Willie Robertson

Everything begins to decline.

So the very thing that they were trying to prevent through the persecution of the church was the actual thing that they brought on by their own depravity.

And that's like the story for all of us, right?

That's good.

Well, you think about like when you get in a...

When you're a kid, you see two kids fighting over a toy truck or something, and you're like, the jealousies that emerge, or I think what Rene Girard would call it, mimetic desire, that I want what you have.

My desire mimics your desire.

I got to have what you have.

And then that coveting desire.

enters into the mix and that I want, I want, I want, and I only want because you have.

And once that takes hold, then all of a sudden human flourishing is out the window because you'd rather see that burn the whole thing down than you would rather watch them enjoy what they have.

And so I think that there is a level of irrationality

in the depravity of humanity, that the reason why Rome would persecute the church is a spirit of an antichrist.

It's depravity.

It's a spirit that doesn't believe in an embodied life.

It's a spirit that says, let me consume.

Let me pull in.

Let me have what's mine.

The picture that Jesus presented was not that, though.

By the very definition of the verse that he gave of the kingdom,