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And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Mmm. Valentine's is love time. There's no doubt about that. And so, very neat. Today on Truth Talk Live, as we're considering all that, how can we increase in returning to our first love in February? How can you do that?
I would love to know your thoughts on this. How can we increase in returning to our first love this February? 866-348-7884. The number to call in and share your ideas. 866-348-7884.
And I have my very, very good friend and wonderful host himself of Truth Talk Live many times, Dr. Duane Carson. You've got five just really gigantic first loves that we can return to, right doc? Yes, sir. Welcome back. How are you doing? Glad to have you back in the States. You've been traveling. And it's good to be with you, Mr. Roddy. It is good to be with you, my friend. And yes, I've been in Spain, where the rain stayed mainly in the plain. Thank goodness it was beautiful weather for us.
I heard how you did that. Yes, I love your word. Five gigantic things to increase our love in. One of the great fears of a pastor, and I will say, one of the great fears of our Lord Jesus Christ is that we would lose our first love. That comes out of Revelation chapter two, where Jesus, who is the founder of the church.
I used this word earlier today. He is the Inspector General, because it's his church, and he wants to make sure it's going the way it should. And in Revelation 2, 4, he said, I've got something against you here at Ephesus. The boys and girls, men and women, you have left your first love. And so I try to take that negative turn to a positive and ask the question, how can we increase our love? What are the things that matter the most that we ought to be giving our full attention to increasing our love and definitely not losing, decreasing our love? Yeah, and it brings up all kind of interesting little things that come to your mind. So obviously, it's the way you turn your heart towards these five areas that you're going to share with us, which are amazing. But when you turn your heart, you know, sometimes your feet follow. Well, that's it. So you're listening.
Yeah, go ahead. Amos was shook, Paul, and said, having loved this present world, and I don't know what was that Thessalonica, but he went back to Thessalonica. There was something there that had his affection. And he left doing the work of the Lord, because he was now in love with the things of this world. And so the heart, which way is your heart turned right now?
That's a great thought. Yeah, I was reading, actually, on my trip to Spain, a new book that John Eldridge had sent out a pre-copy called Experiencing Jesus Really. And interestingly, he said that one of his favorite verses in the Bible is when Mary Magdalene encountered the Lord, and when he called out to her, and if you look carefully in the scripture, and I'm sure you could tell me the exact, it's in John, obviously, but it's in the, you know, when Mary Magdalene saw Jesus, and it says, she turned towards him. And his point was to turn to Jesus, like the prodigal son turned towards home, but you turn with your heart before you turn, you know. And the idea that what a miraculous moment, that here is this, essentially, the first person that gets to see the risen Savior is a woman in that culture. That seems bizarre to begin with. But then also, you know, a woman that didn't have necessarily the best experience, life experiences to say that, oh yeah, there you go, that's the saint right there.
But what she did at that moment is the same thing we can all do in that moment, right? Which is to turn our hearts towards Jesus. And speaking of somebody that turns their heart towards Jesus, one of my favorite people besides you, Doc, is Stu. And we got Stu with us.
Stu, what do you got? Hey guys, I'm listening to you on 88.3 FM here in the upstate. I was with a bunch of pastors earlier, and I love this topic. I love both of you men. And one reason that you all are so special to me is you both encouraged me to stay committed to my first love. That's why you're in someone's life, to point them and remind them, like Paul did, that church at Ephesus, they had all the head knowledge, but their hearts had gotten a little cool. And it's the people, how am I doing that?
Y'all are making me think that. And then secondly, the word of God should point us back to our first love. We should ask God, Lord, how does your word, how does your word warm my heart?
How does it help me love you more? And Dr. Carson is going to love this. I was just in a room full of pastors and leaders, and I asked one of them his birthday. This guy's been in Christian education over 50 years. He's written numerous books. He's pastored. He's been a missionary.
He's been a dean of a Christian college. And I asked him his birthday. I whipped out the date, the word calendar I had handy. His jaw dropped. He had no idea he had a birthday verse.
And I gave him the calendar, and he got so excited. So Dr. Carson, thank you for your, and I have to hang up here because I'm in this crowded freeway, but thank you for pushing us all to love God more by getting in His word, which is a love letter. It's not just a bunch of academic knowledge. Amen? That's it.
That's it. If you date the word, you're loving the word, and when you love the word, you can't have a love the Lord. And when you love the Lord, you can't help but make Him known. Yes, sir.
Amen. And both of you guys, Robbie, I mean, just to hear you talk about this subject, just the fact where there's nothing greater than loving Him, and there's no greater love than His love for us. We can't match that, but what He just calls us in the relationship, and Robbie, you're going to be busy after the show because Brad, a station owner in Lincoln, Nebraska, when I told him his birth, when I told him his birthday verse, and I told him his wife's birthday verse, which is 10-15 of October 15th, he got so excited.
He says, I have a Christian music station, but I want to carry date the word radio feature every day in drive time. Oh, wow. I'll give you his information, so Dr. Carson, you're going to be people in Lincoln, Nebraska, but you're going to be a Cornhuskers fan after all. Oh, we got to go to a break, those two. We love it. We'll be back. We need your calls. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH.
Call us. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live today. So exciting. It is February, which is the love month. I love that.
My producer Grayson has the most beautiful red shirt on today that kind of commemorates that whole idea. And so we're thinking about how can we increase this month, actually, in 2025, returning to our first love this February. And, you know, Dr. Carson gave an amazing sermon.
I can tell I wasn't there because I was still coming back from Spain on Sunday. And he highlighted these five different S's as a way that we could return because I love what he says, that your first love can be so many different things. And so he used, number one, your spouse, number two, the Scriptures, number two, the Saints, number three, excuse me, number two, yeah, number three, the Saints, number four, I got them out of order somehow. No, you had it, the Savior. The Savior. And number five? Sharing the Savior. Ah, all those S's.
You got me. So yesterday I had a chance to do that, doctor. I was, and it was such a crazy thing. We were, you know, we'd been on this trip with Colette, which is a travel agency that had paid for that.
It was a wonderful trip. And we were at the point where you're leaving Spain. And when you're leaving Spain, if you've been through customs and all those kind of things and all these different passport checks, and Spain is a pretty particular country as far as passports go.
And they take a lot of trouble to make sure that you're who you are and that who is leaving is supposed to be who is leaving. And so we actually went through three different sort of TSA checks where you had to show your passport. And they took this device that screened your whole body to make sure that you were the body type that came into the country, screened your face.
All the things are fascinating technology that they have these days. And a couple that we had spent a lot of time on the trip with, which actually, you know, it shared some Jesus experiences throughout the trip. But anyway, she somehow or another, when we got to the gate, realized she did not have her passport with her. And we'd probably walked for about 15 minutes to get to the gate from like checkpoint Charlie there. And you can imagine the panic that started to ensue because she would have been able to get on the plane, she wouldn't have been able to off, get off in New York, get out, you know, and so she just started to panic. And her husband and I decided to walk all the way back to checkpoint Charlie. And of course, you know, at this point in time, I had not returned my first love doc, I hadn't thought about praying.
It had not crossed my mind. I was just panning for them and wanted to help any way I could. So we're walking this long way, you know, checking everywhere to see if we see a passport, we get back to the checkpoint, and we talked to the guy that we saw there. And he is so less than helpful. It's not even funny. It's like, what do you want me to do about it? You need to go find information? Well, where's that? I don't know.
That's your problem. Of course, he said that in very broken Spanish English, it was difficult. And so at that point in time, her husband really, you could see the anxiousness just like, oh my goodness, it really set in. And all of a sudden, it just hit me. Pray, Robbie, pray. And I just thought, Lord, you know what's going on here. You know where this passport is, you know what's going on, Lord, help us.
I don't know how you're going to help us, but just help us make a way where there seems to be no way. And about that time, out of the corner of my eye, I saw two other agents that were down the hallways that were sort of on a break or something like this. They were just standing there. And one of them was a young lady and didn't look near as harsh as the characters that we had encountered. I said, Scott, go ask her.
And when he asked her, all of a sudden, this complete different attitude. Oh yeah, let me, and what nationality is she? And let me go see what I can find. And she goes back into the same place and comes back in less than two minutes, passport in hand, right? Ooh, yes, praise the Lord. And about that time, the wife comes up because she's now been so panicked, she's walked all the way, which is a long walk. And so they're both standing there. And I said, well, I got to testify that, you know, I may be a pastor, but I don't always think straight. And I had not thought to pray until that officer had given Scott such a hard time. And I said, almost as the last words of my prayer came out of my mouth, I saw those other officers and pointed them out. And they were like, and they realized immediately that God had orchestrated that, right?
Yes. And it was, I mean, I heard them just go, I mean, they talked about it for the next few hours, and they even talked about it as we said goodbye to them the last time. Like, Robby, thank you, thank you, thank you for my prayer. Well, it wasn't my prayer, it was God. And so I, sometimes sharing the Savior is just, you know, just, you know, I just prayed for you guys.
You know what happened? You know, and it was such a neat thing to see what God did in the midst of what could have been a real, I mean, it was a difficult situation. You know, our love for the Lord, as it gets stronger, deeper, better, like a love for a spouse, we find ourselves, it's easier to tell them any and everything, because we trust them. And in that moment, when you fail, wow, we've got we've got to have an answer.
We need help. We're thinking, you called on the Lord because you have a love for the Lord, that you know, you can tell him anything and everything in an instant. Isn't that the beautiful thing about our Savior?
You can go boldly before the throne of grace in an instant with whatever the need is. And he loves us so much, he immediately hears. And we love him as we get we're growing in that love. We know I can tell him all of my problems, I can cast all my cares upon him.
Now, that's one reason we need to be growing in our love. It is. It is, because there are so many different ways in any given day that he blows my mind. He blows my mind in so many different ways.
And I love the way that you did this. And it had such an impact on my congregation. I had a couple different conversations today with people that, you know, just the idea of that we don't necessarily, you know, Jesus doesn't point out who their first love was, did he? That's right. Now, we would assume they lost their first love for him. But that's not completely the whole thing, because it doesn't say him. He says, get back to doing the first works.
It's plural. So, you know, I just took a little bit of liberty with it to say, well, let's think about who we're supposed to love. And I know I'm supposed to love my spouse. And as we get closer to Valentine's, the men listening, I'm telling you, don't miss Valentine's. You can't miss a birthday. You can't miss Valentine's. Can't miss Christmas. I found out that the hard way.
But you can't miss Valentine's. And I pointed out yesterday, Robbie, that if you need to know, you need a good compliment to give to your spouse, go to Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon 2-3 today, my wife said, you're like an apple tree.
That's what it says in Song of Solomon 2, verse 3, that the man is like an apple tree, one that provides, one that covers. We got to go to a break. I'm sorry, but we got to go to a break. But I also wanted to remind those people that on the other side that, you know, but we're losing about half the audience. They could go listen to the podcast. They want to hear the rest of this show. And the rest of you, we've got a whole lot more Truth Talk Live coming back, so stay tuned. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live today. Here we are in the month of February, and what a wonderful time to share love.
How can we increase in returning to our first love this February? We would love your input on the subject. How can we be doing that?
What's your thoughts? 866-348-7884 is the number to call in and share. We would mean so much to us, because your stories on this show have just blessed me and blessed me for years to come. I think of them often, and we need another one.
And you can encourage lots of folks by calling in. So if God's putting it on your heart to call us, you call 866-348-7884. And so when we were wrapping up that particular segment you were talking about, I love—and you know that my favorite book in the Bible is the second song—excuse me, it's the Song of Solomon, I don't know why. There's only one Song of Solomon. And that year I spent memorizing 119 Psalms. The next thing I memorized after that was the book, the Song of Solomon, because it always had been my favorite book. And it's got eight chapters in it, similar to the eight verses on every letter in the Hebrew alphabet. So it has always been more than intriguing. And that idea of the apple tree, and again, part of what she's doing is she's loving her spouse, and she's praising him, you know, openly, right? Yes. Compliments work better on an ego than criticism.
That has to settle for a little bit, doesn't it? Compliments work so much better on an ego than criticism. And I went through, because I love Song of Solomon like you, and I just start marking, Robbie, all these verses where here's the man saying to her, you're so beautiful. And from head to toe, he compliments her. And then she says, you're so handsome. And she is just, again, from head to toe, and just telling him about the things he does, and how he protects and how he provides. And both of these, the husband and wife, are complimenting each other. And so I just want to throw a challenge to the listeners out there.
Look for ways to compliment your spouse. And if you need a good verse, jump into Song of Solomon. And for Valentine's Day, every man ought to be signing the Valentine's card with Song of Solomon 2-14.
You remember that one, Robbie? Well, see, unlike you, I remember things in order rather than by number. Okay. But go ahead. And 2-14 seems like it would be the perfect Valentine's verse. Well, this is where the man says to the woman, oh my doves, oh my doves. In the cleft of the rock, let me see your face, let me hear your voice.
Right. Yeah, let me hear your voice, because your voice, yeah. And your face is lovely. And I don't, I just don't know a better romantic verse, but to speak about a lady as a dove. It just lets you know, again, a dove is soft and very tender, but a little skittish.
Women have emotions. They have to be protected, handled carefully. Oh my dove, and she's in the clefts of the rocks. She's protecting herself. And he's saying, you can be secure with me. And what does he want to see first? Her face. He wants to look at her eye, face to face, eyes to eyes, and then let me hear your voice.
He's not going to shut her down. Let me hear your voice. What do you have to say? And then he tells her how sweet her voice is. And then, oh, how lovely your face is. Hey guys, I'm telling you, I've given it to you, go get your Valentine's card, and song of Solomon 2-14.
I love that. I never have put, I should have put that together years ago, Doc, that that was the Valentine's verse, if ever there was one. And I was thinking about it, and I was thinking about it yesterday, that, you know, it was Solomon that said it in Proverbs, and again, you can tell me the verse exactly, but you know, those things that he just absolutely wondered about, that were so mysterious, and one of those is the way of a young man with a maiden, right? Yep, Proverbs chapter 30.
And how can you describe it? Each one of us have a romantic story. And when you see somebody that's truly head over heels, can't think of anything else but their beloved, and if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about, I hope you've been there, I hope you've been there today, what it's like to be head over heels like that for your spouse, for your Savior, I like these, for the saints, but then for the Scriptures, right? We haven't really talked about that one, but you know, clearly for you and me both, and of course, you have it by number, and I have it by order in my mind, but nonetheless, you know, where would we be without His Word, right? Yeah, His Word, it's truth, and that's one thing we miss in the world, the world doesn't have truth, and we get promises, and we get the love story, as Stu said, it's a love story, and it's a love story where God runs after the One that has run away from Him, and He wants us back, and He does what has to be done, and we read this love story of God demonstrating His love toward us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and if your love today, listener, if your love today is starting to decrease toward Jesus, read the crucifixion story, read Matthew 27, read Mark 15, read Luke 23, read John 19, any one of those chapters, that's the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, and the old hymn writer said, when I survey the wondrous cross, has there ever been any love like this anywhere ever? Greater love has no man that He laid at His life for you, and when you survey that cross and His incredible love, it demands your life, your soul, your all, and then that will bring you back, Robbie, to just a doxology of praise. Revelation 1, 5, and 6, unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins with His own blood, and made us priests and kings, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. And that for, go ahead, the more you take a look at what the Savior did for you, we love Him because He first loved us. You know, just last night, actually, really late, I got a text from my oldest son who lives in Florida, and he had been trying to share, you know, God with his girlfriend, and as he was explaining things to her, she kept on coming back to him, well, you know, if the beginning was God, what was before God?
You know, that was her she kept going. Well, there had to be something before God. I mean, that's the linear way to think, and that was the thing that she kept on hitting him with, and so he had texted me and said, help me out, dad.
I said, I'll help you, man. The beautiful thing is the Word gives us the whole idea, right? And John 1, in the beginning, was the Word. And I went on to, you know, say, you know, here you can just show her that here's something that was before the beginning. That makes it eternal, and if it's eternal, then it's God, and what would you, you know, he wouldn't be God if he wasn't eternal, would he be? And that's the beauty. He would not be God if he wasn't eternal.
That's a great statement. And so, you know, the neat thing is the Word points us right back to like, oh, oh, oh, oh, you know, some way that we can begin to order our lives and to begin to order our faith, more importantly. Like, what do you believe? And at the end of the day, that was his thing.
Like, she was saying, you're crazy, and he's going, well, I'm not. I believe. I've seen this. I believe. I believe.
And therein lies the opportunity. And what comes by hearing? And hearing by the what? Right.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word. And so it's the same thing with our love for our spouses. It's the same thing, you know, with our love for the saints, right, as we use these words.
It's so wonderful. I know that you're thinking some things out there, and you got a story. You got something for us. You call us.
866-348-7884. How can you increase your love for your first love? We'll be right back, hopefully with more of your stories. And boy, we got a bunch of more stuff for you. So stay tuned. We'll be right back. Increase in returning to our first love.
What are your thoughts? We've been talking all hour, and it's one amazing topic as love makes the world go round in so many different ways. 866-348-7884. 866-348-7884.
We got Mike is in Dayton, Ohio. Good to hear from you, my friend. I missed you. Well, well, thank you. And thank you for taking my call.
My thoughts as Israelites, I said to Dr. Carson the other day about being a stiff neck. And I kind of dwelled on that a little bit. And God led me to being a child of God. And like, you know, like your kids trust you, they believe in you, they hold you. And that's the love that your children give you, because they trust you so much that they just want to, you know, they want to hold on to you.
They want your attention. And that's what we need to do to get our love back to God, to be like a child again. You know what's beautiful about what you're saying, Mike, is I'm thinking through that, thinking through that in all context of what you began by saying, and I hate I didn't get to chime in on that other conversation that you and Dr. Carson had about stiff necked and the Israelites.
But I don't know if you've ever heard this. Maybe you've talked to me, maybe I have talked to you about it before, but I think it's more than amazing that the word Pharaoh in Hebrew, you know, the word Pharaoh, like the one that enslaved the Egyptians. Well, that word is very much connected to the Hebrew word, the root of it is neck. And interestingly, the way they interpret it, you know, I've heard lectures from rabbis on this, that, you know, that 18-inch journey between your head and your heart, it has to come through your neck.
And so what Pharaoh would reduce, do is keep you from going to, you know, worship God, right? And interestingly, that's done from the heart, it's not done from the head. Right. And so that restriction right there is like, let my people go. It's those things of your heart that you want to express in so many different ways that a child lives from their heart, they don't live from their head.
Right. And, you know, first of all, we have to believe that the Word of God is inspired, and that is the truth. I mean, if you don't believe that, then you don't have nothing to stand on. And by standing on that truth, and believing on what the Bible is telling you, and being like a child-like faith, and just believing it, it makes you just say, okay, God, where are you leading me? What are you going to do? Okay, God, I'm loving you here. Tell me what you want me to do in my life. Tell me what you want to tell people. You know, just understanding that child-like heart for God, and then believing in the Word, and then saying, God, okay, I don't understand this here.
And then sure enough, you listen to the Truth Network, and somebody tells you on the Truth Network what you want to understand. And it's amazing that, you know, that God will do that for you. It's perfect, Mike. It's like a big Valentine, which is a heart, right? And, Doc, you have the most amazing thing at the end of your sermon I saw, which I've seen before, actually, but I really love it. The whole idea of Valentine, right?
Yes, yes. I like putting that word, because I didn't do it. Someone else did it before me, but to have that word, Valentine, right down the middle of John 3.16. And that's, Jesus wants us to be His.
Yeah, and so I've got it right in front of me, so it's easier for me. So for God so loved, and you hear that V, that's the beginning of the Valentine. So God loved the world that He gave. That A in gave is the A in Valentine. His only, the L as in only, begotten Son, that whosoever, right? It's the E that comes after the L, so we've got V-A-L-E, and whoever believes in, and there's the N, in Him shall not, that's the T in the Valentine, perish is the I, but have everlasting, and then another N, and then life, what's the last letter in the word life, is E. And so there you got your whole Valentine in the middle of a heart in John 3.16.
It's absolutely spectacular in the dark. It is, and Jesus is screaming to every one of us, be mine, be mine, and I would hope we would say back, I'm yours, Lord, I'm yours. Second Corinthians 5-8, they first gave themselves to the Lord, and I hope our listeners have given themselves to the Lord, and like Mike said, it comes back, how do you get saved? It's childlike faith. I'm putting my trust in Jesus, because He has done everything necessary for me to be saved.
No one else can say that. Jesus has done everything. There's no other name given unto heaven by which men may be saved. What a Savior.
What I heard this story, I heard this today, actually, on my way to do this show. I have a dear, dear family in my church that's really going through something, and their daughter is in hospice care right now, or the brain tumor, and unfortunately has lost most of her memory. Someone from the church came in to visit with them, and as they were sharing it all, they said, well, let's just sing a praise song to God. Now, I realize that the patient here doesn't have any memory, even though she's in her 50s, early 50s, actually. So my friend says, well, let's sing Jesus Loves Me, and as they begin to sing it, guess what?
This patient, who has really not got hardly any memory left, is sleeping most of the time. I hope folks are in hospice sometimes, and we're praying that God's going to give her a miracle, but you know what? She could sing perfectly, even in that condition. Same thing, I bet you could sing perfectly, even in the condition that I'm in right this minute, right? Jesus loves me.
Yes, he does. You know, how cool is that? Isn't that story just, man, it's such a treasure for me to know that almost anything could happen.
That's one song I'm never going to forget. There was a great theologian that got asked the question, can you sum up the Bible in one sentence? Did you really take all the Bible and sum it up in one sentence? And he said, I believe I can.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. There it is. He did it. Yeah, you know, that is amazing. And so, you know, the horrible thing that when you think about it, and the reason why we got to go with docs number five is we got to share this Savior.
Yeah. We don't want anybody to not have that song in their heart. Well, we are living in a day, Robbie, where soul winning has really, it's off the back burner.
It's hardly even being talked about. I'm hearing different podcasts that are talking about the day of evangelism seems to be gone. And we've got to revise this. He who wins souls is wise. And we need a new generation of soul winners who are bold, but also compassionate. But sharing the greatest news, we're ambassadors to share the greatest news God wants to be reconciled back and he wants us reconciled back to him.
And he's done everything that needs to be done. We've just got to have, as you say that earlier, we have to turn our hearts back to God. It's so beautiful. And as you do, you know, it's an interesting thing to me. And it was just what God gave me was that if I would study, study in, I guess it's not study, it's more like just falling in love with his word every morning. I'm reading and I'm praying as I'm reading and I'm learning.
I'm praying as I'm reading and I'm learning. And I would get so excited, like long before I ever was a pastor, long before I was anything other than a car salesman, I was reading and getting excited. So when I got to work, I had to find somebody to share what I just learned.
I had to, right? The rocks would cry out if I didn't say, Oh, you know what I just learned this morning? Let me tell you, man, it's so cool.
And then I would tell that story to whoever I could find and just out of pure enthusiasm, right? But where did it come from? It came from that time I spent in the word that morning that when it lights your fire, you can't help it, right? I've heard it so many times from you, Mike. I've heard it so many times, obviously with Dr. Carson, that his fire is so lit, man. There ain't no putting that out when you get around him. It's on his mind. And so what is he going to talk about?
And I agree. A lot of times I don't know why I do, but when I tell someone about what I've learned about from God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tell you about God, but this is just what I want to tell you.
And it's bubbling up in me and I have to tell you. And I told the other day as someone that I've been praying for my spouse and it's been so wonderful. And I told someone that I was meeting with to do, you know, cabinet work and she says, oh, that's such a great idea.
And I said, yeah, you can't get mad at each other if you're praying for each other. And she goes, that is so wonderful. And I'm like, and I said, and then I said, I'm sorry.
She goes, that's okay. This is awesome. And I'm like, oh good. You know, and it's like, you know, it's just, it's amazing how God will do that to you.
You know what I mean? It's just, it's your, if you love God. Well, Doc, I want to give you the last word because it's, this is your sermon.
I just off the hook, Lord. Well, we need to be intentional in increasing our love and we've got areas to do it. And from our spouse to our Savior, to sharing the Savior, to one another. So let's increase our love here in February. Thanks, Mike.
