And the people demand that Jesus die and Barabbas be released. And what you have is the substitution of the innocent lamb in the place of the guilty sinner. And I think it's a pretty picture of the gospel in the gospels itself that Barabbas, through nothing good he did, but simply the willing, sinless Son of God's submission to his Father's will, coming to the cross and being willing to die.

It is Jesus' willingness to be put to death instead of Barabbas that saves Barabbas from his impending death, at least temporarily. It is Barabbas who could do nothing to free himself. He was under a sentence of condemnation. He was a murderer. He certainly would have been up for capital punishment. And so Barabbas represents all of the people whom Jesus died for in this situation.

Barabbas is a picture of God's church who Jesus dies for, even though they can do nothing. They have no claim of their own righteousness. They can do nothing to make up for their own sins, but Jesus can. And it wasn't just that Jesus was crucified and then Barabbas left death row and remained in prison like anybody would think he ought. Jesus was crucified and then Barabbas was set free. he was released from the bondage that he was in because of his sin I think it's a beautiful picture of the gospel and I think that to pervert that as Mr.

Atheist wants to do is historically not okay he's saying there's no records of it, we don't need all these records of it we have records of it, there's not a whole bunch of records of all sorts of stuff you find in antiquity. You know, there might be 17 copies of something Plato wrote, yet we believe, well, it's probably what he said. The fact that we have thousands of duplicate copies of the Gospels is overwhelming evidence that it's true historically, not to mention the fact that God preserves his word.

So we love the story of Jesus and Barabbas because it is, in reality, it's the story of Jesus and you, dear sinner. You are the Barabbas that had to be set free by the power of God alone. And so we praise the Lord for that. We believe every word of it. And it was interesting. I saw the movie Risen, which I don't recommend because actually when I saw the movie, I was less sensitive about the second commandment. and I'm now much more convinced that the Second Commandment prohibits images of our incarnate Christ.

But in the movie Risen, it was really interesting because Barabbas was released from prison, and in the case of Barabbas in the movie Risen, he was immediately back to his old doings, insurrections, and he was executed on the spot without being arrested in that movie. it's at the very beginning so I'm not spoiling much but it's funny because that artist's interpretation was that Braavos was released and in that case Braavos was a picture of the antinomian and licentious person who believes they've been released and they can go on sinning and so he still suffered the consequence of his sin but there was no there was no sacrifice for him the book of Hebrews says, if we willingly sin after we've tasted of the heavenly, there is no remaining sacrifice for us, right? And so, what do you say? It's impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened in Hebrews 6, 4, to restore them again to repentance since they're crucifying once again the Son of God. and so you know in in that movie barabbas was a picture of the one who who had tasted the freedom christ offers in a sense but hadn't really clung to it and so he in that movie that was an interesting way to to picture barabbas let's look at number 22 it's already been 18 minutes here and i don't want to take too much of your time the other gospel books so this is three paragraphs about how there's lots of other gospels the selection of the gospels to be included in the bible was made by a council of christian bishops convened in nicaea and bithynia by the roman emperor constantine the first in ad 325 this is probably the most repeated falsehood about the bible the idea that the Council of Nicaea was convened in order to determine what the right Bible books were or even if that not why it was convened but that was the result of it That simply not what the Council of Nicaea was about Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure the Council of Nicaea was about the deity of Christ.

It was the battle over Arianism, whether or not Jesus Christ was truly God and not simply one of God's creations. I'm just going to do this as an example for atheists. I'm going to turn around. And I have a book here that is available to anyone who has a credit card, probably. It's called 50 World-Changing Events in Christian History by Earl M. Blackburn. and I opened to the page of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, just providentially.

And the Council of Nicaea was about Arius being excommunicated. Athanasius is there, and Trinitarianism was brought to a head and settled at Nicaea. There's all this stuff. nothing about Bible books. Here we go. The council did not invent the doctrine of the Trinity. Rather, they initially settled the biblical teaching of the eternal sonship and deity of Christ and the nature of the only true God who makes himself known in three persons.

So this was a world-changing event in Christian history. And it had nothing to do with the selection of New Testament books and Gospels. So it's hard to argue. This is a great book, by the way. 50 World-Changing Events in Christian History, given to me by my friend David Pittman, a wonderful dear brother in the Lord who I can't wait to meet. Pastor David Pittman at Addison Baptist Church.

You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He's a great guy. Good teacher. but the legend is the legend is that there were all sorts of books written about Jesus Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the other 50 or 6 or so Gospels that were discarded like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Peter the Gospel of the Nazarenes, the Gospel of the Ebionites in the Gospel of the Hebrews.

Friendly atheist says, it is likely that the truth of what happened lies buried amid the numerous tales told by all of these Gospels, with various true and fictional elements scattered throughout. Well, first of all, if there are fictional elements scattered throughout, then it's worthless. Like, let's just lay that out. If there's anything fictional about the Bible, it's worthless.

No matter how much you think you love Jesus, no matter how much you think Jesus has saved you, if Jesus' word, the Bible, is not true, he's not God. If God could not perfectly preserve his word the way that he chose for us and keep it true, then we have no reason to trust him in any part of it. So no, there's no fictional elements of any story that belongs in the Bible. now are there other books that people tried to write that they wished could have been bible books probably were there maybe lots of them probably there's people today that are saying things that that they don't say oh we should put this in the bible but when they say the things they're saying they're basically saying things that are equated with scripture because of their claim that those things are from God.

When somebody claims to receive truth from God outside of what has been written, what they've received is as authoritative as Scripture itself. And so there are people today trying to add to the Word just like there would have been people throughout antiquity. In the Old Testament times, this certainly happened. But God had a way of organizing his scripture and making things clear so that the people who actually organized the canon, the list of what Bible books are the correct Bible books, they were not deciding what books belonged into the Bible.

Like the atheist says here, what should be troubling to a questioning believer is that the council undoubtedly preferentially selected the Gospels that were favorable to the Romans and excluded what didn't flatter them. So he's basically saying that the whole Bible is a revisionist history to make Romans look good. The people that made the canon, if you care to study it, did not select the books that belonged in the Bible.

They acknowledged the books that God had delivered as his revelation. Luke and Paul Peter these people understood that what they were writing was the scripture they knew that what each other wrote was the scripture Peter knew that Paul was writing scripture so there is it's not like Paul was just writing letters thoughtlessly he was inspired by God thus saith the Lord is what prophets do so there's no other gospel books there's other stories people wrote that pervert our God's son Jesus Christ they make him into something he's not, and they tell lies about him. There may be some very good books that have been written.

I've heard people say that some of the books of the Catholic Apocrypha are actually good books to read. I'm not going to dispute that there are some books that are good to read. They can teach us things. Jesus and Paul and other scripture writers have referred to what I'll call non-canonical texts Jude refers to Enoch having prophesied even so there's other books we can read there's nothing wrong with that but the Bible as a revisionist history to make the Romans look good holds no water academically.

This is the problem, is even secular, non-believing scholars understand how the Bible came to be and can acknowledge that it's at least factual history and it wasn't revised. I mean, this stuff is well known. And an internet search would prove it. And so I encourage you, if you don't know how to answer these questions, do an internet search. I'm not fazed by people that say there were 56 Gospels and they were all selected at the Council of Nicaea.

I know enough to know that's not what happened. And if that's really what someone's going to hang their hat on, I'm probably not going to debate them very long. If you've got a family member that's fallen prey to this stuff, if your brother who says he's saved is starting to falter because of these things, then yeah, dig in. Look up the term canonicity. how did the Bible come to be there's teachings everywhere James White is a treasure trove of knowledge on these things Frank Turk did a long series on how the Bible came to be it's on archive.org there's just so much information about how we deal with Bible texts and I'll do one more number 23 too many messiahs.

Most Christians believe that Jesus was a unique figure in his time. Yes, we do. A one-of-a-kind preacher who mesmerized followers with his wisdom and magical acts. He says, this is not true. He says, there were many messiahs at this time, including Hezekiah the bandit, Simon of Perea, Athranges the shepherd boy, and Judas the Galilean. so anyway I've never heard of these people they might they may have been really neat people in addition there were many other preachers and prophets who were gathering followers and preaching a messianic message about the coming of the kingdom of God no doubt well in fact John the Baptist gathered followers and preached a messianic message about the coming of the kingdom of God.

And John the Baptist, who wasn't listed here with Hezekiah the bandit and Atharanges the shepherd boy, John the Baptist is the one who said, when they said, why are your disciples leaving you and they're going and following this other person? And John the Baptist's reply was, I must decrease and he must increase. That's the response of a man that truly was preaching the kingdom of God when Jesus comes on the scene.

Notable as well, his name was John the Baptist, not John the Episcopalian or John the Presbyterian. He wasn't John the Lutheran. So, anyway. The atheist says, some advocated a violent overthrow of the Roman occupiers as a prelude to the coming. Others stressed a less violent approach, including repentance, prayers, and beseeching of God for deliverance.

He says, added to this list is the most popular preacher of all, John the Baptist. Oh, so he actually acknowledges John the Baptist. I forgot. He says Jesus was possibly a follower of John until John's arrest and execution. He may have assumed leadership of John's movement. That's just not true.

He says Jesus was probably a follower of John as exemplified by the subservient act of submitting himself for baptism. He absolutely didn't subserve himself to John. Jesus Christ got baptized to fulfill all righteousness because he loved the Father. Because Jesus Christ wanted to do everything perfect because it's his nature. Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, Matthew 3.13, to be baptized by him.

John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me? So this was Jesus' chance to say he's subservient to John and say, no, no, you're right. You're right. I'm not going to be baptized because you just told me I shouldn't. John, who's telling everyone, no, Jesus is above me. The straps of whose sandals I'm not worthy to even tie.

But Jesus answered John he says let it be so now for thus it is filling to fulfill all righteousness Then John consented And when Jesus was baptized immediately he went up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And we're supposed to believe that Jesus submitted himself to John Because he was subservient to him and he was a follower of John.

Absolutely not. John the Baptist knew his place and we would do well to be more like him and consider our lives worthless and our ministries worthless if we're drawing anyone away from following Jesus Christ. Jesus was, back to the atheist, he says, Jesus was just one of many itinerant preachers of his day. Maybe he was. And there was nothing particularly unique about him except for the fact that he was God.

I'm adding that. He says they were all preaching the same ideas. Almost all of them ended up crucified for the crime of sedition against the Roman Empire. I don't know if that's true. He says it's a historical fluke that Christians pray to Jesus instead of John or Simon or Hezekiah. A historical fluke.

Jesus Christ proclaimed himself to be God did the works of God dazzled the scribes and Pharisees with his wisdom fed thousands of people with nothing quoted the scripture in context perfectly and applied it to people's lives the exact way it ought to be forgave sins and rose from the dead. And we're supposed to believe that he's no different than a Thronji's the shepherd boy. That it's a total fluke.

The reason we've heard of Babe Ruth is because all these other guys hit the same number of home runs as Babe Ruth, but we just remember Babe Ruth because someone made a movie about him. Are you kidding me? the reason we know who Babe Ruth is is because he was the only guy alive at the time that did anything as significant and hit more home runs than whole other teams and this is why you have to be a pretty avid baseball fan to know who a lot of the home run leaders were for the past 40 years because for the most part there were 7 or 8 people all in the same range every year because nobody really stood out that much not that they weren't great hitters but there was a bunch of them the reason some people stand out is because they were so different from every one of their contemporaries it's why Michael Jordan is considered so great because he was better than everyone he ever went on the court with it's why we would argue that Jim Brown could be the best running back ever of course because I'm a Cleveland fan but I don't want to get into sports if you're not a sports fan but literally it's mind blowing to me the mental block it takes to pretend that Christianity must be made up and that it's just a fluke that we worship Jesus instead of one of these other people this atheist cannot make up his mind as to whether the Bible is made up or whether the Bible is true and he just hates it. This is why so many atheists come across so angry, because of the cognitive dissonance it requires to suppress the truth.

And for someone to have studied the Bible enough to come up with a list of refutations means that he's been exposed to God's truth. He's tasted of the heavenly. this poor atheist guy's had infinitely more revelation than a lot of people will go to hell never having heard. And so if God doesn't have mercy on his soul, he's going to be punished greatly.

And so we need to stress the truth of the scripture to people. We need to stress that we are unashamed about it. I'm not ashamed at all that there may have been other people that did stuff like Jesus. There were magicians that did stuff like Moses and Aaron. It doesn't take away from Moses' propheticness. There may have been people that even did magic tricks in Jesus' day.

I doubt there was anybody that healed people like he did. But I'm sure there were people working magic arts. Simon had to rebuke that witch girl in the book of Acts and the people that were using her for profit Simon Peter that is there certainly were people that would preach messages I don't doubt that Judas preached it would seem odd to me if Judas didn't preach it would seem odd to me my guess is he appeared to be a rather righteous guy concerned for the poor And yet what we see when we look at these atheist objections is really a desperate grasping at straws.

And it should move you to pity. there's the old joke an atheist is someone who doesn't doesn't believe in god but and hates him hates the god that he doesn't believe exists whatever it is like nobody is under more stress than the atheist he's trying to deny god maybe the false convert trying to pretend that he's godly but it it's a difficult it's a difficult task for an atheist to exist with all of the revelation we have. And so they must say things that are going to come across. I'm trying to watch my language here, but they're going to say things that sound stupid.

They're going to say foolish things. You can have a little fun mocking ideas or picking on things, but I think it's a good heart check for me and for you your goal is to lead people to Jesus Christ and if God's going to lead them to their condemnation you ought to at least show them the grace that you ought to show them you don't repay evil for evil you do what's honorable in the sight of all you live peaceably with all men so far as it's possible and up to you. So although we rejoice that God's justice will be done and that his enemies will be put to shame, we ought to have a pity in our hearts for even those that offend us the most because we were once Barabbas.

We were once the offender. We were the enemy that somebody sat down and thought, I'm going to pray an imprecatory prayer against that guy. And then God saved you, or God saved me, and transferred us from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of his son. And now I have friends who I was once enemies of. And so I want to encourage you, do your apologetics. learn how to defend the truth learn how to spot logical fallacies learn these 40 objections we could probably find 40 more I could probably find 40 things that I find hard to understand in scripture I could call them contradictions and I could publish them and I could probably do a better job than this guy because I know the Bible better the point is the reason why people are coming up with objections is because they have to.

You don't need 40 objections for Hinduism. It's silly. You don't need 40 objections for reincarnation and Buddhism and Confucianism and Taoism and all these different things out there. I don't need 40 reasons why Zeus wasn't really God and and Hermes wasn't really his messenger, and Aphrodite wasn't really the goddess of war. I don't even remember all those things.

Everybody knows they're silly. We need 40 reasons why the Bible can't be trusted because it can be trusted. And so use it like the sword of the Spirit. It's your offensive weapon against the wiles of the devil. and as it says at the end of Ephesians 6 after putting on the whole armor of God and all that stuff pray for us that we may open our mouths boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel that's the ultimate goal here proclaim the gospel to people defend Christ honorably and honestly and leave the results in the hands of the God who said that we ought to be patient, apt to teach, hoping that God would deliver our opponent from the schemes of the devil and grant our opponent's repentance.

Our goal is that God would increase and we would decrease. And if I must decrease, let it be for the sake of Jesus Christ. I'm going to stop right there we're on number 24 there's about 15 of these left I've got other things I want to podcast about but I want to hear what you want me to talk about too my email is michael at thingsabove.us I want to know what people want to hear about do you like hearing me open air preach?

I don't know I really don't I don't care if you don't like it I don't care I still going to do it But if you like it I do care I encouraged But I want to know are my listeners people who want to hear the last sermon I did at Planned Parenthood would that help you Is that something that would educate you and your crew? Do you want me to go through the book of Philippians or Ephesians or just teach through a book? Do you want me to just tackle hot topics?

You know, social justice, whatever it is what questions do people have? Part of podcasting for me is just answering questions and then thinking, well, I'll just record myself while I answer them. And it turns out some other people are helped by it. So let me know. Let me know what you want to hear about. Do you want me to interview people?

I can probably interview anyone. Like, Christianity is really not that big. you name someone I can probably get a hold of the person and say hey I want to interview you so that we could promote your next book or just whatever it is and most people would just say yes so let me know I'm having a lot of fun with this and I like to talk I feel good when I teach things when I talk about things a lot of this I just I work it out of my own mind. And it's fun to go over things with my family.

I'm just a regular guy like you. So if you're listening to me, I'm thankful. It's a joy to think that what I enjoy doing, other people enjoy listening to. If you want me to speak, I can come to your church, I can come to your conference. I can come to your men's group. The only thing I really want is food.

I guess if you were having a conference on fasting, I could come and we could talk about fasting and I could fast. But for the most part, that's part of the fun of meeting other Christians is going to meals together, enjoying the good gifts God has given us, things like that. So God bless you. I don't know where you live, but if you're listening to this, you've probably been missing out on church.

You probably have division going on in your church and in your community and in your family because of all this coronavirus stuff. I'm in a group of people that is trying to protest a government in Ohio. And what I can see is that Ohio is being divided. I can see Ohio divided between people who believe one thing and people who are believing another. and it's almost as if somehow the powers that be are able to feed each side more to separate them more.

And I hate watching it. I think united we stand and divided we fall. But then even within the little group of people that I think I side with, which is the people that are protesting government overreach, I'm seeing more and more division. The longer it goes, the more people aren't getting what they want, the more infighting I see. the more somebody tries to maybe rebuke someone and say hey maybe you shouldn't have yelled at that person at the protest today maybe you shouldn't have invaded someone's personal space who obviously wanted to social distance maybe that doesn't show people how reasonable we are and then the person gets mad and runs away I had a guy in a thread today say I'll protest the way I want.

And then he left the thread. After four days of people talking about organizing things to try to petition the government, he's going to go on his own. That's just childish. Be a man. Take some criticism. And nobody even criticized this guy anyway.

So, you know, I see these things, and I just feel for you. maybe you're hiding out somewhere because you are at risk of this virus maybe you've lost your job and you don't know where you're going to get your next meal from or maybe you think you've got three months but you don't know what will happen at the end of three months so i i just want you to know i feel for you i think it's a tough time to live I think it's a tough time to be a Christian every time it's tough to be a Christian in the end but what does it say tough times make tough people I don't know what the sayings are but you're not going to be taken to heaven on flowery beds of ease so be faithful keep your focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and his power to save and his power to really make all things right today. Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net.

You can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.