Pondering Leads to Praise

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Welcome to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you today. If you want to be a part of the program 866. three four eight seventy eight eighty four 866-34-TRUTH.

Can you imagine in the old days, by the way, calling into a radio show, excuse me, on the dial, I mean, the rotary dial? I mean, my goodness, can you imagine what that must have been like? 866-348-7884.

Some of you don't even know what a rotary dial is. I bet you a lot of you do, though. 866-34-TRUTH. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad, glad to be here today on Truth Talk Live.

Sorry, just as I came on. We got a lot of smoke in the air from all the fires here. That we've had in southwest Montana. And so I apologize for that if I start sounding like Bill Clinton. Don't change your dial.

stay right here. But I'll get through it. Bye.

Well I've been thinking about something. I want to ask you your thoughts. In my 40 years as a caregiver, and forty years and counting. I've learned to ask a couple of simple questions before making consequential decisions. And I have found most of the decisions I have to make as a caregiver are pretty consequential.

But it starts off with this question, is this healthy? Is this healthy? is what I'm about to do healthy. Will it solve to day's problem? by consuming what I may need to morrow.

Does it expect does it respect the resources entrusted to me. Those are questions I ask before I make decisions.

Now, you gotta think about the scope of what I've done. Over these last several decades, since Ronald Reagan was president, and the millions and millions and millions of dollars of medical bills that we've had to deal with. Copays. Deductibles, you know, out-of-pocket stuff. Oh, there's so much.

And and then there's you know, just Is this a good idea for me to do this? you know, is this healthy? Whether I'm going to purchase something, whether it's a car, whether I'm going to do an activity. What am I eating? I mean, all those things go into a play when you're a full-time caregiver.

You have to think about this. And I've learned that money and time and strength, uh and even good will. or finite. And and just because I want something doesn't make it wise. And that good intentions, no matter how good my intentions are, They don't necessarily eliminate the consequences.

If you found that to be the case with your life, And I found a lot of caregivers like me who we confuse desire. with capacity. and end up hurting the very person we're trying to help. Because we're thinking, okay, I want this, I want to do this, I want to have this. but I don't have the capacity for this.

ended up compromising. And and caring If I care, I it describes an intention. But there's another word, stewardship. Stewardship It requires an accounting. And by that standard Washington has failed spectacularly.

We have now, this month, crossed the forty trillion dollars in national debt. Think about that number for me. That number kind of barely communicates anything. 40 trillion sounds like something a third grader would say when they're trying to come up with the biggest number in the world, you know? It's mind-boggling.

The national debt is is what Washington has accumulated through borrowing. The annual deficit is how much more it spends than it collects every year. The debt's the whole The deficit is how much deeper we dig it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the 2026 Federal deficit will reach $2.1 trillion. Just for 2026.

So what that means is Congress who is in charge of the purse. Has looked into a forty trillion dollar hole and concluded that. We need more digging.

Now If you'll notice, there's a Pretty sign uh sp Okay. Consistent pattern, I guess that's the best word for these people. Democrats invoke compassion. to justify spending money. that the government doesn't have, by the way.

And Republicans campaigned on fiscal restraint They win office and then discover that their preferred spending doesn't count. Because we got to do that. That's what we prefer to spend it on. One party calls it caring. the other party calls it necessary.

Both of them send the bill to our children. May each party Points furiously at the other. While they're passing the national credit card back and forth, I mean, it's ridiculous. Both parties. Are starting the fire and then they passed the collection plate while arguing over who bought the gasoline.

And now We enter election season. All the primaries I think are pretty much done. Labor Day is kind of the official kickoff for election season, but we've been doing it all year, it seems like. Um And the promiser promises are going to flow. Do you ever see Dumb and Dumber?

Lloyd Christmas. The promises are going to flow like the salmon of Capistrado. If you didn't see the movie, you won't get that. But if you did see it, that's pretty funny. The candidates are going to tell you how deeply they care about families.

Seniors, veterans, national defense, and taxpayers. That's all they're going to say for the next three months. And they're going to demonstrate that their concern. For this group, it's going to be submitted and verified by the money that it's borrowing from all the others. And a politician can always appear compassionate By promising health benefits and everything else with other people's money.

Have you noticed that? Stewardship asks harder questions. They say, How much is this going to cost? Who's going to pay for it? What has the existing program accomplished?

What happens if your projections are wrong? If this is worth doing, why do we need to borrow the money? These are not cruel questions. They're responsible ones. Have you noticed, though, the government thinks it can create resources by attaching the word Federal to them.

But there is no government money. There's no government money. Government either collects money from today's citizens or it borrows against tomorrow's taxpayers. That's how it works. Government doesn't make anything.

It confiscates things. And we are financing today's promises with someone else's labor tomorrow. And then we congratulate ourselves with our generosity. Have you noticed this? Have you been watching this?

Watch the ads that are coming in. There is nothing generous about giving away the money of someone who hasn't been born yet. You talk about taxation without representation. Man, that's on a generational scale. Stewardship does not require government to spend nothing or never incur debt.

we all have to spend something, and we all have to sometimes borrow some things, particularly if you've got massive bills and so forth. We all face emergencies. You've been there, I've been there. Medical catastrophes don't, you know, consult the household budget. But I I've noticed something in my journey.

Caregivers often do without. That's just part of the job. when you're taking care of somebody. But if you notice that Congress Does it seem to go without? They seem far more comfortable assigning sacrifice than accepting any.

I have yet to notice that Congress Fails to take a paycheck. In fact, the only one that doesn't take a paycheck is Trump. He just donates it back to something. But all the others do. And I've also learned something, again, 40 years of this.

that an emergency can't be a permanent governing but philosophical Path for you. You can't just keep saying, okay, we got an emergency. I have emergencies all the time. But that can't be the way I govern my check book in my life. Oh, we've got to have emergency.

We've got to borrow more money. We've got to have emergency. No, no, no, you can't do that. And yet Washington does this. They do this spending without limit.

They blame somebody else when the bills arrive, and then they congratulate themselves for caring. We're going into election season. They're going to promise you a bunch of stuff. Are you prepared for this? Are you prepared to see through this?

Are you prepared to listen and read between the lines here? We're going to talk about when we come back. 866-34-TRUTH. This is Peter Rosenberg, and this is Truth Talk Live. We'll be right back.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberg and glad to be with you 866. 34 Truth, 866-348-7884. It's election season.

So I'm talking about that a little bit because we're going to be getting tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of information thrown at us by people who. I look very serious and they care and We're going to get all kinds of commercials filled with flags. Farms, hard hats, classrooms. We get them out here in Montana with the guys and they are they're all out there in jeans on the ranch and leaning over a rail and looking very serious. And um they'll have concerned expressions.

And that's all, and then you go in your mailbox, there's a recycling bin. right next to the trash can in our Post office has is we live in a rural area. We'd have to go to the post office if we don't we don't have mail delivery where I live. And there's just always a stack of flyers, of political flyers, just thrown in there where people just throw 'em away. We're going to get recorded voices and emails.

They're going to call us and say that civilization will end. Unless you donate $10 by midnight tonight. We're going to get all this stuff. And it's going to get worse 'cause the stakes are so high. And I'm just asking you all to consider one question For every flyer, every email, every robo call, every commercial you see, one question.

Is this candidate a good steward? not just of public money, but of public trust, of constitutional authority. Are they good steward of this ex extraordinary inheritance of self-government. that they are receiving. They're going to receive the power to do this.

You know, those marble, you ever been to D.C.? You ever spent much time there? I went there, used to go there a lot when we lived in Nashville. I don't go there much anymore and I don't know that I really have much desire to At this point, but it's, you know, you look at all those marble buildings and everything else, and they're filled with people that we sent there. We sent there, and I go back to a call we had.

Jamal, when he called from North Carolina a couple of weeks ago. And you know, he talked about he was so concerned about this and he wanted to Um get more involved locally in in what was going on and In his area, and I think that's what we've got to do. We've got to vote, we have got to be involved in everything from. the local dog catcher all the way up to the president. We've got to be involved.

And if it if Yeah. People voted. according to scriptural principles. as close to him as whoever the candidate that is closest to that is. Can you imagine what the difference would be?

And if Christians voted I mean if we people who call themselves Christians all of us voted And ask yourself, though, is this candidate a good steward? Are they a good steward? Do you get the sense from these people that they're going to be responsible with public money?

Okay. And why would you think that?

Now to our national shame, We may not be able to answer yes to many of them. I mean, there's some up out there, you look at them and you think, can these people even tie their shoes? But that doesn't excuse us from voting. It just makes the responsibility a little bit more sobering. But we still have to do it.

We still have a responsibility. You know, Ronald Reagan. Back in the 80s popularized the phrase, you know it, trust but verified. He was talking about dealing with the Soviet Union.

Well, now Washington has given us forty trillion reasons. to apply trust but verify to our old government. Look at what these people do. And we we've got a whole these people accountable. We've got to choose the better steward.

And just remember this as we go into it. Campaign season is when they sell. They're selling. Oh, they're selling. Come on down to Christy Bob's congressional office.

We're crazy. We lost our lease. Everything must go. I mean, that's what they're, it's no different. You know, it it they're selling and they're selling hard.

And there's an enormous amount of money. And you look at some of these key Senate races out there. 'Cause, you know, i if if The House goes one way, or the Senate goes one way. I mean, they've already said what they want to do. You know, so the the stakes c are are pretty high.

But campaign seasons when they're out selling and they're selling, oh man, they're for all they're worth. I mean, you're you're not going to find anybody. in sales that's selling harder than than the People running for office right now. Election day is when we buy. That's what we're We're we're signing and saying, okay, we're buying this candidate.

and sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. April 15th. reminds us what we paid. What are we getting for that? Have you ever noticed that election day and tax day are pretty far apart?

If you ever put Election Day on April 16th, do you think anything would change? Good. You think that's uh you think that's by in d design? and that we have tax day is you know about as far away as we could get. And you kind of wonder what people would think and how they would vote if Election Day was on April 16th.

It'd be kind of curious to I'm curious to see what happens.

So, you know, tax day is when we are reminded of what we paid for this.

So we better hang on to the receipt. Because We're going to learn whether they can manage what they were so eager to sell. Can they manage this? You know, I don't know about you. Do you get out on your kitchen table and put everything out there and do your budgets?

Everything else, you may do it in your computer and that's fine, but do you ever just sit down and have that kind of conversation? with yourself, with your wife, with your family? And look at what you got to deal with. And what gets the final vote? when you're looking at your household budget.

What gets the final vote? Math. Math gets the vote do we have the money or not. Do do can we afford this? You know, you can almost hear Dave Ramsey in your ear.

Can you afford this? We're forty trillion dollars in debt. And you kind of wonder if math even applies. in the halls of Congress. Do do these people even care?

And by the way, that word care, that word care, I want you to pay attention. And I want you to watch how many of these ads come through, and these people communicate that they care. They care about your situation, they care about you. And I want you to really ask. Do they?

How would I know? What would that look like? to care about you. to care about Your business. We we got this situation going on where so many businesses went under during COVID, and we're finding out more and more stuff about how deceitful they acted on some of these things that they made these businesses these small mom and pops while they let bigger businesses run.

Businesses of choice run. But how many mom and pops went under? And I heard this stand-up comedian. He was really funny. And he was talking about...

Different things and that the government is misleading and so forth. And he said, People asked me, Are you one of those conspiracy theorists? Do you think the government's lying to you? And he looked at him, he said. I lie to my kids.

I know the government's lying to me. And I thought that was pretty funny. And uh because you know they are. And we see it. And if we we talked about this several weeks ago as we went through July 4th and the 250th birthday.

We wouldn't have to have checks and balances in our founding documents. If we were a a nation run by angels. But we're not. We're a nation run by people who are fallen people. And the founders knew this, and so they built in checks and balances.

because they understand what happens When People get access to this kind of power and this kind of money. And we're seeing this happening all over the country. Look at how much. Fraud has been going on. I was filling out some forms the other day.

And they, you know, all the forms say under penalty of federal law, this and this, and you're going to get brought up on charges if you falsify this. And then I look at all these people who've been defrauding. I thought, how did they get away with this for so long? And the only conclusion I have is that there were elected officials who either, number one, didn't inspect it or didn't care.

So we got to vote better. 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live.

This is Peter Roseburg. You're glad to be with you, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. If you want to be a part of the program, okay, that's my pitch for election season, and that's about all I want to deal with with that. We know the litmus test. Are they a good steward?

And we do have a responsibility to vote. We have a responsibility to engage. We must, folks. Look at the mess that we're in. I mean, just look at what's going on.

We've got people lining up to support this thing and Lindsay Clancy and who this woman who killed her three children. They're not even debating the issue. She killed it.

Now the question is, what do we do with her? And then you've got people up there lining up to support. you know people they're they're it's like we have this vast amount of people on the wrong side of pretty much every issue. I still go back to what happened in Massachusetts. And we're we're seeing this this cultural rot.

going on in our country. What what do we do about it? What what what what can we do about it?

Well, there's several things we can do. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, well, that's. That's right there from Chronicles. And we know the scripture.

So Are we doing that? Are we humbling ourselves? It didn't say if the pagans would do it, it said if my people would do it. Then I will hear from heaven, and I will heal their land. Are we praying for our country?

Do you pray for the country? Do you pray for the the the the President, do you pray for the Administration? Do you pray for Congress? You know, I mean, sometimes I feel like we're praying against some of these people, but but in reality, do we pray for them? And and it's something we we can admonish ourselves to do as believers.

Do and do we do we pray for the kingdom of God to advance? And what are we doing to do that? Are we teaching people? A couple weeks ago, I talked about Tyndale and our English Bible that we have. And are we teaching people?

Do you find those things? worthwhile to talk about. How did we get here? Because I get the feeling that so many in our culture right now feel like history started the year they were born. And there are a lot of things that we're dealing with.

In our society. In fact, I just saw in my hometown there in South Carolina the church there that I knew the church, and they just hired their first. transgender pasture. And and I'm thinking, wow. You know, and look at the things that are going on, and what are we doing about it?

Are we isolating ourselves? Are we getting away in some kind of enclave? Do we just huddle in the choir loft? You know, and look at each other and continue on with our lives and just try to keep the world at bay, or are we going out and being salt and light? And this is um I've been thinking about this a lot and I I've gotta for twenty years I've had the same sentence.

On my Door. Uh it started in my office door in Nashville, and then we moved out here it was a little yellow post it note. And the same sentence greeted me every morning. And and uh and then but it's the paper's kind of curled and the ink's faded now. And then my wife had the words Done in calligraphy and framed it, and it hangs on my office wall.

But I still get the post-it note, it's just hard to see it. And it's on my office wall, and it comes from. Catherine Winksworth Nineteenth century translation of a hymn that a guy named Joachim Neander wrote in the seventeenth century.

Now maybe you know this hymn. Praise to the Lord the Almighty. Let's see. Hmm. Do you know that hymn?

Praise to the Lord.

Well, this that day, he didn't write the tune, he wrote the text, and then Catherine. Winkworth translated it. But the the the post-it note says and then what my wife put up there Ponder anew. What the Almighty Can Do. if with his love he befriends thee.

The word ponder is surprisingly rare in our church hymnals. We don't we don't have a lot of songs that have the word ponder in it. He was not the first to use it, or in this translation, actually, you could go back a thousand years earlier, and there was an ancient text from the. Liturgy of Saint James And then the translation of that came. It wasn't originally written in English with the word that, but you may remember this too: let all mortal flesh keep silence.

and with fear and trembling stand Ponder Nothing earthly minded. Silence and pondering. Silence quiet the noise, pondering fixes the mind on what is true. and our culture has become proficient at neither. Have you noticed that?

We have just relentless conflicts. They exhaust. Everybody. And and we were not Merely We weren't created to just react to the world around us. We were created to, well, according to Sorter Catechism number one, Glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Contemplate the God who rules over all of this.

Now I want you to Try and experiment sometime. Ask friends and families and neighbors how they're doing. And see how many answer with the same word. or some derivative of this word. Tired.

See how many just just Try and experiment. Tonight, this week, just see how many people Say they're tired. and fatigue has become kind of a shorthand. Four nearly every kind of cultural exhaustion that we have, political. Racial social and even Digital media and everything else.

There's different causes, but the word keeps returning. We become exhausted. by the demand to react to every controversy that's out there. And in the process we've forgotten how to ponder. The the the discipline has just eroded from us.

Did you notice that we accumulate information but we don't assemble it? we have access to more knowledge than any generation in history. Elon Musk talked about this the other day. He was uh posting on on X and And it was a video and he said, We have the wealth of human knowledge. We have basically.

Um Made the college, the collegiate liberal arts system that we have in in the academia world almost obsolete.

Now, of course, go into college if you have a specialty thing, engineering and medicine and law and things such as that, but if you go just for a liberal arts degree, It's almost obsolete. I can get all that information with my phone. And I can assimilate it faster. and better. and certainly a lot cheaper.

We have kids coming out of college with $80,000,000,000 worth of student loans or more. And they can't do anything. They don't know anything. They don't have a reason. And so they're no wonder they're clamoring for people to give them free stuff.

But they've never been taught anything different. They've been indoctrinated with this. And so we have all this knowledge. Do you know you can learn? literally anything you want to learn.

Right now, if you want to study theology, study theology. It's all out there. I just saw where Ligadier Ministries making all of RC Sprawl stuff free. I mean, just. They have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lectures and teaching.

that you can go out and listen to for free. And I imagine you could do a lot of the same thing with Some of the Tea teachers out there, the many of the teachers out there and and and teachers passed. There's a thing at Hillsdale College where you can take courses about C.S. Lewis. I've done that.

I took a whole 30-part course on C.S. Lewis and Faith. Fancy it didn't cost me a dime. No, I mean, I don't get Academic credit for it. They have a quiz on it that you take and you do stuff, but you don't get any.

You know, I can't put it on the wall and say, you know, or on my resume, but that's okay, I got the knowledge. and it was fascinating. And you can do all of these things. And we have access to all of this, and yet we spend less time fitting those. Pieces together into wisdom because we're lacking on wisdom.

Have you noticed this? There's not a lot of wisdom. There's not a lot of critical thinking. And we react to all these Isolated events, or seemingly so, Without considering the larger story. What's going on?

How did we get here? We spend more time contemplating the latest controversy Than we do contemplating the unchanging character of the Almighty God. And all the drama that we want to get hooked into news so they can keep our attention. You know, and we got tune in or click here if you want to learn the rest of the story or this and this and this. And I mean, it's exhausting.

But this young man, Joachim Neander, He built his life around a different discipline. And he went to this valley near Dusseldorf. Where he lived to pray, and he went there to contemplate the Majesty of God revealed in creation. I was looking at the stars the other night. We had a full moon out last night.

I went out and looked at it. And we have a a a really big sky here in Montana. That's why they call it big sky. And when you see the Milky Way, and you see the full moon, and you see all these things. It's staggering.

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder Consider all the works thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder. Do we ponder on the things of God?

Well, Joachim Neander did that. He went out to this valley and and and he would write about it. And it found its way into these poems and these hymns that he wrote. And the valley where he went to, they called it his valley. I mean, the word valley was tall.

um and um so they named it after him, and it was his valley. And a couple of centuries, though, after his death, Archaeologists were digging around there to find things, and then they found ancient human remains. And they named the discovery after the place where it was found, which was this valley named after this fellow, And that's where you get the word Neanderthal. It was named after it was Neanderth. And this young man who wrote this, they named it after him.

It was his valley. And when the archaeologists found you know, the the the fossils there. They named it after where they found it, which was Neanderthal.

So, Neanderthal man. And today that word has become a pejorative. I mean, we use it to describe somebody who's backward or primitive. You know, he's a Neanderthal. But think about this: the irony of this is really striking.

long before the world associated that name with fossils. it belonged to a man who saw with remarkable clarity.

Well, you know, others would one day search that valley to understand where man came from. This young man Neander He was walking those same hills contemplating the one from whom man came. And the irony reaches, Frank Burns used to say on MASH, funny thing about irony, it's so ironic. But the irony used to reach beyond his name. I mean, it's the.

Yeah. America's founders inherited centuries of Christian reflection on the character of God. The nature of man, the meaning of liberty, the demands of justice, the proper limits. We've talked about this all summer long of civil government, all these kinds of things. They knew these things.

They had pondered these things. They weren't looking in the dirt, they were looking to the heavens. That's That's in the founding documents of this country. We'll talk about this more when we come back. 866-34-TRUTH-866-348.

7884. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Truth Talk Live. We will be right back. Truth Talk Live.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you. 866 34 Truth 866-348-7884.

eight six six thirty four truth 866-348-7884. We're talking about pondering. and it's a it's a lost art. We don't think through these things. You know, and I'll give you an example.

Um As we were looking at you know, the Um Well, I'll get to that in a minute. Hold on. I'll put that aside because I want to finish this thought here, real quick, with you guys, on this. Story about Joachim Neander and this hymn, and I love these hymns, and you'll see so much of this in our worship service if we'll do it. But we we elevate people's ass to lift Their eyes lift up.

How many times in Scripture you see, lift up your heads? Look up. you know And um you know, America's founders inherited Centuries of Christian reflection on the character of God. This wasn't new to them. They understood this.

the nature of man, the meaning of liberty, The demands of justice, the proper limits of civil government, the constitutional order they created. Um in in the founding documents. It it it rested upon two major convictions. that our rights come from our Creator, not from the Government.

Now that's a big step in today's world. How many arguments do you see out there where it says the government is one that bestows the rights? I mean, think about that. They're all out there saying these things because they want the government. The government is not a deity.

And yet there's a mass a vast number of the masses out there, I guess is a better way of saying it. who looked to government as deity. that the government should control these things. and dispense them accordingly. I watched this thing at a um Um Okay.

a hearing there in Loudoun County, Virginia. Caught it on the news, and there's a music teacher who is a Transgender. And the the Um Students don't, I mean, the parents of these students don't want them to have to do, they want to have an opt-out program. And the school board is not giving them one. They're just not even budging on this.

And then they had a transgender, I don't know if it's the music teacher or another one, but speaking at the council said anybody that opposes this transgender, these bigots, they need to be. hauled off to somewhere else. They got to go do something else. They need to be uh barred from the school grounds. They need to be daught do you do do you see the do you see this?

The parents are just asking for a different uh an alternative plan. But the ones that the that this transgender that was there in front of the school board wanted Mm. Any kind of Um differing opinion to be silenced and hauled away. blocked from even entering the campus. Dissent is not allowed.

And do you see this? Do you see what's happening here? And are you prepared to fight this? Are you prepared to deal with this? It may not be happening in your schools district, but give it time and it will.

And the founder knew this. They understood these basic things that it didn't come from people, it came from God. The rights did. And that the the the creator, not the government. And they also understood that man bears God's Image While remaining remaining profoundly fallen.

They knew this in the documents. That's why they did checks and balances. And those truths explain the The dignity of the individual, but the necessity of restraining power. That's why we have that tension in our founding documents. And they helped distinguish the American founding From the revolutions that later, you know, just convulsed France and Russia and China.

And at its best, America bore the fruit of generations that were spent pondering the character of God. At its best. But here's the Here's the sad truth. A civilization eventually follows the direction of its gaze. What are we looking at?

What are we looking at? What are we focused on? And a culture that ceases to ponder the character of God eventually begins to reinvent the character of man. When that happens. And look you you you tell me.

If you see this in the news, when that happens, When a culture ceases to ponder the character of God, And it begins to reinvent the character of man. When that happens... Grievance replaces gratitude. and entitlement eclipses stewardship. We're forty trillion dollars in debt.

But entitlement drives everything, not stewardship. And we are a nation that is consumed. with grievance. And not gratitude. We had a lady running for governor of Wisconsin who wanted to do away with Thanksgiving.

She said it is a very problematic holiday, a day of Thanksgiving. It's problematic. No, it's not problematic. Unless you're an ungrateful people. The only reason that Thanksgiving would be a problematic holiday.

is for people. who are more consumed consumed with grievances than they are with gratitude. And Cicero said that gratitude is the virtue from which all others spring. Once we understand The magnificence of what our Creator has done. Our only response can be gratitude.

But Paul says in Romans, when they reject that, When they reject the knowledge that they had, that was, they know, it's there, it's very apparent. Go back and read it, Romans chapter 1. He said, God turns them over. to a debased mind. basically has them just go into depravity.

He pulls his restraining hand from him. And they said, this is what we want. We want to create Our own deity. John Calvin said were idle factories. We're going to keep making idols.

Every day. It is our nature, it is our sin nature, to create an idol. But what does Scripture say? thou shalt have no other gods before me. And yet, that is the first commandment, and that's the, that's the, I mean, right there in the Ten Commandments, and it's, and it's, the one we break the most.

And so I keep coming back to that sentence that hangs on my office wall. And tomorrow morning I'll walk in. I'm seeing it right now. And now look at those words. And we get another day.

Ponder anew. What the Almighty can do if with his love he be frenzy And so, when I see the headlines, when I see all the craziness, when I see all the The airing of grievances. Yeah. that that go on every single day. It Tamp set down.

The fatigue. begins to dissipate. And before long pondering gives way to praise. How many of you all have ever looked at a night sky. out west or out in the ocean or in some place where it's unobstructed with light pollution.

And I didn't see this much in Nashville when we lived there, but out here in Montana, I see this almost every night. And you go out and you I take the dog out at night just before going to bed and I I'll sit there and just look at the night sky. And the stars are all, they're so close that I can, it feels like I can almost reach up and grab it. I could see the Milky Way. I could see satellites.

You could see them moving across the sky. Last night I sat there and just watched the the full moon. And when you contemplate those things. I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder.

We had a thunderstorm. last night and then it broke clear and then you had the moon came out. You can't look at these things. Unmoved. And when you ponder those things, and you ponder the God who made all these things.

Where does that lead to?

Well, In Neanderth's hymn? And you'll never think of the word Neanderthal again the same way after hearing where it came from. He does wear Pondering inevitably leads. when you ponder these things. It leads to praise.

Let the Amen sound from his people again, gladly for ever adore him. Good theology always leads and breaks forth into doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow But it starts with thinking about the things of God. meditate on his law day and night, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I may not what. Sin against thee And we we contemplate the things of God.

At a moment's notice We're ready to share this with someone else who may be in great distress, and we're able to speak into them with great compassion. but great conviction as well. To go into these situations where people are going through painful things and listening, just take a moment, breathe, just breathe. Take a deep breath. Four seconds in, eight seconds out.

and share with somebody. The immutable characteristics of God. Why is this applicable in their situation? What does it mean? People used to just kind of offhand to tell me in the middle of whatever.

hospitalization we were going through and this and that.

So you just need to trust Jesus. No, I'm not talking about that kind of stuff. I mean that's just that's just kind of almost buttoned up and cliche and whatever.

Well, why do I trust Jesus? Explain to me why. When I'm looking at my wife in the ICU for the umpteenth thousandth time, it seems like, Why am I trusting Jesus? And are we prepared to explain that to people and help them ponder that? of what the redemptive work of God looks like, where we had no hope.

And he came to us in our distress. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do if with his love he befriends thee. That's my word today. If you want to see more about that, go to caregiver.substack.com. Caregiver.substack.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Thanks for the time today. We'll see you next week.

Okay.