#535 We Are Approaching An Apocalyptical Crisis: A Collision of Two Opposing Forces

As the Election season approaches we are witnessing the collision of two powerful forces in opposition to one another! 

At its foundation there have always been just two worldviews or forces that humanity is free to choose from. The City of man in which man makes himself god, "We will be like god, deciding what is good and what is evil" (Gen 3:5), or the City of God, where man acknowledges God and goes out to seek the "Truth", asking "how shall I live?" The man of pride, or the man of humility. 

We ask, "can youth navigate the moral confusion of our times with integrity and hope?" and "Can love transcend societal constructs, and evil?"

Encounter the challenges posed by Marxist ideology and its impact on modern society, particularly concerning marriage, family, and Christian values. Through historical parallels and acts of defiance, learn about the transformative power of personal responsibility and faith in combating societal evils. We also explore the power of prayer, turning temptation into spiritual connection, and extending love to everyone we meet. Engage with your community, uphold values that protect life, family, and freedom, and discover the power of faith and love in overcoming modern challenges.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

We are approaching an apocalyptic crisis, a collision of two opposing forces, and as we get closer to this election, we're going to see those forces of, especially of evil, really coming out. Right now I want to get a message out again to young people all of us, of course, but if we could share this to young people, because at its foundation, there's always been just two worldviews or two forces, two systems that humanity is free to choose from. The city of man, in which man makes himself God, we will be like God, deciding what is good and what is evil. This is right from Genesis, chapter 3. Or the city of God, where man acknowledges God and goes out to seek the truth and asking how shall I live? Young people have this in their hearts to seek the truth. Today they are getting robbed of that. They're getting robbed of their innocence very early on, and when you get robbed of your innocence, there seems like a veil comes over and we no longer seek the truth. What is the truth? We even see these gender ideologies just twisting and distorting what it means to be human and especially what attacks and these lies that come into their lives, but especially what happens to lies. Sex is just sex, it's nothing, it's not important, it's pleasure-based, has nothing to do with meaning or purpose, and love is love, love is love. There's no real definition or meaning to that, and these are lies. And the essence of these battles goes down to the human heart. There's a force that's out there that wants to twist and distort the human heart. This breaks down what it means to be a human person, breaks down what it means to be a family, and this will break down everything in the culture. And this is what you're seeing today, young people.

Speaker 1 2:05

So I want to tell you a little story. When I was a junior in high school, I had met this beautiful young girl and we were at a party one time and 17 years old, and so we found this room in this party, and so we locked the door and we lay on the bed. I won't go through all of this, but it was an incredible experience. And then, at one point, I realized this young woman is ready to give herself to me. I mean, give all of herself to me. And there was a point where I just stopped. I had kissed her and I had pulled back and I realized, wow, there's something. She wants to go further. And while I thought I was okay with that. I realized I wasn't, and so something drew me back, and so I kissed her and I drew back and I opened my eyes, and it was the power of this woman. The glow was coming off of her face and it was so beautiful it actually stopped me in my tracks and I pulled back and I looked down at her body, and it was incredible the awe and wonder, and I knew right then. It was amazing.

Speaker 1 3:22

I'll never forget this, and this is why I say to young people don't lose your heart. And all of us, look back when you were young, when we were idealistic, where we knew we wanted to make the world a better place, to make the human heart better. This is what they want to rob us of. It's the young people that always bring the hope into the world. I meet so many older people that have just given up. They're sitting in that proverbial pot with that frog, this moral relativism, and they're just passing this down to the next generation. These young people, though, are starting to ask questions what is this craziness that's going on, and the culture's trying to rob them of this?

Speaker 1 4:03

As I looked down at this and I realized nah, sex is not just sex. There was something that I would stop myself. I wasn't going to go any further. I couldn't go any further. There was a step that I was not willing to take. I knew I was being lied to. I knew love was not just love. I didn't know what that meant. Love was not just love. I didn't know what that meant.

Speaker 1 4:23

And by the time later on we would break up after that party and it was the weirdest thing I was not a very good communicator in those days. I thought she was mad at me, she was disappointed and she looked disappointed and our relationship got awkward and we didn't have cell phones in those days and we just drifted apart. And years later I met her and one of the first things she said to me she goes. How come you never asked me out again? And I kind of I said well, I felt awkward, I, I, I felt like you didn't, you know you, you, you were mad at me. She goes I wasn't mad at me. She goes I wasn't mad at you. She goes I was disappointed. I thought that you liked me. I thought that maybe you loved me. She said that. I thought maybe I wasn't attractive to you and I thought maybe you changed your mind, and so I was a little embarrassed. I was ready to give myself to someone who didn't care, and I was a little embarrassed and she goes. That wasn't it at all. I always was waiting for you to ask me out again. Well, she was married at this time, so it didn't make any difference and I never really told her that.

Speaker 1 5:38

That moment that we were together, that awe and wonder, the power of femininity and masculinity, the power of the story, put me on a journey that would change my life. And by the time I was getting ready to graduate the next year from high school this is in the mid-70s my friend, jimmy Patrick, was a young Marine, a couple years older than me, had come back from Vietnam missing both of his legs. Our country had already passed the law giving us the right to take the life of our own children Roe v Wade in 73. And I became conscious of all of these experiences, of a dark force in the world already that opposed another force, that of my conscience, and I rebelled against what I didn't understand at that time and these are big mysteries of life when we're young and it caused more than just a little bit of strife at home and I thought it was best to just go out on my own. I received my diploma that very day. I threw it in my backpack and I threw my backpack and everything else in the backseat of my car, I put my bicycle on the top and I proceeded to spend the remainder of my life searching for those answers. Those opposing forces At the foundation. Again, those opposing forces are two systems the city of man or the city of God.

Speaker 1 6:58

I'm going to tell you just a little bit about a backpacking trip and then I'm going to go into what I found. So I ended up settling around Denver, colorado. My memories go back to those teen years, then late teens, early 20s, and I would spend a lot of time outdoors, backpacking, fishing, bicycle riding, praying. But camping and hiking were some of my favorite things and I would look for the most secluded, rugged, beautiful places I could find. More often than not that was in the Rocky Mountains there in Colorado.

Speaker 1 7:30

One time, in the back country of Yellowstone National Park in Colorado-Wyoming, border a steep animal trail. I had followed through the trees and the brush and tell. I came up to a clearing above the tree line. Just a short distance away I spotted a lone tree way up the top and I was hoping that was the top of the mountain. I was tired and the clearing came up and I thought, man, if I could make it to that tree, I bet you it's going to be beautiful Once there. I was right. I got to the top.

Speaker 1 8:00

That lone tree was at the end of a ridge and I saw the awe and wonder of the scene before me. And then I looked down and across the valley where I stood, another peak even higher stood across. It was a snow-capped mountain and cascading down from its summit like liquid silver. Where the sun was hitting it was a waterfall dropping thousands of feet below. It was just gorgeous. And then as I sat, as I was quiet there, I could hear the songbirds, you could hear them everywhere. I could even see the beads and the butterflies moving along, the wildflowers in full bloom below me. And then, maybe a thousand feet down below, were a herd of elk and the calves were running and jumping while the adults grazed nearby. And I took off my backpack and I sat back along that tree and I took it all in and it was just a few minutes sensing all the beauty of that scene before me was, and that scene was drawing me in. You know, beauty has a way of doing that, and I began to experience a deep ache in my heart that moved up, and that deep ache of loneliness was coupled with the desire to share that beauty before me, and I began to imagine this girl from this party her name was Marlene sitting in front of me and my arms around her. I'm becoming one with her beauty and then drifting out in her beauty.

Speaker 1 9:26

With the beauty that I saw before me and the sharing of this beauty, my good friend CS Lewis described it like this. He said we want so much more, something that the books on aesthetics take little notice of, but the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want to merely see beauty though God knows that's even bounty enough. We want something else, which can hardly be put into words to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it and become part of it. This is what happens when you're quiet with nature and you see the beauty. But this is also what happens between, even at a more elevated level, between a man and a woman. But all of this is just sacramental. This gives us a little taste of the union and community that God wants with us.

Speaker 1 10:13

My initial reaction to that ache had me imagining the woman right, marlene. Well, that moved into an impulse to get up, leave the beauty of that scene before me and maybe hike back down the mountain. Maybe I would drive to the city and seek that one, maybe that woman that my heart was aching for. Isn't this a common reaction? We sense beauty, we desire it, we feel something in our hearts and then we grow out for ways to grasp and to feel that ache. We seek a person or a material object, any activity, to feel that ache. Isn't that what we do today? We grab the phone, we go on social media. We're always trying to fill that ache and if that doesn't work, we numb it right. We browse through Instagram or whatever social media. We go through the medicine cabinet, we drink, we get into pornography, always trying to fill that ache.

Speaker 1 11:04

Here's what I'm going to suggest to all of us. It's so important. I do this every day. I stay in the ache. I feel that ache. I look for opportunities to enter into silence, perhaps while gazing out at the sunset or up at the stars. Take a walk in the woods or imagine the most beautiful place you've ever seen and you could do this every day, at least to look out and see the stars. Read scriptures then and be still for 10 minutes. Just sit in the silence, sit in the ache. Allow the one who gave you those desires to come in. Don't look for other ways to fill that ache, but invite him in who desires to fill your heart to enter it.

Speaker 1 11:48

As I sat a little longer, my back against that tree up in the mountains that day, the impulse again was to get up, go into the city, go to a bar, maybe grab a drink. Look for the girl right. But this time I slowly let go. I stopped grasping. I had been there before already. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and I opened my heart. Into the ache. He came love and beauty himself, bringing with him a deep sense of presence and peace. Stay in the ache and invite God into that ache. This is the difference, this is the collision. People aren't doing this anymore. We're not inviting in God. So what do we have? We have a chaos that reigns.

Speaker 1 12:34

I want to read you just a little scripture, because as I sat at that tree, I realized that that tree in my mind was the knowledge of good and evil, that tree from Genesis, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And as I sat there I realized this collision of these two worldviews happens first in the human heart, the battleground that John Paul would describe between love and lust, between truth and lies, between good and evil, between beauty and those that will profane beauty. As I sat there, I realized that I got up and walked back into the world, or I could have chosen God, and there at that time, as a young man, I chose God. Didn't really realize all of it, but then I sat there and then later I would contemplate that. A body and a soul without God, the default position is sin and death. That's just the reality of who we are A body and a soul filled with grace. To open that up gives us the potential for human freedom, the potential for human flourishing. We have to be first filled with divine life and love and then, to be efficacious, we have to go out and become that person of divine love. If you think about it, it's not brain surgery, it's the two great commandments.

Speaker 1 13:55

I want to read a little bit of scripture, because this is what brought it to light. This is the story, just from Genesis, just from the first couple of chapters. I want to read you right from Genesis this is Bediushit, this is how the whole Bible opens up. Bereshit, hebrew.

Speaker 1 14:12

For in the beginning, the first story of creation, this is the very first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless, a wasteland. A darkness covered the abyss while a mighty wind swept over the waters. So here it is, it's just got no, you know, no unity. God has not come in and taken all those elements that he's creating and bring it together, huh, to form it into the beauty of creation, the way he was. So he's going to form this. Well, how does he do this? It's the spirit, the wind, is the holy spirit, and it's coming together and it's starting to create and it pulls it together. And then, and then it starting to create and it pulls it together, and then it says this then God said let there be light into this chaos, into this chaos that we see all around us here. God still says that to us. Let there be light, let there be truth. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the evening he called night. Thus, evening came and morning followed, the first day. And then he goes on the second day and the third day, separating, separating. Finally he gets to what he gets to, the sixth day.

Speaker 1 15:25

Now God's got everything set up. He's got the garden set up, he's got everything. You know, nature's laws, natural law that will be put into the human heart. It's everything is so beautiful in nature, we think you know things like gravity, all the awe and wonder of the beauty all around us. God brings order into this. But now God says into this order, I want to bring a love story. I want to bring a love story because I am love, the essence of who I am.

Speaker 1 15:55

So what does God do? He creates us and this is how he created them. God created man in his image, in the divine image. He created them, male and female. He created them. God blessed them, saying to them be fertile, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over all of this. What is that? That awe and wonder I saw with Marlene, the awe and wonder, say, of marriage and the family then, and children that flow from that. This is a tiny reflection of Trinitarian love, of the Father who pours himself into the Son, the Son that receives that love so beautiful and profound. It comes out in the form of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who was the creator here, hovering over this chaos. Well, he does that in the human heart, and then we see this. So God draws into himself and he says let us create man in our image, in our likeness. And then he flips the selfie. What does he do? He brings that image of himself, that Trinitarian love, into this created world. How, through us, we are to make God's love visible. This is the battle here. This is the battle to bring God's love in or not and to reject it. That's what I was doing at that tree that one time and that's what we're all called to do.

Speaker 1 17:07

The chaos that you see around us is because we have rejected God and allowed the chaos to come in, the evil to come back into the world. And you get this through in chapter three. But before I get there, let me just go to chapter two. Now. Chapter two, so chapter one, the subjective sign. Now chapter two is our subjective experience of that. And then in chapter two, verse seven, the Lord God formed man out of the clay and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. So man became a living being.

Speaker 1 17:40

So of creation, what makes us different than all of creation? God blew this spirit again into us, and what does that do? It gives us two main things Reason, reason, intellect. To do what? To seek the truth, what is the truth of this world? And then he gives us free will, and this makes us different than all the rest of creation. Why does he give us free will? Because it's about love.

Speaker 1 18:05

See, love has to be free. I cannot force my wife, say, to love me. She can't force me to love her. We have to freely say yes to that. God knows, without freedom, that love is not love. It would be rape, it would be using somebody. But it's not love until I can freely give myself away to another person. This is why this right. But then we also have been given truth. We have been given reason to seek the truth. What is the truth of love? Always seek the love in the truth and always speak the truth in love. And so this is what happens then.

Exploring Creation, Love, and Temptation

Speaker 1 18:43

So God, again, he's got everything ready, and the Lord God took the man, then Adam, mankind, and we put him in the garden to cultivate and care for it. This is your creation. So Adam could have thought he was a scientist right to explore all this, which would have been beautiful. This is original solitude. This gets back to my tree. Adam and each one of us enters into this space, and this is the silence where original solitude means we realize, sitting there or, yes, I sat there, looking out into creation that I was different than all of creation, I was different than the animals, I was different than everything else. I contemplated that, I searched for the truth of how we were created and I also was free to do what To choose God, to choose love himself and then to become a person of love, or we reject that. And when we reject and push God out, then evil can fill that vacuum. The chaos we see around us is because we have rejected God. Look at Western civilization, based on Judeo-Christian principles, and we've thrown that out, and we wonder what's happening right? Then the Lord God said that's not everything, though. I want you to go further than this. So what happens? The Lord God said that's not everything, though. I want you to go further than this. So what happens.

Speaker 1 19:55

The Lord God said it's not good for man to be alone. I'm going to make a suitable partner for him. So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called each one of them, that would be its name. So the man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air and all the wild animals, but for the man none proved to be a suitable partner for the man. So he cast a deep sleep upon him and out of one of his ribs he closed it up to place with the flesh and the rib which he had taken from the man he made into a woman. When he brought her to the man, the man said what, ooh, the awe and wonder. Right, that awe and wonder of that experience. That's what I told you in the beginning. What does he do? He goes, holy cow. This one, at last, is the bone of my bones, the flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman because she's taken out of her man. That's why a man leaves his father and mother and cleans to his wife and the two become one body. The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

Speaker 1 21:01

Here's the story again. So I'm in this world, original solitude. I'm filled with divine life and love. Only when I'm filled first and God knows this you have to say yes, you know it's the two great commandments, but it starts with the love of God, and then I go out and love the neighbor. Jesus said right, this is the same thing. So God says hey, explore this. This is all yours, jack. You know, look at creation, see what I got going here. Discover things. But that's not enough. I want you to come further with me. Name all these animals. And what do I realize when I name the animals? That not only am I different than the rest of creation, I'm different than even the rest of the bodies in the world. There's no person for me. This is what I discover as I'm naming them. They all have helpers, but there's no helper for me. There's no person there that also has reason to seek the truth and is free to say yes to love.

Speaker 1 21:58

Now, when I realize that, what does God do? Boom puts you to sleep. It's like that experience with Marlene that I described. He wakes up and he goes ooh, bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh. It's the awe and wonder he sees the power there. See, when our innocence is not taken from us, we have a sense of this. Still, this echo of this story is in the human heart. That's what I was describing earlier. We have this echo in our heart. This is what the culture wants to take down. This is really the collision, the force of evil that wants to rob children and young people of their innocence, tell them to fill with all these lies about sex being without meaning or purpose. No, we're called into a love story. This is why a man leaves his father and mother, because we were created in love, by love and to express Trinitarian love in the world. When that's taken out, it's chaos. It's chaos. It's the fall of man.

Speaker 1 22:55

Now, the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made. The serpent asked the woman this is Genesis 3, this is at the tree. This is at the tree. This comes down to for all of us to decide. Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden? The woman answered the serpent. We may eat from the fruit of the trees, it's only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said you shall not eat of it or even touch it lest you die. What is that?

Speaker 1 23:22

God says I created this out of this chaos. I created order. Everything has order, your heart has order and it's all to direct you to the truth of love and to love in the truth. The order is a love story. Love means something. It's to walk into the most magnificent awe and wonder of all this, that all of this beauty was created for us to experience and to be. And it has order.

Speaker 1 23:52

When your heart has no order anymore, you see the chaos around us.

Speaker 1 23:56

We can take innocent life. We can redefine and twist marriage and family. We see what's happening, right. So what happens? It's the woman, answered, the serpent. We may eat from the fruit of the garden, just not this one tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, I cannot call evil good or good evil. That's the only thing God says. I created this in order. Now you can choose to walk away, but you can't call good evil and evil good. This is what we're doing in the culture today. This is what we're seeing. This is the collision, that we're talking about, those that will call evil good and good evil, and those that will stand in the truth, the truth of love. This, young people, is where your battle is.

Speaker 1 24:39

But the serpent said to the woman listen to this. This is why I said body, soul. Without God, the default position is sin and death. The serpent said to the woman you certainly will not die. Ooh, what a liar.

Speaker 1 24:51

See, jesus said in John 8, satan is the liar and the father of lies. He was a murderer from the beginning. Here's a liar again. Don't we get this today in the culture? Don't we get this when we stand up, even the simple school board meetings to say, no, you can't show porn to our kids in the school, and they call us haters. You're haters, you're this, you're that? It's a lie. Of course it's a lie. Of course it's a lie right from the beginning. They do the opposite. Here's satan, right to your face. Yeah, did god say that you would die? You're not going to die? Well, of course they.

Speaker 1 25:27

That does enter the world, right? No, god knows. Well, he goes on and tells her that the moment you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, who know what is good and what is evil. And what happened? They ate from the fruit and what happened? Right, sin and death entered the world. They get pushed out of the garden, which shows that they reject God. And then God says, okay, have it your way, you know, but there's consequences for all that, and so this is the story we're in.

Speaker 1 25:58

We're created for a love story and we have this in our hearts. You know, in her diary, sister Faustina. The diary, if you haven't read the diary, it's so beautiful. Sister Faustina said this and I invite him. This is in silence again, right, being invited into silence.

Speaker 1 26:16

St Teresa of Lisieux talks about it. The mystics and the saints talk about this. This is in our hearts. We can, all are called to this. And she says I invite him, jesus, to the dwelling place of my heart, humbling myself profoundly before his majesty. But the Lord lifts me up from the dust and invites me, as his bride, to sit next to him and tell him everything that's on my heart. And I, set at ease by his kindness, lean my head on his breast and tell him of everything. In the first place, I tell him things I would never tell any creature. Are you listening to this. It's so beautiful. The presence of God penetrates me and sets aflame my love for him. There are no words, there's just an interior understanding. Stay in the ache. Stay in the ache, invite God into the ache. Over time there's times when I'm saying the rosary in the middle of the night. I'll wake up and I grab my rosary and it's just a profound beauty, a piece, a deep piece. I don't always get it all the time. I have to really work at that right, just invite God and invite God in, and then all of a piece, a deep piece. I don't always get it all the time. I have to really work at that right. Just invite God and invite God in, and then all of a sudden, boom, I get these moments where you just go oh, that was fantastic.

Speaker 1 27:27

My cousin, mary Davis, wrote this beautiful book called Everyday Spirit some years ago In a page titled Everything we Need. She writes this ago In a page titled Everything we Need. She writes this every aspect of today is a co-creation with the divine. No book, no teacher, no religion, no guru, no saint can teach us how to have a personal relationship with God. They can lead us to the doorstep of heaven. They can tell us what it's like to commune with the Spirit. They can inspire us with the teaching of the ages. Great wisdom from experienced teachers is irreplaceable, but there's something even they can't do for us they can't be a substitute for our own relationship with God.

Speaker 1 28:08

I invite all of you to stay in the ache, experience the joy and peace of countering the one who thirsts for you. I don't want to go on too long, but I think I want to just give you a little bit more. Yet today you can always listen to this in a couple of parts. Right In this battle that you're going to be seeing coming up with the election, there's no great grand leader of political force riding in on a great white stallion that's going to rescue humanity, for the greatest problem plaguing humanity is not climate change, it's not inflation, it's not poverty. All of those things are there. There's no doubt about it. The greatest problem is sin, and the solution for sin begins on the battlefield of the individual heart. Yet there is a hero in this battle it's the young people, it's you who joined, and all those people around us that are called into this battle to join with us to bring about a rebirth of the three necessary societies and this is the breakdown, this is the attack. The evil out there wants to attack.

Speaker 1 29:13

If you think about again Catholic social teaching, it's like a triangle here and on the bottom holding up this triangle, marriage and the family, christ and the church. Right, this is the human person created in the Imago Dei. And Jesus comes back into the story to do what? To link us back in again, to link this all back together again so that we can do what we can go out into the world and become those persons of love. And then we go into workforce, we go into politics and we bring this love story in.

Speaker 1 29:45

Well, what happens if we don't do that? What happens if we don't bring it into the world? We have this chaos that we're seeing now. We see war after war, my buddy, jimmy Patrick's coming back with no legs. I had an uncle that came back on after three tours of duty in Nam. He was just. He had problems alcoholism, drugs, everything plagued him almost the rest of his life. After those experiences, something very twisted and distorted happens in a country like the United States now, where we just have a big war machine where everything's a battle all the time, pushing us into war, pushing us into war. But the biggest battle is the twisting and distortion of the human life that we want to take, and also marriage and the family, because once that's in chaos, everything else goes right.

Speaker 1 30:34

We stop going to church so we stop going into receiving this grace, so that we become persons of love. We're not being filled again. Body and soul needs to be filled with grace. Look when all the smoke and fog clears. Our deep yearning, burning desire to love and be loved is pointing directly at Jesus Christ and his desire to become one flesh with us.

Speaker 1 30:57

So at the end of the day, st Irenaeus was an early church father and he was correct when he said this. He said the glory of man is the glory of God. The glory of God is mankind fully alive, because we're a reflection of God in the world. When we're fully alive, we bring God's glory into the world. So we're being joined by Christians and patriots, mothers, fathers, uncles, who rallied behind St Catherine of Siena, another mystic right, who said become who you are and you're going to light the world on fire. If we understood who we are, if we became who we are, the flames of millions upon millions of newly created human hearts, united in one body with Christ would light the world on fire and create a new culture of life to replace this culture of death, or destroy the child in the womb, make marriage meaningless. All of these things are twisting and distorting. Don't forget, satan doesn't have his own clay. He can only take our human hearts and our human bodies and twist and distort what God created good. And this is the battle. These are the two collisions, right? These are the two forces that are at work right here.

Speaker 1 32:07

This is a Marxist ideology that's come into the world. What is Marxist ideology? It's atheistic, it's just throwing out God, and it's always been an attack on marriage and the family, and it's taken over the elite institutions. You've been indoctrinated into this If you went to colleges. It's happening in our schools right now. See, in the past we've celebrated iconic photos of wartime soldiers raising the flag in defiance of a physical enemy that sought to destroy us. Right, you saw that with the Marines. You know we have that famous picture of them lifting up the flag. Now we celebrate the defiance of a Marxist ideology that seeks the destruction of our constitution, our children, our nation, and this is what we're coming to right now.

Speaker 1 32:55

We have a choice coming up here between a Marxist right, somebody that's atheistic, that's pro-abort the most pro-abort gender affirming, twisting and distortion of marriages and attack on Christians. We have grandmothers now sitting in jail because they protested outside of abortion clinics. We have grandmothers now sitting in jail because they protested outside of abortion clinics. We have politicians that want to do nothing but get us into war, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, yet. Yet it's not about Donald Trump coming in. He's not God, he's not going to rescue us. We have to be able to bring that force into the world. We do need good political leaders that will continue to let us be free, because when they take the arm of the government and come after all of us and I think this is what we're really seeing right now this really attack on us and on our nation. The real question do enough Americans realize what's at stake to the point of being willing to get uncomfortable, move past their apathy and do the hard work of being an engaged citizen? It's going to take a lot more than standing around and waving an American flag.

Speaker 1 34:02

The solution isn't simply voting for a politician. The solution is you and it's me. It's coming into this love story, saying yes to Jesus Christ coming in and being a reflection of God's love in the world, speaking the truth and love and love and the truth. When we invite God in, we see this all through the Old Testament, the New Testament. We invite God in, he will protect. All through the Old Testament, the New Testament, we invite God in, he will protect us. He's going to keep a remnant.

Speaker 1 34:27

Unfortunately, you know, there's always martyrs, white martyrs and red martyrs that have given their lives right for the cause. We saw this in our founding fathers here who gave up so much to be free, right? Gk Chesterton. When asked at one time they asked him what's wrong with Christianity, he said I am, I am. What's wrong with Christianity? I would suggest that if he were asked today what is the solution to the evil of the day, he would answer I am, I'm the solution.

Speaker 1 34:59

We all have to start with ourselves. Right, we have to walk into the story, knowing that God brought us into a love story. What would happen if every person simply stopped looking for a scapegoat? This is the CRT and DEI, all these divisions that they're causing all of us. They're all looking for a scapegoat, right? Because what does Satan want to do? He wants to just divide us all, have us all fighting and destroy humanity.

Speaker 1 35:26

You know, if we stop looking for a scapegoat and we all said I am the solution for the evil of our day, we pointed ourselves at ourselves, first cleaned our own house and then cleaned the house around us and our neighborhood around us and the church that we go to. That's just how you start. This is how it starts right, and if enough of us do that, we usher in a culture of life right Right now. If we did that, there would be no longer children sacrificed on the altar of abortion. Gender ideologies would no longer be permitted to rob the innocence of the young. The victims of sex trafficking would have a chance of finding a loving home. The world elites would no longer be free to lust over and use the poor and the vulnerable. Courage would become infectious. Our neighbors would not be alone anymore because we'd go out and reach out to them. Children would grow up with a mother and a father. Love would rule over hate. Is this possible in a fallen world? It is when you realize that the solution is I am and you seek the better way receiving the gospel and actively living it out.

Speaker 1 36:34

This begins with humility and curiosity, two things. I have to be curious, I have to start to engage my logic, my reason, and the reason is always seeking the truth. What is the truth of things? And then I have to use my free will and humility to walk into a story and say, hey, I didn't create the universe, I didn't write the big story. I came into a story and be curious and humble enough to look around and say gosh, story. And be curious and humble enough to look around and say, gosh, all this order works. And when God is thrown out, something doesn't work. Maybe I better reconsider. Maybe I do need God, maybe I do need to go back into prayer. It's the only thing that makes sense anymore.

Speaker 1 37:16

You know, in John 10.10, jesus sums it up in one verse. He says this the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly John 10.10. What a beautiful thing. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, isn't it true? The liar and the father of lies kill the child in the womb. If that child makes it through the womb, let's render them sterile with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and even mutilate their bodies. Let's twist and distort marriage and make it meaningless. It could be anything. It doesn't have to be between a man and a woman in love forever to give themselves freely, totally faithfully and fruitfully to one another, open to life. Nope could be anything right, and so we walk away from this.

Speaker 1 38:06

Although he was made by God in a state of holiness from the very onset of his history, this is an old story. Man abuses liberty at the urging of the evil. One man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God. Hence, as an inevitable consequence, while human progress in science and technology can be a great advantage to man, it brings with it a strong temptation. For when the order of values is jumbled and bad is mixed with good, we compromise. Right? We don't know anymore. Individuals and groups pay heed solely to what? To their own interests. We become selfish, right? We become selfish. Instead of becoming persons of love, we grasp and take for ourselves. I no longer look at a woman as someone to love the awe and wonder of the woman's body. I see pornography, and what do I do? I grasp and take and look at her as an object. We've totally distorted our hearts.

Speaker 1 39:06

In a time like that, with a young man's heart like that. Do you think he's going to go out and get the kind of politicians he deserves? He's going to bring this good into the world? You get enough young men and women hooked on pornography and using one another. They know that the human heart is going to be stuck in the sin. It will never even see the evils around them. We all become like that frog in a proverbial pot, not of hot water getting hotter and hotter to boil in, but the stew of moral relativism. We become apathetic, right? Thus it happens. The world ceases to be a place of true brotherhood and in our own day, the magnified power of humanity threatens to destroy the race itself. We're on the brink of nuclear war here.

Speaker 1 39:50

Right, what can we do? We step into the truth. We take God deeply into our heart. It's a win-win situation because, no matter what happens to us, this world is passing by, it's temporal. And John, in his first letter, would say and he says it's passing by, and he says and the lust of it, and the lust in using what if modern man, knowing what he knows about evil in the world, the evil in his own heart and the fact of his impending death, right, we're going. We're not going to live forever. What happens if we chose to participate in evil and not choose light? Is he not choosing to begin to condemn to eternal condemnation, to death? Of course. How ironic in our so-called modern age that we've fallen again for that very old lie you can be like gods and call evil good and good evil.

Speaker 1 40:42

It seems that the words of Aldous Huxley, who wrote the Brave New Heart same time Orwell wrote 1984, they ring true again. What he said is that men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach. For without the creator, the creature now this is end quote for him for without the creator, then, I add, the creature would disappear. When God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible. We no longer know who we are. We no longer can answer those big questions in life who am I? What's my meaning and purpose in my life? Why were we created male and female? How do I find love? How do I find happiness here on earth? All those things go away from us. The human heart was made for more, and Jesus says in Matthew 19,.

Speaker 1 41:32

From the beginning it was not so, and he points us to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 in there, and that's what I just read you right? The Lord God asked the woman. Let me close with this. Why do you do such a thing? Why did you do just read you right? The Lord God asked the woman. Let me close with this. Why do you do such a thing? Why did you do such a thing, right? The woman answered the serpent tricked me into it, so I ate.

Speaker 1 41:51

We start that blame game. What happens? If she said I am to blame, forgive me, god would have forgiven her. What did the man say, adam? God says to Adam, right after the fall where are you? And he says the woman that you put here with me. He blames God and the woman at the same time. The woman that you put here to me, she made me sin, right. And then the woman blames the serpent. Right, if they would have asked for forgiveness, god would have forgiven them and Cain, their son, would not have murdered his own brother, abel.

Speaker 1 42:29

We find ourselves again faced with the original reality of sin in human history. At the same time, we find ourselves offered redemption and salvation. But we have to pick. We have to pick. Choose, jesus Christ, huh. Choose to spend some time every day, looking at the beauty, the awe and wonder of the stars, the sun. Take a walk, read scripture for 10 or 15 minutes. The best way I found to do that is to follow the Magnificat, which follows the daily Mass, the Catholic Mass. It's going to put the Old Testament with the New Testament, with the Psalms and meditations. You read that every day. You're stepping into a wild story. It'll change your heart, you know.

Speaker 1 43:12

Pray the Rosary, and I'll leave you with these three simple things. Before you look at that phone first thing in the morning, fall down on your knees and say let it be done to me according to your word. This is what our Blessed Mother said at the Annunciation Let it be done to me according to your word, and then temptation's going to come. So the second thing is don't worry about that. Even God, even Jesus Christ, was tempted. Right, temptation is not a sin.

Speaker 1 43:42

Now, once you realize this, let it be done to me according to your word. The devil's gonna tempt you. There's no doubt about it. If he tempted you before, he's gonna make it even worse now. Now, though ooh, now I have a redeemer, and I use every single temptation that floods my brain, which could be hundreds of times a day and I use it as an invitation to prayer. And then pretty soon you're praying a hundred times a day, because every time a temptation comes in, I go eh, I don't care, I offer it up to you. Jesus Christ, take this temptation from me and if you don't, I'm going to offer it up to you. Over time it's going to purify your heart.

Speaker 1 44:20

Finally, number three go out and love the next person. You see. Love the next person. You see. Whether it's your spouse, your child, the girl or the boy working behind the cashier at some fast food, it doesn't matter. Love the next person. You see, you'll get in the habit of receiving this love in the morning. Temptation is an invitation to prayer, and then you're going to go out and love people. This is it, this is what we're called to do and at the end of the day, this will get you into eternal life. God bless you. Thanks for being with me, everybody. Talk to you again soon.