Every. Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network. This is kind of a great thing and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together.
Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Well good afternoon, welcome to Truth Talk Live. I'm Dwayne Carson, founder and director of Date the Word Ministries. And today's date is September the 23rd, 923. And we have a verse for every date. And I got to tell you, I love 923 because it's Luke 923. Luke 923 is a verse that you should have memorized. Every morning as you start your day because this is what Jesus said. He said to all of them, Luke 923, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
Luke 923. This is one of the essentials of the essentials to being a fully devoted follower of Jesus. To follow him, you got to die daily.
Not just once. We are living sacrifices. And the living sacrifice has that time where we sometimes feel like we're going to get off the altar. So every day Jesus says we died ourselves, we deny ourselves, and the picture he has is that we take up our cross. And if you take up a cross in the day of Jesus, one having a cross meant they had no rights.
They had absolutely no rights. And what Jesus is saying, if you're going to be my follower, it's not going to be about you, it's going to be about me. And then you're able to follow.
You can follow Jesus to go where he wants you to go, to do what he wants you to do, and to be what he wants you to be. So we start off this program today, Truth Talk Live, giving you the truth that the way to live the Christian life is Luke 923. And that is for September the 23rd. If you want more information, by the way, on Date the Word, we have a website, www.datetheword.com. You can go there, you can sign up for the daily devotions.
It could be every morning when you wake up, right at 515 or so. That devotion will be in there. I did one today on Luke 923. We also have an app, and if you download that app onto your phone, you'll get many resources where, again, the daily devotion is there, the verse for the date. You'll also get verses for any date. You may have someone you want to share a verse with for their birthday. Yesterday at church, there was a young man, it was his birthday today, and I gave him Luke 923.
You can go and see any verse for any date. One of the big things that you'll find on the app is that we are promoting on March the 16th, 2025, that every pastor in the world preaches the greatest message from God ever given to mankind, and that is John 3.16. As you're hearing this, if you're a pastor, I hope you're looking at your calendar for next year, March the 16th, and put in their nail in ink. Don't put it in pencil, put it in ink that you're going to preach John 3.16, God's greatest message to mankind. And let people know that March the 16th could be an incredible friend day for your church to invite as many people to hear this great message. Also, on the app, you will find I have verses for every number. Think about athletics.
Anybody with a jersey has a jersey number. I've got a Bible verse that goes with that, and we also offer prayers for pastors, prayers for your family and friends. This is on the app. This is, again, from the Date the Word Ministries, of which I get to lead. And again, it's a joy to be with you today.
Thanks for listening in. I want to ask you a question. Do you have a crab mentality? Do you have a crab mentality? I heard from John Maxwell years ago a story of which he said that if you're out catching crabs and you caught one, put it in a bucket, you needed to put a lid on it. Well, if you caught two, you didn't have to keep a lid on anymore because the crab, those crabs in that bucket, by being two or more, any time a crab wanted to crawl out, the other crab or crabs would reach up and pull them down. There's this scientific thing.
I looked it up to confirm it. It's called a crab mentality. And the mentality is where people will try and prevent others from gaining a favorable position in something, even if it has no effect on those trying to stop them.
Listen, a mentality of I'm not going to let someone else succeed. What a horrible Christian mindset. And there are Christians who have this mindset. We might expect this from unbelievers, but even Christians have it. Today's program, we're going to look at a woman in the Bible who had to deal with family and friends who did not want her to become all she could be for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Her name is Mary of Bethany, and we're going to look at some of the things that happened to her. But as you think about our program today, how do you feel about your friends, family members doing well for the Lord? Maybe they've made some commitments to spend more time with the Lord. Maybe they want to give more to the work of the Lord. How do you feel about that?
You know, there's a thing that goes on in the Christian life where we're tempted and then we act upon the temptation to be jealous of one another. I don't want us to have a crab mentality of pulling other people down. I want us building others up. So we're going to be back in just a moment. If you've got a thought on this, 1-866-348-7884. This is Truth Talk Live.
I'm Duane Carson. We'll be back with you in just a minute to talk about Mary of Bethany. Well, welcome back to Truth Talk Live this Monday edition.
It's September the 23rd and fall has begun. And today we're talking about not being a person who pulls others down, pulls others back, but rather we are going to be the ones who are going to build others up. We're going to be encouragers and and we're bringing this thought today because of a woman named Mary of Bethany. I love her stories, stories in the book of of the Gospels. We find the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Her stories are mentioned three different different stories. And as she is living her life with Jesus, there's going to be a story where Mary is going to find her sister is complaining to Jesus that she is wasting her time. There's also going to be a story in Matthew, Mark and John where, listen, the disciples criticize Mary. And their thing is she's wasting her treasure.
Have you ever had someone tell you that what you're doing for Jesus is a waste? I heard a man one time tell how he was at a high school football game. And as the announcer made the familiar announcement of everybody, please rise and take off your hat for the playing of the national anthem. Our high school band will be performing tonight. And if you love to sing the national anthem, join in. Well, he took him up on the invitation and he sang with all of his heart loud and proud. And as he was singing this, people began to realize somebody is really singing this beautifully, wonderfully, incredibly. And when it was over, several people turned around to me, who was this singing the national anthem? And one of the men there looked at him and said, sir, just want to know, are you a professional singer? And he he said, well, yes, sir, I am.
I'm a gospel singer. And the man looked at him then and said, what a waste. What a waste. Well, there are a lot of people today that will look at what we do as Christians when we we give our talents to the Lord. They would say that's a waste when we give our time to the Lord. That's a waste when we give our treasure to the Lord. That's a waste. And and I want to encourage you today.
It's not a waste. And Mary of Bethany is an extraordinary example of someone who had to deal with family members, family members complaining about her wanting to sit at the feet of Jesus to learn. Martha did not think Mary ought to be doing that. And then later, when she will go and she'll anoint the feet of Jesus and she'll pour at that expensive ointment, she'll break the alabaster jar and she'll pour it over his head. Rose runs down his body over the clothing that he'll be wearing to the cross. She then anointed his feet and wiped the feet with her very own hair. It was such a beautiful picture of extravagant love of extravagant giving.
She was giving her best. And you would have thought the disciples, her friends would have been excited to see this happen. Yet Mark Chapter 14, verse five says they criticized her sharply. I don't know how your spiritual journey is going right now. I don't know what your situations are, but when when I think about us living the Christian life, the world is going to hate us. But we got to know that we could have some people in our lives that have that that crab mentality. They don't want us to spend time with the Lord. They don't want us to be giving our time to the Lord. They they think our time could be better used. And we've got to be so careful of those people. We've got those who are friends who may criticize us saying you're doing too much for the Lord.
Can you imagine that thought? But I think that's what the disciples were saying, especially Judas. Mary, you're doing too much. This is not how we want to be as Christians of calling other Christians to back down, to not be on fire for the Lord. Mary of Bethany has to overcome the fact that there are family and friends who are trying to hold her back. And I'm just maybe you've got a story about that yourself today that you can call in one eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four.
Give us a call. Let's talk about how others may be like a crab seeking to pull us back. But what we did to overcome that, I had friends who did not want me to be serving the Lord completely. And I had to I had to make some tough decisions about who my friends were going to be because I wanted to be all in for the Lord. And and they they at that point just were not interested in the things of the Lord. You may have to overcome family, friends, fellow church members who may be saying, cool down, calm down. Don't get too excited for the Lord. Mary of Bethany is a extraordinary example of someone who dealt with that and made decisions.
I had heard this this idea from John Maxwell about the crab and and not not being someone who would pull others down. I had a situation at Liberty one day where a young man came to me and and I knew this young man. He had a lot of different struggles going on and he was barely able to stay at the school. But he had a burden of wanting to go on a mission trip to China at the summer mission trip to Liberty was offering. And it was about three thousand dollars. And he came up to me and he said, Pastor, how many students are on the campus at Liberty? And I said, well, right now we've got about three thousand. He said, if I ask every one of them for one dollar and every one of them gave me a dollar, I'd have three thousand. I could go on this trip to China. I said, well, you're exactly right, David.
If you ask everyone and everyone gave you a dollar, you would be able to go. Well, then he looked right at me and he said, Pastor Carson, will you be the first person to give me one dollar so I can go to China? I thought about at this moment, I could be a big discouragement to him.
I could say there's no way you're ever going to get the thousand three thousand dollars. But I pulled out a dollar. I gave it to him. And David went on the mission trip to China because I wanted to build him up. I wanted to if he believed that I wanted to believe it, that the Lord would provide.
We're going to be back in just a moment to talk more about Mary Bethany. This is Truth Talk Live. We don't want to be like a crab pulling others down.
We want to be building others up. Truth Talk Live. Well, we welcome you back to Truth Talk Live. I'm Dwayne Carson, founder and director of Date the Word Ministries.
My joy to host you today on this program. As we are talking about as Christians being careful not to throw cold water on other people's dreams. I've been talking about a crab mentality where if you have one crab in a bucket, you'll have to put a lid on it.
But if you have two or more crabs in a bucket, they say there's no way the crab and the crab could ever get out of that bucket because the crab will always and one of the crabs will always pull the other back. We don't want to be doing that as Christians, as believers have dreams that they want to make something happen for the Lord. They want to they want to grow in their relationship. We want to be big time encouragers. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24. We are to stir or encourage one another for love and for good works, not discouraging them, encouraging them. And as I thought about things to talk about today, I go back to a woman that I just I find fascinating. Mary of Bethany. And I don't know how much studying you've done on Mary of Bethany. But but if you ever get a trivia question, which biblical character has more talk, more said about them in the gospels than 10 of the 12 disciples? It's Mary of Bethany. We know more about her than 10 of the 12 disciples who walked with Jesus. They were called apostles.
Yeah. When I come to the four gospels, I'm going to see stories about her. And I thought I'd take just a moment and highlight a few things about her three days, three events that really help us to understand how to approach, live the Christian life.
I, I title a message on her an extraordinary example. And in these three days, you're going to find several things happening. Like, first off, in day one, it's like a day of sunshine. It's a it's a pleasant day.
Things are calm. It's a it's a special day. Jesus is going to be coming to her home. And as she he comes to her home, she is going to be seeking to learn from Jesus.
She's going to make time, make a choice to have time to sit at his feet. That's in Luke Chapter 10, verses 38 through 42. Then then you're going to find it's a day of sadness, totally opposite of that that first day where things are special.
It's a it's a it's a day of sunshine. Now we're going to find Mary in John Chapter 11, and it's a day of sadness. It's it's filled with pain and things are very confusing. Yet we're going to find from Mary that she leans on Jesus at this time. She is going to again be at his feet. And then the third time we come across Mary, Mary is is around Jesus.
They're there in Jerusalem, close by Jerusalem. And there's a lot of plotting going on. This this is a day of stress. Everybody's wondering what is going on, what's happening with Jesus, what's going to happen to Jesus, what's going to happen to us. And as as the religious leaders, the irreligious leaders are plotting how they can kill Jesus, what a statement.
They were plotting to kill Jesus. This is going to become a day of purpose for Mary. While things are chaotic in her mind, things are becoming clear. Mary is going to shower Jesus with extravagant, yes, expensive, lavish love. She's going to pour out ointment on him doing an act of love that that's just incredible to view. She's going to say Jesus gets my best.
And again, she's doing this at his feet. And so all three times when you look at Mary, you find her at the feet of Jesus. But now being at the feet of Jesus first, some bothered them.
We go back to this first day, a special day. It's a special day because, well, Mary and Martha are going to have a special guest. Luke Chapter 10 says that Jesus stopped by their house at dinnertime and Martha is so excited. She welcomed Jesus to come into the home and she's got every getting everything ready.
She is so excited about having Jesus there. She wants the special guest to feel special. I don't know if you've ever had a special guest.
I would think you have at your home. I had not been married very long. We were having an Easter dinner. My in-laws were in town.
My father was there for this dinner. But my father-in-law threw out the idea of what would happen if Dr. Jerry Falwell would come and have lunch with us. So I extended the invitation.
We went off the idea. You have not because you ask not. We invited Dr. Falwell to come and have Easter lunch with us. Of all things, he said yes. Once he said yes, you should have seen my wife and my mother-in-law. They were fixated on every detail. They wanted to make sure everything was just right because Dr. Falwell was coming to our home for Easter lunch. That's what Martha is doing.
She is fixated on making sure every detail is just right. But in the midst of Jesus showing up all of a sudden, he starts teaching. He's not talking sports.
He's not talking about the stock market. He's talking about spiritual things. And Mary, she is no longer interested in making sure the potatoes are mashed and that the beans are being cooked just right and the plates are being set up. Mary wants to listen and learn from Jesus. And she goes and sits down at his feet.
I'm hoping you can picture this. She's sitting at his feet. That's an act of worship in itself.
It's an act of submission. She wants to learn. She wants to hear what Jesus has to teach.
And this pleasant day is a day of teaching. And she's sitting there and she's listening. And all of a sudden, Martha comes in and she is fit to be tied. And she starts telling Jesus, you don't care about me. Do you not care that I'm in the kitchen working by myself?
Would you? And she gets I mean, she is fit to be tied right now. And she's out of balance. She tells Jesus, tell my sister to get in the kitchen and help me. Martha has set the wrong priorities.
She's so focused on serving. She's missing out on sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning. And she doesn't want Mary to do this. And so she's telling Jesus what to do. And if you know the story, you know, Jesus would tell Mary, tell Martha, Martha, Martha. You know, that's calling her by the middle name.
I when my mom called me by my middle name, I knew I was in trouble. Martha, you're in trouble because you're being you're troubled about many things. Mary made the right choice. And and I just want to remind every one of you today as you listen to this Truth Talk Live program. The truth is we need to sit before serving. That's the lesson that comes from Mary of Bethany. She made a choice that before she would serve Jesus and she's going to serve him. She will sit at his feet. She wants to listen.
She wants to learn from him. That's why you need to be having a daily quiet time. That daily quiet time. We see it happening with Jesus himself. Mark Chapter one, verse thirty five.
He went to a solitary place. We see David. He he said, I'm going to meditate on the word of God day and night. And he talks about how first thing in the morning, Psalms five, three, Lord, you're going to hear my voice. And then in Psalms one forty three, verse eight, he says, cause me to hear of your loving kindness.
David is having a quiet time. And then in Proverbs Chapter eight, wisdom begs us, wisdom begs us set at my door. And it says this to sit there daily. And when a person sits there daily, they're going to get wisdom that will help them to live. So so as we think about Mary of Bethany, as we go to break set before serving. We'll be back to talk more about Mary Bethany in day three of her life. This is Truth Talk Live. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live, Dwayne Carson here today, your host, and we're talking about being an encourager, putting Hebrews Chapter 10, verse 24 into action where we're going to stir others up for love and for good works, as opposed to being one that is crabby, like a crab having a crab mentality. The the crab will not allow other crabs to escape the bucket.
They don't want them to succeed. We don't want to be like that. I want to give you another word picture. You remember there was a comic Charles Schulz Peanuts, and at this time of the year, there would be Charlie Brown with his dream to kick that old football. And as he wanted to kick that football, he had Lucy come along with the football and say, Charlie Brown, I will hold the football for you.
Well, if you recall, I don't know how you can't. If you've ever seen this comic, Lucy, as Charlie Brown approaches the football, pulls it out from him and he falls on his backside and he never, ever gets to achieve his dream. I've looked at that thing so many times and said, Charlie Brown, don't choose Lucy to hold the football for you. Let me do it.
I'll hold it for you. I want you to succeed. I want you to be able to accomplish your dreams. And can I just say to you, don't be a Lucy. Don't be a Lucy. And if you've got a Lucy in your life right now that's negative and and they don't want you to go after your dreams, you've got to get other friends.
You've got to get people who will lift you up. And and so kind of both sides here, we as Christians need to not be elusive, but as Christians, we need to be helping out other people as much as we can. And we're looking at Mary of Bethany today, how she had to deal with Martha complaining and the disciples criticizing her. And I've got Mike here from Dayton and he's got some comments on this topic. Mike, welcome.
Thank you, sir. I'm going to give a story about my dad. He retired from his other job and he went went to work for a church, be in the janitor.
Well, at the time that they he just they really didn't have much money to pay him. And my mom said that was OK. And he went over there and he was a janitor over there at the church. And my dad would call me every day, almost every other day, say, hey, Mike, I need your help with this.
Mike, I need your help with that. And I come over and I was really negative to my dad. I was saying, hey, why are you doing this? I mean, dad, they're not going to pay you anything. What are you doing?
You know, I mean, all we're doing is doing everything for free. I'm you know, I was really bad about being negative. And and then eventually I just stopped being negative and I stopped helping my dad. Well, he was changing light bulbs in the church and doing things like that. And make a long story short, he turned off all the lights and changed all the light bulbs. And this was a huge church. We had an old school building, mega, mega sanctuary.
It's a big church. And we replaced all the light bulbs and we did all this and it saved them over forty thousand dollars in electric bill. And my dad got a job and he got paid from them. And I was and I was the Lucy. I was always trying to pull the football out from honoring. And he kept calling me and asking me to help him with this and helping with that. And here I am being the Lucy telling him not to do this. And he's telling me it's OK, Mike. I know. And this is what God wants me to do. And I'm saying, OK, dad.
All right. I was what are you doing? And he worked diligently and hard and worked night and day. And he fixed that church up and made the lights work and he fixed urinals and fixed this and fixed that for no money. And eventually, because he fixed everything, they were able to pay him more money and was able to do more things for him because he was they were he was saving them money in the long run because he was turning off lights. He was, you know, taking care of things. And and the the water wasn't running in the urinals and and sinks wasn't dripping and and different things.
And he was able to, you know, save them so much money that they were able to pay him more money. And I was you know, I felt so bad. But then I learned such a great lesson on that. So you there. Oh, yeah. I'm listening to you.
I love the story. Way to honor your father to realize that, you know, again, his idea of serving. You know, I'm just going to be a servant.
We heard the commercial from Chuck Swindoll. I'm not looking for any recognition, but yet as he did his job being faithful, God rewarded. And I think that's where the world misses out on the Christian thinking that that I'm not looking for the temporal rewards.
I'm looking for the eternal rewards. I'm doing things for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's the one that keeps those record books. And and then he does. He takes care of his servant.
David said, I've never seen the righteous begging for food. He's going to take care of us. But we can't have that mindset, can't we, Mike, of of being a Lucy, even with their family and friends. Why are you doing this? It looks like to me you're dead. You're wasting your time dead.
You could have a much better job. Yeah. And and then he was a blessing for the church and it was a blessing for the people around the chair. I mean, my dad would put a string line on the chairs and the string line would be perfect.
The chairs would be perfectly set. And he was he was a man's man. And he did things wholeheartedly and as best as he could. And I, I need I you reminded me of doing that. And they're reminding me of not in a Lucy with other people that are, you know, that are trying to serve God.
You know, you know, I'm even with myself not to be a Lucy to myself. Why are you doing this, God? Why, Mike?
Because God wants to, you know, sometimes we second guess ourselves when God tells you to go do something. And I didn't want to call today. I held on. I held on. And here I am.
Hopefully somebody is listening that it touches her heart. So, Mike, thank you for the call. Thank you. All right. Have a good one, sir. All right. Bye bye.
Boy, we can identify with Mike, can't we? That we could be our own Lucy. As I'm thinking about what he's saying and thinking about Mary Bethany, there came that moment in day three of her life where she's realizing Jesus is going to die. The disciples don't know what's going on.
The religious leaders, they want to kill him. And she made a massive decision. I am going to walk into the room where he is and I'm going to bring in an alabaster jar. Very, very rare, very expensive with ointment in it.
That's very, very expensive. And I'm going to I'm going to anoint his body for burial. And Jesus would say that she anointed his body for burial. She could have quenched her own thinking of what she wanted to do. But she said, I am going to do this.
And then of all the things, what a horrible reaction. The disciples criticized her. But Jesus commended her. And to the point that he said, wherever the gospels preached, I want her story.
Her story is going to be told. And I'm fulfilling that this very moment of what he said, because we're talking about Mary and how she gave her very best. Don't let others hold you back from giving your best to the Lord.
Second Corinthians nine seven says, let each one purpose in their heart how they want to give, to give not grudgingly, not of necessity, but to purpose in your heart. And and I hope that today you will think of something that you would want to do for the Lord and say, I want to make a difference for him. I want him to know I love him. And don't let anyone hold you back on doing that. Give your very best to him.
He gave his very best for you. Our program is going to be coming to a close. And before we do so, I just want to real quickly remind people that there's a refuel conference that's taking place in Lynchburg, Virginia, at Thomas Road Baptist Church starts tonight.
We did some talk last week about this and wanted people to know about it. It starts tonight, continues all day tomorrow. Refuel. Make sure that you are filling up the gas tank when it says, E, it's empty. It's not enough. You have to refuel your tank so that you can be your very best for the Lord. As we wrap up today, I challenge you. Don't be a crab that's pulling others back.
Don't be a Lucy that's jerking away the football so that people's dreams are never achieved. But rather have that mindset of Hebrews 10 24 stir others up for good works and for love. And I just hope that you will be a blessing to others. Thank you for listening today. Again, Dwayne Carson with date the word. We're so glad you took time to listen today to our program. Truth Talk live.
