[00:00:01] This is the FCB Podcast Network. Just Listen to Yourself presents I'm Just Saying with Kira Davis.
[00:00:14] The Pope gave an interview last week in which he declared human beings
[00:00:18] mostly good. He said, we are fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners,
[00:00:25] but the heart itself is good. I found this statement to be alarming coming from the
[00:00:30] most sacred seat of one of the largest Christ-believing denominations in the world.
[00:00:35] I don't know how to say this diplomatically, so I'll just say it. Pope Francis is devilishly
[00:00:41] wrong. The idea that humans are mostly good is a lie from the pit of hell, easily refuted by
[00:00:47] the word of God, the very word the Pope is supposed to hold above all personal judgment.
[00:00:53] We don't need to search very far to hear God himself tell us about the human heart.
[00:00:58] Mark 10, 18. Why do you call me good? Jesus answered. No one is good except God alone.
[00:01:05] Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
[00:01:13] Romans 3, 10. As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. We are not inherently
[00:01:22] good. God is inherently good and we are his fallen creatures. We gave up being inherently good when
[00:01:30] we were banished from the Garden of Eden. The heart is wicked, and you don't even need a
[00:01:35] religious point of view to understand this. Who among us looks in the mirror and only thinks
[00:01:40] good things about ourselves? What do the voices in your head tell you about yourself?
[00:01:45] Good things about your good heart? No. If that were the case, the billion-dollar self-help
[00:01:51] industry would be non-existent. Negativity about ourselves is the default, and it takes a lot of
[00:01:57] effort and personal sacrifice to avoid negative thoughts. And think about children. You don't have
[00:02:02] to teach a child how to be bad. Raising a bad child takes no effort at all. Again, it's the default
[00:02:10] state. We're born this way. It's impossible to truly grasp the miracle of God's grace and exactly
[00:02:17] what he accomplished on the cross if you don't understand what he was rescuing us from in the
[00:02:22] first place. If we're mostly good, what do we need him for? Like the serpent said all those millennia
[00:02:27] ago to our foremother in the garden, we don't need God if we can be God. If we can declare ourselves
[00:02:34] good and righteous, if we can decide what makes good, if we can determine the nature of the human
[00:02:41] heart all on our own, God becomes irrelevant. I know my Catholic friends are very sensitive about
[00:02:48] their Pope and the idea that the Catholic Church is the one true church. I typically stay away from
[00:02:53] criticizing the Catholic Church because of that sensitivity and because mostly I don't care.
[00:02:58] But some things deserve an answer or at least an observation. This is an untenable position for any
[00:03:04] Christian. It makes a mockery of the created order and the need for a savior. And I wholly and
[00:03:11] completely denounce this position. We are not basically good. Some of us may have basically
[00:03:17] good intentions, but our hearts are still wicked. The fundamental truth the Pope seems to be ignoring
[00:03:24] is that sin is not a thing we do. It is a state of being and as such because we did not create
[00:03:30] our beings it is far beyond our ability to change or control. We need God. He is the only one who can
[00:03:38] change the state of our being. That is clearly laid out in the Bible. Maybe the Pope needs a
[00:03:44] refresh. I'm Kira Davis and I'm just saying. This has been a presentation of the FCB Podcast Network
[00:03:52] where real talk lives. Visit us online at fcbpodcasts.com