Shocking Discovery & Is Jesus Truly The Messiah?

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In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived.

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Who are the Pharisees of our day? This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress.

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We need to do better. The church, rich in theological scholarship, has lingered in academic sanctuaries and ivory towers, failing to translate its lofty doctrines into a tangible and practical cultural apologetic.

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At the Worldview Youth Academy we bridge this critical gap. Here theological depth is not an end in itself but a means to engage with contemporary cultural issues for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom.

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Our mission is to cultivate thinkers who can articulate and apply Christian truths within contemporary societal challenges.

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So embrace this call to worship God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind.

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We will do better as this next generation tears down the idols of our modern culture and works to build a brighter future toward Christendom 2 .0.

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Is he hung up on me? What? What?

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What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle, Nick. That's a joke,

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Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

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By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

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Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

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Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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You might be tempted to think, maybe, that that was a quotation from the

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New Testament. It wasn't. That was from Isaiah chapter 53, the latter part of Isaiah chapter 53.

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Although it is quoted in the New Testament. Yes, yep. But what I was reading there was Isaiah 53, a book written hundreds and hundreds of years before the

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Lord Jesus came in his earthly ministry, lived perfectly, died for sinners and rose again, and was ascended and seated.

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Isaiah 53, powerful, powerful text of scripture. Welcome back everybody to Apologia Radio.

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This is the gospel heard around the world. You can get more at ApologiaStudios .com. That's A -P -O -L -O -G -I -A -Studios .com.

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08:05

That's Luke DeBear. What up? I'm Jeff the Calm of the Ninja, and that's Zachary Conover. What's up, guys? Director of Communications with End Abortion Now.

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We're so glad you joined us. We're going to continue the discussion in my favorite part of the discussion as to how do we know that Jesus is actually the

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Messiah. I'll ask you ahead of time as we do this episode. We did it last week. Do you know how to defend that proposition that Jesus is the promised

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Messiah? Can you defend it? Do you know why you believe that Jesus is actually the promised

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Messiah? Why don't we put him in the category of the many false messiahs that rose up in the first century or the thousands of false messiahs that have come up through history?

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Why do you believe Jesus is the Messiah and he's worth your whole life and dedication? Why do you believe that?

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Can you defend it? We're going to continue the discussion, but before we do, we're going to fill you in on some important things that have been happening.

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This is vitally important. Listen, you might be thinking right now, well, it's not happening in my state yet, and so I don't know how it's really affecting me.

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I want to prep you ahead of time for what is coming. You have ballot measures happening across the entire country right now.

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I think the last that I heard it was around 14 states with ballot measures, and what these ballot measures are is this a new strategy of the pro -aborts and the left to essentially unleash the worst part of this holocaust upon this nation, and the way that they're doing it is not through legislation in terms of getting a legislator and getting new legislation put in.

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It's direct democracy. Yeah, they're doing something very, very different. They're now going to put something on the ballot to vote to change the

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Constitution of the state and add abortion rights into the Constitution of the state.

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That's the Constitution of the state, and it was already successful in the state of Ohio, and that ballot measure went through, thanks to the cowardice of many in the

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Ohio legislature, and it has been happening in the state of Arizona.

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Now, we are going to let you know sort of the current status, what we can right now of what's going on in Arizona, but the ballot measure had petitioners across the state of Arizona who were going to what was supposed to be registered voters and to ask them to put this on the ballot to essentially change the

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Arizona Constitution, and the language in it is extraordinarily muddy, and if you read it as is, it would allow for abortion from fertilization all the way up through nine months, and that is the truth.

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That is how it can be interpreted, and it means that we in the state of Arizona, and every state this happens in, are going to be facing the bloodiest and most brutal part of this

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Holocaust that we've experienced yet. So many people were so excited that Roe v. Wade is overturned, and they were taught by the pro -life establishment that that's all we need.

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We've got to get there, and then we're going to be on our way, and to their dismay, hopefully, Christians, they are understanding that the pro -life establishment never held to the

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Christian worldview and was never working for abolition in the first place, and so Roe v. Wade is overturned. There's not one single abortion -free state in this nation.

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It is not criminalized in any state in this nation. You have the right in every state in this nation, even with abortion mills closed in certain states, to do your own

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DIY abortions in that state, all at the courtesy of the pro -life establishment, protecting women, a certain class of killers, to do this with impunity and immunity, but all that to say

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Roe v. Wade went away, and we are still not abortion -free. We have a very, very long way to go, a long way to go with faithfulness this time and not unfaithfulness and compromise, but all that to say, right now, we are fighting a monster, and the monster is the ballot measures happening in all these states, and you should know that we have been working, many of us in the state of Arizona have been working to fight against the ballot measure.

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We've discovered some important things that you need to see, and we have discovered some footage that demonstrates that the petitioners were misleading

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Arizona voters as to what they were actually signing up for and signing on for to get this on the ballots, and so we're going to be dropping a video that seems to display some very misleading tactics being used by the ballot petitioners in the state of Arizona.

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We're going to be dropping that video at 4 .30 p .m. Arizona time today.

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That's Arizona time, meaning real time. That's the actual time. Because we don't change. Unlike all you other people doing weird things with your clocks and stuff.

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We're like the Lord, we never change. Arizona says, what are you guys doing? Why? What are you doing this for?

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And everyone goes, I don't know, it's a tradition. And we go, stop holding a man -made tradition. Why don't you just get with the sun?

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Do what we do. Like Jesus? Just do what we do. We're kissing the sun here, let me tell you.

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That's right. We're not living according to lies. Y 'all can live according to lies. So 4 .30

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p .m. we're going to be dropping this interesting video that shows the petitioners of the ballot measure in Arizona misleading voters in order to get them to sign on the line to get this on the ballot.

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Misleading is a generous term. Misleading is very generous. There's a lot more I'd like to say. I think you can. We're being very cautious right now.

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So I will say also, so you know, this recently was, the ballot measure was fought against.

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There's a number of different ways it could have been fought against. But the ACLJ and another attorney tried to fight against the ballot measure regarding the language of the ballot measure.

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The language of the ballot measure is muddy. And you know, in my mind, it should have been easy to see and get that thing knocked down.

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But they lost that battle in court. My understanding is that now it's going to appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

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And so please be in prayer for that. If this gets on the ballot in Arizona, and if it passes in Arizona, we haven't seen anything yet.

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In terms of what we've seen in the past, nothing compared to what we're going to have in the state of Arizona. And your state too.

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So you might be looking through this with a little bit of tunnel vision right now as a Christian saying, well, you know,

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Ohio, Arizona, but it's not here yet. Well, this is their strategy. They are highly, highly, highly funded.

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And they're going to work. And they're seeing that it does work. And so we have to fight against that as Christians for the sake of love for our neighbors.

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And also wanted to be able to present this because I think it needs to be seen. Anytime something like this happens,

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I think we should make sure the world sees it. It's my understanding that this was dropped. No, this was dropped.

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About eight hours ago. About eight hours ago. Why isn't this coming up here?

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See, I'm telling you. Good old Max. There you go. Well, still, no. We'll play. No, I just can't get this thing.

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See, why do people even bother? Top left corner. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Top left corner.

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Okay. It's the green one. Green one. Boom. Maximize. There we go. There's a million other things that look like bigger screen, bigger screen.

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It's all right. You don't like Mac, we get it. I'm always going to. I'll take opportunity to diss a Mac every time I can.

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I'm so sick of Macs. Every Apple product. And in the comments right now, people are just steaming.

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It's like a cult. Like Apple products. People are like, I'm going to tell the guys over there. I'm like, they're dumb. They're blah, blah.

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And they just get so upset. Like Isaac gets upset. Carmen gets upset. And it doesn't even matter if the specs are better on this other thing.

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They'll say, yeah, but it's just users. It's always the user. I do think the phones are superior.

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I don't like them. I don't like them. I'm digging my heels. So this clip is important.

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Anyway, back to the fact that it's important. We should warn our audience if you have children. This is about the first video that we've seen for a couple years now?

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Yeah. From the Center for Medical Progress? Because of Kamala. So during that time.

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Yeah. Because she shut them down in Cali. Right. During that time that David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress first were dropping these, the

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AG of California, who is now running to be president of the

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United States, was the one that came after them legally to attempt to get them shut down for dropping these videos about Planned Parenthood, murdering babies, selling their body parts.

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And this is just the latest video in the string. And it's amazing. They progressively get worse,

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I think, as you watch them. They do. And you'll see that with this one. Yeah, they certainly do. This is a longer video, but we're going to play it.

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We want the world to see it. Not going to hide this stuff. Now, we have a very, very encouraging show for you today that will bless your life,

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I assure you, on how we know Jesus as the Messiah. But we've got to do some house cleaning first and make sure that you see this.

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And I want to say that my thought today in playing this is obviously it's shocking, you know, in terms of like how depraved humans are.

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Not shocking in terms of they're doing this. Of course they're depraved, they're doing this. But shocking that human beings can just talk like this and do these things and just be so callous and cold.

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It's a hardened heart, so we need everyone to see it. But I thought we should play this today in particular because, in light of the ballot measures happening across the country, if you think this is bad, if you think this is bad, imagine more progressed, grown human beings in the womb, say about eight or nine months with more to work with, more mature things.

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We're looking at a lot more of this. Yeah, they're talking about six months. Yeah. They're talking about 24 weeks or so. You're looking at a lot more of this, a lot more of this.

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And so if the ballot measures go through and this disturbs you today, just know a lot more of this.

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This is where we're headed, all right? And I'm not being hyperbolic. I'm not just trying to, you know, be a shock jock kind of thing.

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I'm being serious. I'm deadly serious, and I mean that, deadly serious. This is what's coming, and it's going to be at a much larger scale.

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So here we go.

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There you go.

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It's hard to watch. So, I know it's a lengthy clip, but we wanted to play that, and we don't want that to be hidden.

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We want to encourage you all to share this episode and share that clip. If you can find it, make sure the world sees this is what's really happening behind closed doors.

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This is how dark this industry is. They love death, and Scripture says, those who hate me love death.

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And just the callous behavior of these people is obviously shocking.

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It should be shocking to any image bearer of God, and that's what's going on. And so, pray for them.

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They suffered a lot of consequences last time for releasing stuff like this. And pray for your own state, and just pray that God would allow us to establish justice across the country.

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We do have a lot going on. I'm going to announce quickly before I get into the subject of today's episode, I want to announce that I'm going to be in Ohio.

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Let's see here, the 20th of this month. So that's about a week or so away.

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A week and a half away. August the 20th, I'm going to be in Cincinnati, Ohio, meeting with pastors and leaders across the state of Ohio.

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We have a legislator who wants to fight against this and put a bill of abolition and equal protection into the legislature.

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I know that comes with some complications due to the fact that there is a constitutional move, because of the ballot measure, putting this into the

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Constitution of the state of Ohio. It doesn't mean that it's all for naught. It doesn't mean that we can't still fight in the state of Ohio for the lives of these children.

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So I'm going to be in Cincinnati, August the 20th. I'm going to buy dinner for you, if you're a pastor or a leader in the state of Ohio.

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Five o 'clock, I'm going to have dinner with everybody, and then six o 'clock on, it'll be me and a couple other speakers, essentially educating everyone and pulling everyone together as a team to work together as a church for this bill in the state of Ohio.

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And so what we'll do is, after we get off here this episode, I'm going to put the link into the description of this episode.

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You do need to sign up. I need to know that you're coming for dinner purposes. And so if you're a pastor or you know pastors or leaders in the state of Ohio that want to work on this issue with us, please join me

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August 20th. I want to spend time with you. And please, again, register. You have to register.

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Again, I'll put the link into the description of this episode so you guys can register for that in the state of Ohio. And so before I move on, before I move on to the episode, which

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I'm very excited about today, by the way, you can supplement today's episode with the three sermons from Apology at Church, two already finished, one coming this

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Sunday. On this subject, it's a little more comprehensive, but we're going to do some today. Before we get into it,

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I want to point everyone to what I'm wearing on my arm right here. You got one on today? I forgot it. Didn't have yours on? Look at me. I'm the only one sporting it.

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So I want to encourage everybody, if you are like me, getting older, and, well, everyone is, right?

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That was kind of stupid to say. Everyone is. We are like you. If you're like me and you're the oldest one in the room right now.

27:30

It would also be you, yes. And you're thinking about longevity, your health and wellness, and there's just, look, there's a lot of great advances.

27:39

Praise God for the technology and advances we have as a result of the Christian worldview and history. Today, tons of advances in terms of human biology, biohacking, and all kinds of great stuff coming out.

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I mean, it's just like lightning speed right now, coming out with biohacking stuff. And look up health benefits of NAD, health benefits of NAD, and just go to town.

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You can look at the clinical research, the scientific research. You can see all the stuff. I mean, it's almost like, well, what doesn't it help with?

28:08

NAD is nicknamed the fountain of youth. It is responsible for so many biochemical processes in your body.

28:16

If you went without it for more than 30 seconds, you'd be dead. This is something you have in abundance when you're young and just keeps your system humming.

28:24

It is just a fantastic thing for so many processes. But as you get older, you lose levels of NAD.

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And so for many years, people have been using NAD injections. They've been going and get poked and do an

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IV treatment with NAD. People who have sports injuries and wealthy people who just want to focus on longevity and well -being.

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It is really amazing. Just do your research on it, and you'll see. And the problem with that is everybody knows the torture of an

28:51

NAD drip. It is torture. For some reason, when you're getting this mainlined, the process of getting it in and getting that drip finished can be long and very difficult.

29:02

Nausea, headaches. It feels like you have something sitting on your chest. It's a painful process.

29:07

But when you get done, everyone says you can run through a wall kind of a thing. So I've always wanted to do it, as I've told you guys before, but I hate needles.

29:15

I'm a baby. And so I avoided it because I just heard it was a nightmarish process, and I was mostly afraid of the needle.

29:21

And then I got connected to the guys at Ion Layer, and they have discovered a way to do it transdermally with a medical patch.

29:28

And that's what this is right here. It's not a nicotine patch or something like that. This is a transdermal patch, medical patch. And you get

29:34

NAD transdermally into your system over like 14 hours throughout the day, and the dosage is super high.

29:42

To get a matching dose through IV, it can be anywhere between $750 or $1 ,000 just to do the

29:49

IV. And so they found a way to give you six treatments of this in a month with a really high dose, and it's just fantastic.

29:56

No pain through the patch. You don't get any of the side effects. And so it's fantastic.

30:02

It's blessed my life in many, many, many ways, and my wife's life. Why I said wives? My many wives.

30:08

Someone's going to cut that. We're not in Salt Lake right now. My wife's life in many ways.

30:13

And so if you want to get in on it and you want to focus a bit on your well -being and longevity and your health and those sorts of things and get your system in tune, go to ionlayer .com,

30:23

I -O -N -LAYER .COM, and you type in APOLOGIA in all caps into the coupon code.

30:29

They're going to give you a discount, and they're going to hook up Apologia Studios so we can do more ministry and more work.

30:36

And so you'll be doing two great things. You'll be helping us, and you'll be helping yourself. And so ionlayer .com is where you go.

30:42

Let's get into it. So I challenged everyone at church the last couple of Sundays, and I challenged last week on the episode, do you know how to defend your belief that Jesus is the

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Messiah? And it's important because I know many of us have even been taught, and I believe wrongly, to base our faith and even our testimony, our proclamation of the gospel with Jesus on our own private or personal experience.

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And what I've said is, is your experience is valid in Jesus. It's a real experience.

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It's true. It's good. But you are not the ultimate source of truth, and your experience isn't the foundation for what is true.

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Is your experience true if you're in Christ? Yes. But the real question that comes really underneath it is, is

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Jesus Messiah to begin with? Because your experience, your religious experience with Jesus, is only true if he is who we claim to be.

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And so what I've tried to impress upon everybody is just this very important thing, and that is that Mormons have testimonies.

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I just saw one come up today. Actually, it was in my feed today. Like 5 .30 in the morning, I'm feeding babies.

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And by the way, the adoption is next week. Praise God. August 15th, the decree is going to be finished, and then

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I can finally start talking about it publicly. I've been prohibited from talking about it by all kinds of laws in the state that we had to go through.

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But the adoption—so I was up feeding the babies, and this short or reel came across. And it was a guy, an older guy, an older gentleman in his 60s who had just converted to Mormonism.

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And it was his testimony video of how he converted to Mormonism, and it was this weird testimony of how he went to go clean his brother's grave off, wash it with some water.

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He was, like, thinking about Mormonism. And so he goes to the grave, and it's a sunny day, and all of a sudden this fog envelops him around the grave, and the sun's shining just directly down on him with this fog around him.

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And then his brother speaks to him from the grave and says, And he was, like, well, how do I baptize you?

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How do I baptize you? Oh, lo and behold, Mormons do baptism for the dead. And so he had this crazy story and testimony, and that can be multiplied ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

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I mean, over and over you can have Muslims give their testimony, you can have Mormons give their testimony, Jehovah's Witnesses give their testimony.

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So my point is your testimony and your experience is not the ultimate standard of truth.

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Everyone wants to take a number and have their moment where they come on stage and give their story as well.

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And they're representing a myriad of different gods and religions, and so your testimony is not the standard for truth.

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Like, well, I believe in Jesus because he changed my life. Well, that's great. Yes, true. All of us who are believers know that's true, okay?

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But it's not valid and true unless he's the truth. And so my challenge to you and to my church body is do you know how to defend the proposition that Jesus is the

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Messiah? And so what you know I have done, if you've been keeping up, is I put together something to help you to memorize a way to at least walk people through this.

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And so in answer to the question, is Jesus the promised Messiah, my answer is most definitely. M -O -S -T, and the

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M stands for Messianic Prophecies, the O is the original life of Jesus, the S is the symbols fulfilled in Christ, and the

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T is the transformation of the world in Christ. I really liked Matthew's idea of adding the

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I for inspiration of scripture. Yeah. But it doesn't have the same flow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Inspiration of scripture actually would be the thing

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I did first. The inspiration of scripture is what I would do first. This is

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God's word because truthfully, if you're talking to an atheist and he's like, prove

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Jesus is the Messiah to me, I'd be happy to do that. But if you reject the scriptures as authoritative to begin with, and if you yourself are the standard of epistemology, and your thoughts and your experience and your feelings and your emotions and your worldview, then everything

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I'm showing you about Jesus and the scriptures is meaningless anyways. And so yes, the assumption here is that we believe the

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Bible is the word of God. And with that presupposition, the Bible is the word of God, we should rightly go to the word of God and say, well, is

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Jesus even the Messiah? Right? Because if I believe in the Old Testament scriptures, Jesus had better fit that he actually is the

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Messiah. And so what Zach and I did last week is we talked about the M, messianic prophecies fulfilled in Jesus.

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And the way that I like to describe that is, because when you talk about the symbols, those are prophetic as well.

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And when you talk about transformation of the world, that's also prophetic as well. Those are prophecies as well. But when

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I say messianic prophecies, what I like to do in that category is speak to direct prophecies towards Jesus.

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We're talking about things like Isaiah 53, Isaiah chapter 9, Micah chapter 5, verse 2, things like that.

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Genesis 49, 10, well, that would go to transformation, but also is kind of direct. So what

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I like to do is think about timing indicators, like Daniel chapter 9, that the Messiah would come, he would make atonement for iniquity, he'd bring an everlasting righteousness, he'd make an end of sin, the most holy would be anointed, and then he'd finish the transgression.

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And then it says the Messiah is going to be cut off before the second temple is destroyed. Well, that's direct prophecy.

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That's Daniel 9, long before Jesus comes, during the time of the Babylonian captivity, there is no second temple, and Daniel is given a prophecy about Messiah, what he's going to accomplish, that he's going to be cut off before the second temple, the coming second temple is destroyed.

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That's timing. Messianic prophecy lands right on Jesus. All right, that's what we did last week, and we did not exhaust it to any degree.

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We talked a bit last week too about the original life of Jesus. Yeah, we had a number of the points.

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You wanted to focus on the symbolic aspects as well. Yes, and so the original life of Jesus, very simply just to make sure we go over it for a moment here,

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Isaiah chapter 9, 6 through 7, says that the one who is coming, the child, the son who is coming, is in the titles of Yahweh, wonderful counselor,

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El Gabor, everlasting father. So we have a promise of the incarnation about 700 years before Jesus comes in the book of Isaiah, and that's a specific identity.

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So like, who's the Messiah? Well, it's God, El Gabor. It is Yahweh himself as a son and as a child.

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That's what it says. And so that's a specific identity thing. But the original life of Jesus, you have to ask the question, okay, all right, it's supposed to be

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God in flesh. Does Jesus' life match that, that he is actually the incarnate one?

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Did the people around Jesus think that it matched what the Bible promised about the

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Messiah? And lo and behold, you see the apostles and early disciples of Jesus are following Jesus as God in the flesh.

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They're worshiping him as God. They're calling him our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the beginning was the

37:50

Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And so they believed he was

37:56

Yahweh, not just a good man, not just a good moral teacher, not just some prophet, but it was actually

38:01

God incarnate. And then you look at the life of Jesus and think about the original life of Jesus and ask the question, well, does his life match what you would think

38:09

God would be like as a man? And of course, what does everyone around him think? Well, he's the righteous one. He's a lamb of God with no spot, no blemish.

38:16

He has this incredible divine wisdom. Nobody can trip him up in an argument. He's able to know what people are thinking before they actually say it.

38:23

He's able to raise the dead, heal the sick and lame, give sight to blind people, give hearing to deaf people.

38:29

He can control his own creation. He can still the waves. He can walk on water and he can raise himself from the dead.

38:36

He says, destroy this temple in John 2, and he says, and I will raise it up again.

38:42

And so, yeah, the original life of Jesus, no question. It is unique. It is unparalleled. He has transformed the world through his teaching and his life.

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Nobody's more quoted. Nobody has more famous sermons. And so that's Jesus. And amazingly,

38:57

Jesus didn't travel very far away from his own home. You know, we don't even have something that Jesus himself wrote down.

39:03

All we have is the eyewitness testimony of those who wrote about Jesus and the sayings of Jesus, what he actually talked about. But Jesus never even wrote a book and published it.

39:10

Jesus was around when there was no internet, and he's transforming the world through his life and ministry and teaching. And further, and this should really, really pique everybody's curiosity,

39:19

Jesus is the one person that can stand up in front of friend, family, and foe and say, which of you accuses me of sin?

39:28

And no one can say anything. They have nothing against Jesus. I mean, even at Jesus' trial, when they're trying to bring false accusations and bringing together false witnesses against Jesus, and they put him on trial, it is the verdict in history and judgment in history at Jesus' trial.

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Pilate says, I find no fault in him, washes his hands, and says, you see to it.

39:52

So even at his own trial, even though they tried to malign him, even though they tried to slander him, and even though they tried to bear false witness,

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Pilate washes his hands as a matter of historic record and says, he is innocent, I find no fault in him.

40:06

It's amazing that if you consider that verse from the Psalter that says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand?

40:14

Jesus is the answer to that question. Yeah. That's very good. Right? That's very good.

40:19

No one else can make that claim. That's very good. Lord, if you could mark iniquities, then I wouldn't be able to stand.

40:24

The only reason I'm able to stand in your presence is because of the righteousness of another. That's right.

40:29

His perfect life. That's right. And so there are some details about Jesus' life, and again, this is not exhaustive in any way.

40:36

I mean, just so much ink and paper has been used up and spilled over this, and you can find much, much more, but this is a cursory look at it.

40:46

So the next thing is, in answering the question, is Jesus the promised Messiah? Messianic prophecies fulfilled, the original life of Jesus, and then the symbols fulfilled.

40:56

Now, I've said this many times, but I said it this Sunday. To me, this is the most exciting and mystifying aspect of this whole conversation of whether Jesus is the

41:12

Messiah, because, yeah, it's compelling, and it's irrefutable, it's incontrovertible, when you look at a

41:19

Daniel 9 passage. That's just compelling, and it's slam dunk. There's no way.

41:25

I'll be honest, if Jesus isn't the Messiah, then this whole thing is fraudulent. It's over with, because that's a pretty direct prophecy, and if he isn't the

41:32

Messiah, guess what? There ain't no Messiah. There isn't one. Because Daniel 9 says all this has to happen before the fall of the second temple, and the

41:39

Messiah has to come and accomplish all these redemptive things and be cut off before the temple's destroyed. It's gone.

41:45

If Jesus isn't the Messiah, there isn't a Messiah. This whole thing is just mythology.

41:51

But he happens to have come and be cut off and accomplished all those things before the second temple was destroyed. So I find that so compelling and incontrovertible.

41:59

Totally. It doesn't get past me. However, it's the symbolism embedded in the

42:07

Old Testament revelation that is the thing that's constantly mystifying. Honestly, it doesn't ever get old.

42:13

Like this Sunday, I'm preaching for probably the 10th time through the story of Abraham and Isaac from Genesis 22.

42:20

And it's as exciting to me last Sunday as the first time I discovered it and every time

42:26

I ever preached through it. As a matter of fact, I think there's times where it just gets more and more exciting, and I'm just more and more dumbfounded.

42:33

Like they couldn't have possibly understood this. And so what I've said, and I'll kick it over to you guys here so you can have your part here.

42:39

I'm going to lay a good foundation here. What I've said is, what trips me up about it, and it excites me.

42:45

I don't mean it in a bad way. I mean, like, dang, that's exciting. This is totally like the fingerprints of God here.

42:51

This is absolutely divine and it's unavoidable, is that you have the Old Testament revelation, depending on how you date certain books, like, you know,

43:00

Abraham's story. And, you know, I mean, obviously I have Genesis written, you know, the first five books of Moses are for Moses, and that's, you know, around 1400

43:10

BC, somewhere around there. But then you look at the oldest book in the Bible, and people are like, well, it's probably Job.

43:15

So, you know, this revelation spans, say, close to 2 ,000 years in composition.

43:21

The Old Testament revelation, okay? Depending on how you date it. Again, I understand that. But you have to consider the fact that, like,

43:29

Moses isn't connected to Isaiah. And he's not connected to him in time. He's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years apart from him.

43:36

And he's not connected to him geographically. And the same goes for all the prophets in the

43:42

Old Testament. You've got them spread out over such a distance of time and geographical location, and they aren't communicating, right?

43:52

Like, Isaiah's not having a conversation with Moses. You know, these are things that are happening as a matter of providence in history.

44:01

And here's my point. When these things are happening to them in history, like, for example, the

44:07

Exodus and Passover, and then you've got temple and priesthood and animal sacrifices.

44:14

And when Isaiah's writing what he wrote, like, they're not coordinating a revelation together.

44:21

Like, this isn't Joseph Smith and his band of brothers, you know, over the first 15 years of Mormonism, you know, oh, sure,

44:29

I'm a witness. Oh, no, I never actually saw it. It's all with spiritual eyes. And all the nonsense that happened with them, even closely connected together, and in time and in space and all those things, it's nothing like that.

44:42

This is something that spans this long time in history in all these different locations, and these things are just happening to them.

44:50

And God is condescending, and he's walking with them, and he's communicating to them. And so, give you the example here.

44:57

So, the Passover itself. All the Jews know is their circumstances.

45:03

They're in bondage. They're enslaved in Egypt. This guy Moses rises up. Moses is telling

45:08

Pharaoh, let my people go. God says, let my people go. Pharaoh's saying no. God's sending in plagues.

45:13

Final plague is take the firstborn. And the Jews are told, okay, look, this is what you do. You're enslaved.

45:19

Here's how God's going to deliver you. You're in bondage, and God's going to get you released with this one. Here's what's going to happen.

45:25

You take a lamb with no spot and no blemish. And by the way, a little line here, just one line. Don't break its bones, okay?

45:31

All right, don't break its bones. Take the blood of that lamb. Put it over your doorpost. Dink, dink, dink. And when my judgment comes,

45:38

I'm going to Passover. That's not in the text. I didn't realize the blood made that sound. Yeah, yeah. How do you have the doorway?

45:44

It's not iron in that blood. That's how I like to imagine it sounding. Dink, dink, dink. So, when my judgment comes, it's going to Passover your house on account of the blood of the lamb.

45:53

And then they are released from their bondage and their enslavement. And they go and they get out of Egypt into the promised land, that relationship with God.

46:00

Now, look, let's be honest. None of them were thinking, oh, that's the story of Jesus.

46:07

Right. None of them. Not one of them. All they know is their current experience. All they know is what

46:12

Yahweh is telling them. All they want is just to be delivered. That's all they want. They're enslaved. They want to be delivered. And they don't understand.

46:19

Lamb, no spot, no blemish. Don't break its bones. They didn't understand, oh, yeah, Jesus. There's a lamb of God, no spot, no blemish, who takes away the sin of the world.

46:29

And, oh, isn't it weird that, like, at Passover, when the lamb of God is dying for the sins of his people, they broke the legs of the criminals, but they didn't break the bones of the lamb.

46:39

Isn't that? You know, they're not thinking in those terms. All they're thinking of is in their experience, and God's saying, do this.

46:45

Okay, yes, God. And with Abraham, when Abraham was told to offer Isaac on the altar, we're going to get into that in today's episode.

46:51

Abraham isn't going, oh, because Jesus. I get it. No, I don't believe that at all. I believe he knew this is the place the

46:57

Lord's going to provide the lamb. I believe he understood, like, these are the promises of God. But do you think that Abraham really comprehended all the details of Jesus, his life in ministry, lamb of God, all that stuff?

47:08

Like, he's just living in the moment with God and getting limited information, limited revelation, and he's acting upon it.

47:15

But do you think that he understood fully what was happening with him and Isaac? Do you think he really understood that?

47:21

I don't believe that he did. And here's proof. How do we know that?

47:26

The text says he took quite a bit on faith. Yeah, right. I guess he's just going to raise my son from the dead.

47:32

He heard God's word and believed. Oh, I guess my son's going to be given as a sacrifice, my unique son, my only son. He's going to die as a sacrifice, and then

47:39

I guess God's going to raise him from the dead. Like, you know, it's just like, whew, some deep stuff there.

47:46

Like, do you think that the Jews, when they're told to build this temple with a holy of holies and a veil and the high priest goes in and you have

47:52

Yom Kippurim, the day of atonement, and you've got sacrifice and scapegoat, do you think that they even all fully understood, oh, that's

48:00

Jesus and here's what's going to happen? Here's proof that they did not understand it, is that when Jesus came telling them that he's coming to accomplish this, die for sins, rise from the dead, and all this is going to take place, even his own disciple

48:12

Peter's going, never. Never going to happen to you, Jesus. We're not going to let it happen. And get behind me,

48:18

Satan. Like, this is the story. Get into it, Peter. The only thing you have in that are the rudimentary elements of, okay, here's what we know.

48:26

We can't be in the presence of perfect holiness unless we shed innocent blood. Right. That's all we know.

48:32

And there's a place where God comes to dwell with us where he can't dwell with us unless it's in this place because this place is set apart, and we need to be set apart and cleansed if we're to enter that.

48:41

In order to come into the most holy sanctuary, there has to be a sacrifice so that we can actually be in the presence of God.

48:49

Those are the rudimentary elements of it, but that's it. And we've got to have someone representing us and going in there and advocating for us.

48:56

We've got to have someone who goes in there and intercedes for us. All they're getting is, yeah, the training wheels.

49:02

Right? And that's just sort of working through the training wheels. And again, more proof about how divine this revelation is is that even the disciples themselves after the crucifixion of Jesus are scattered.

49:17

And they're just like, what happened? I could have sworn he was the Messiah. How could he not be the

49:23

Messiah? Look at his life and his teachings. Look at his righteousness. Look at the miracles and the divine power.

49:29

I swore this was like I was walking with God the whole time. How did this happen? They're just so confused, and they're on the road to Emmaus, and they're like,

49:37

I don't understand what's going on. And Jesus is like, what are you guys talking about? Sorry, that's not how I would probably say it.

49:45

They were like, where have you been? You don't know what's going on? And then

49:50

Jesus chastises them, as we said last week. He calls them foolish, and he says, slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.

49:56

So Jesus attaches the grounding and foundation epistemologically for what they should have known to the

50:04

Old Testament scriptures, not their experience, but to the Old Testament scriptures. You should have known this.

50:10

This is what the scriptures said was going to happen. But the disciples did not fully comprehend even like, oh my goodness.

50:19

Everywhere, this whole entire story of Israel, everything was really about Jesus. Jesus is the true servant of the

50:26

Lord. He's the true light of the world. And oh my goodness, he's what Adam was supposed to be.

50:31

He's that perfect Adam. Then it comes together like this rush, like my goodness.

50:37

And it wasn't like they were developing something that was not there. It was like James says, it was like a dimly lit room.

50:46

The Old Testament is this dimly lit room. You can make stuff out. It's there, right? But it's not fully vivid in color and clear.

50:54

It's like, it's there. I see it there. It's dimly lit. I know there's a couch there. I know there's a vase there. It seems like there's like a TV on the wall or something, but it's dimly lit.

51:02

In the New Testament, when Jesus comes, the light gets flipped on and you go, oh, now I see. Like now

51:08

I see the details. It was there all along. And that's exactly the experience of the apostles and the early Christians, is they had this profound experience where they're like, oh my goodness, this is what

51:19

God said the whole time. This was what was supposed to happen the entire time. And so I personally find the symbolism of the

51:27

Old Testament, which again, you cannot exhaust this, to be the most compelling evidence of the divine fingerprints.

51:37

Because listen, here's my point. You can't control that. You can't control that. You can't control that story.

51:42

You can't control all that stuff. That stuff happens and it happens and it either is identified as that's clearly

51:47

Jesus or it's not. And it's not just like one instance. It's not like one example. It's like through the entire story, literally from Genesis chapters one through three, even details like, you know, everyone knows this is like one of my favorite things ever.

52:02

But like you can't, you sometimes miss this stuff. When Jesus dies, he dies for this.

52:09

He takes the curse and he dies for the sins of his people. And he's buried in a garden tomb. And so where did death enter into humanity's experience?

52:17

In a garden. And humanity is banished from the garden. And Jesus is buried in a garden tomb.

52:23

And then where does the resurrection take place? In a garden. And I find this so compelling that when the woman comes to the tomb and like Jesus isn't there, she's like, what's going on?

52:35

She mistakes Jesus for the gardener. And it's just like a line

52:41

John throws in, like she thought he was the gardener. And it's like, isn't that amazing that like this perfect Adam, what

52:47

Adam was supposed to be, he was supposed to subdue the earth, take dominion. He's the one who's supposed to work the ground and make

52:53

God's creation beautiful and beautified, all those different things. Well, Adam fails in that vocation. He dies.

52:58

Death occurs. Jesus is resurrected in a garden. And the first thing Jesus is doing apparently after the resurrection is he's working the ground.

53:07

And even in that, I just thought, just ran across my mind. But even in that, there's a little bit of symbolism there, isn't there?

53:13

Because the first task that he's seen doing visibly signifies his conquest over the curse.

53:22

Yeah. Yes. Right. So the curse, the curse infects everything, sin. Right. And he took the curse on his head with thorns, another symbol.

53:31

Okay. Yes. I'd like another picture there. Like it's a visual representation of here's what

53:36

I'm doing. Say that again for everyone in the back, because that might've just gone right past people. So Adam was subjected to the effects of the curse.

53:47

And Adam was specifically told in Genesis chapter three that the ground is not going to yield its plenty for you as in the way it did before.

53:55

There's going to be a fallen element to you tilling this soil. It's going to bring forth thorns and thistles.

54:02

It's going to be difficult. There's going to be toil, struggle, labor, and you're going to have to cultivate that.

54:08

And so you have Jesus who is the man, the ultimate man of culture, if you will, when he rises from the dead, you know, prior to that being crucified, he takes the symbol.

54:21

The picture of the curse, the effects of sin's curse, and he wears it upon his head while he crushes the serpent's head.

54:29

Genesis chapter three verse 15 as well. So it's incredible that the first thing he's witnessed is doing by a woman, by a bride, if you will, brought to him, that he is tilling the ground, working the soil.

54:46

Almost as if to say the new Adam, the new representative head of a new human race has defeated, taken conquest over sin and the curse and the thorns.

55:02

And now as a symbol of his victory over that, he is demonstrating his ultimate conquest over the thorns and the dirt itself.

55:10

To say, I have been victorious, right? And now the work of recreation and renewal has begun.

55:18

Right. Because the eternal order in many ways has broken into the present, right? What did Jesus say?

55:23

The kingdom is at hand. I've come, right? Eternity is now. Heaven has come to earth.

55:29

And so you have this beautiful picture of him working the soil there and signifying that I have been victorious over the curse.

55:37

Now I'm in the process actively of overturning it, as far as it's found, just like the song goes.

55:43

So someone said in the feed the other day, they said, when I brought up that she had thought he was the gardener, they're like, what makes you think he was doing gardening?

55:53

And I thought, well, okay. I imagine if that's what she thought, that he was a gardener, then he must be doing some gardening things.

56:02

If the text said she mistook him as a soccer player, you would be like, well, why would she think that?

56:08

Probably because he was bouncing. He was wearing a jersey. Wearing a jersey, bouncing the ball. It doesn't say she had mistaken him for a soldier.

56:16

She had mistaken him as a gardener. So I imagine that he was there, and he was doing some gardening things.

56:22

And she had thought, oh, this is just the gardener working the ground around here. And then she discovers, oh, lo and behold, it's Jesus. Look, it's compelling to me.

56:28

I find that just so compelling. And this is the thing that trips me up at times. I read John 400 times before I learned that.

56:37

It was just, all of a sudden, it got brought out, and it was like, oh, my goodness. It's just this one line. You miss stuff like that.

56:44

Even stuff in the Old Testament, when we talk about the Lamb of God, when we talk about the Lamb, Passover, no spot, no blemish, and don't break its bones.

56:52

How many times did you read that and not realize, oh, my goodness, Jesus dies on Passover.

56:58

He's the Lamb of God. He has no sin. And weird, they didn't break his bones. It's just, it's stuff like that.

57:04

It's like this divine fingerprint. It seems like an afterthought. God just goes, tick. Like, just, let me put that line in there for you.

57:13

We'll see if you guys catch that. I think to your point about the symbolism, the reason it's so compelling is because I think we're story -driven creatures.

57:19

And, like, you know, there's a podcast called Stories Are Soul Food. Like, we feast off of stories.

57:26

That's how God created us to be. And the symbolism is actually what connects us to the story visually, right, in a visual way.

57:33

So not only do we see the story that God's telling, but we see our place in it. And I think that's what makes it so compelling.

57:39

It's funny. I asked our Reach group this week, which letter of the acrostic do you find personally the most compelling to prove that Jesus is the

57:45

Messiah? And a lot of people did say symbolism. Oh, nice. Right? Some people connected the direct prophecies. And I think even within the direct prophecies, there's symbolism.

57:53

So there's not— Oh, yeah. There's interrelatedness going on. But, you know, the symbolism itself, the typology and all that, like, that is what gets me excited, reading the

58:04

Bible and making those connections. Like the typology, the symbolism, because your soul is thirsting for the story element and for your place in it.

58:13

Like when God says, you know, in the text, when Nathan speaks to David in 2 Samuel saying, you know, you're going to build a house for my name.

58:20

I'm going to establish his kingdom forever, the descendant that's going to sit on your throne. Well, there's a kingdom there that's being built.

58:27

God is building a house for his name, which is what Genesis was. Right? Go fill the earth, subdue, take dominion, build a house for my name.

58:35

Right? And then you have Jesus taking on flesh as the building. Right? This initial building project of God that he has started now, the new redeemed temple, the house of God, and he's going to fill it with people, fill it with his glory.

58:48

And so, again, that's what I mean. You start to see your place in the story. Who are you? Well, you're a fallen creature in need of redemption.

58:54

But now that God has saved you and restored you and brought you into and made you a part of his house, the gardener gives you an example to follow in tilling the ground.

59:04

Right. And doing the work. So he set you free so that you can get back to the task for which you were created. And it's interesting.

59:10

I think one of the challenges in terms of this just not being delved into, expanded upon, explained a lot in modern evangelical church.

59:22

Now, I'm going to say this in a way that I hope isn't misunderstood by people, is we want to approach the

59:29

Bible with proper interpretive methodology. And so, in doing that, proper hermeneutics, the art and science of biblical interpretation, when you go to a text that's historical narrative, you can't read it like you read the book of Revelation.

59:43

Right? Like, you can't read Matthew's narrative like you read, say, the book of Proverbs.

59:50

You're going to hit a wall at points. Like, when you read the book of Proverbs, there's times where things will be put in contradiction to one another.

59:57

Things are going to be done in parallelism, Hebrew parallelism. It'll even have synthetic parallelism. It's just there's a lot to it in terms of, like, you have to see it differently.

01:00:06

Its purpose is to be different than, like, something that's didactic and historical narrative. And so I think the problem is many evangelicals have rightly said, well, we need to take the

01:00:16

Bible seriously and interpret it literally. And it's, like, yes and no.

01:00:22

Yes and no. Yes, where it's supposed to be, and no, where it's not supposed to be.

01:00:28

Like, you can't interpret the book of Revelation literally all the way through, or you're literally going to be going out looking for, like, a whore, drinking blood, riding a seven -headed, ten -horned beast.

01:00:37

To be fair, that wouldn't be that far -fetched anymore. There's some places downtown. You might actually run into one of those right now with the fentanyl addiction situation going on right now.

01:00:47

But you get my point. Like, there's, I think, an aversion in much of modern evangelicalism to symbol and story and imagery.

01:00:58

And if you have a problem with that, then you're going to have a real hard time with much of the Bible. God uses poetic language.

01:01:05

He uses hyperbole. He's a master, of course he is, of symbolism.

01:01:11

And even in the ministry of Jesus, like, how does Jesus ultimately get a point across to people?

01:01:18

Is he tells a story. And how does Jesus even refute his enemies?

01:01:25

He tells a story about them. And that's just, God is a master storyteller, and that's what he does.

01:01:32

So with that, you have to, I think we all have to embrace, yes, proper biblical hermeneutics is to say, we interpret the

01:01:38

Bible literally, we take it seriously, we believe it, yes. But you can't interpret the Bible literally everywhere, and you better start to fall in love with the symbols that God has impressed upon us in Scripture.

01:01:48

Because he wants you to be amazed by the symbolism. He wants you to be amazed by it. And he wants you to be amazed by the story.

01:01:55

And so I think it's good for us to develop an affection for that kind of interpreted methodology in terms of, this is clearly a symbol, let's find out what it means.

01:02:07

And let's see, because here's the thing, when you say something literally, you can get across a point in a powerful way, right?

01:02:14

But oftentimes when you put it in a symbol or a story, you provide more color and power to the point that you're making because it's much more vivid.

01:02:23

You've captured the imagination, which isn't a dirty word. No. Like it's not making something up out of nothing.

01:02:29

That's not what imagination is. No, it means something. Right. Like Scripture ought to inform our imaginations. It ought to shape them because we're people of the word.

01:02:37

And the word is what gives us how to form the pictures that God is giving us. I just saw a really big symbol last week.

01:02:44

What? The ark. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Right. And how does the Bible use that?

01:02:49

The ark of our salvation. And I love what Ken's done just weaving Christ in and out the whole ark, all three floors.

01:02:59

Even at the Creation Museum, it was just really, really amazing to see how he did that. I mean, it's cool. I mean, my niece came with me who's not a

01:03:05

Christian and is not being raised in a believing family. And she just loved it. She didn't want to go. Like she was answering all the questions.

01:03:12

And it was really cool just to see how they did that. But I mean, it's like that's probably the biggest symbol of Christ that ever existed.

01:03:19

Right. So let me try this. You want to do Genesis 22? Yeah, Abraham?

01:03:25

Yeah. Yeah. You do that. I want to hear Zach do this. Yeah. I'm going to have Zach do

01:03:30

Genesis 22 with everybody. And this is a story of Abraham and Isaac. This is one of my favorites.

01:03:38

It'll blow your mind. Genesis 22, 1. After these things

01:03:44

God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham. And he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son,

01:03:50

Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which

01:03:56

I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son

01:04:03

Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which

01:04:08

God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

01:04:13

Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.

01:04:21

So this is after the Lord tells Abraham to offer up his son, his only son.

01:04:27

And he's given the assurance through faith that him and the boy will return after they are done worshiping.

01:04:37

And in verse six, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son.

01:04:43

And he took in his hand the fire and the knife, which we're talking about symbolism here.

01:04:49

Remember in Genesis, when God exiles Adam and Eve from the garden because of their sin, and he places angels at the entrance of Eden with flaming swords, right?

01:05:05

Now, what do flaming swords do? Defend. They defend.

01:05:11

And so they're guarding the entrance back into the presence of God. But also they cut and they burn.

01:05:17

Also that. So, and you see the same thing in the construction of the tabernacle and the administration of the ordinances and the priestly ceremony, right?

01:05:28

There has to be sacrifice. There's a blood offering and there's a burnt offering. So things are being cut and things are being burned.

01:05:36

So he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.

01:05:42

And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father. And he said, here I am, my son.

01:05:48

He said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

01:05:54

So Isaac's looking for the lamb and Abraham says, verse eight, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.

01:06:04

And this is where we get the phrase Jehovah Jireh, right? The Lord will provide.

01:06:09

The Lord will see to it that provision is made for the sacrifice. So they went both of them together.

01:06:16

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound

01:06:21

Isaac, his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

01:06:30

And so you see the elements of the story coming into focus here now. Isaac, Abraham's only son, the son of his love, carries the wood on his back to the place of the sacrifice.

01:06:44

And the knife is about to fall in order to complete the offering to God.

01:06:50

And verse 11, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. Who is the angel of the

01:06:57

Lord? We see this figure in the Old Testament. I know you're very fond of this subject, this topic.

01:07:02

Yeah, Christophany. So Christophany is an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. It's the pre -incarnate

01:07:08

Christ. The angel of the Lord, Malach Yahweh, appears in the Old Testament and he exhibits all of the attributes and characteristics of Yahweh himself.

01:07:18

He is Yahweh, but he is distinguished in persons from Yahweh. So if you read

01:07:24

Genesis 18 and 19 and you see the discussion on Sodom and Gomorrah, Yahweh rained fire out of heaven from Yahweh on Sodom and Gomorrah.

01:07:35

So the angel of the Lord, Christ, who is the ultimate provision for the sins of mankind, he is the fulfillment of Isaac, right?

01:07:46

Carrying the wood on his back to the place of the sacrifice. The son, the only son of the

01:07:51

Father's love, he calls to him from heaven and says, Abraham, Abraham. And he said,

01:07:57

Here I am. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear

01:08:03

God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

01:08:10

So here you have Isaac spared on the altar, but the foreshadowing here is deliberate in that the provision for the sacrifice and the payment of sin will be fulfilled.

01:08:23

It will be kept. And one day the knife will not stop from falling.

01:08:28

Verse 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, behind him was a ram. Okay, so they were looking for the lamb.

01:08:36

Father, where is the lamb? And Abraham lifts up his eyes and behind is caught in the thicket.

01:08:43

You know, thorns, if you will. Just an interesting detail there.

01:08:49

The ram is caught there by his horns. Abraham goes and takes the ram and offers it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

01:08:57

So Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide.

01:09:03

And we talked about providence a few weeks back. Providence literally just means the Lord will see.

01:09:09

Right? The Lord will see to it. So God's providence over all of creation is that he views the needs of his creation and he provides abundantly for the needs of his creation in every facet.

01:09:22

The good news of the gospel is that the need of our sin is such that God provides the sacrifice to take away our transgressions.

01:09:31

And the text says, as it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

01:09:38

And this is one of the most powerful elements of the story, is that on that very mount, on that very site, hundreds and hundreds of years later,

01:09:47

God kept his promise to Father Abraham. That he would provide the sacrifice.

01:09:55

And he did. And the announcement to stop Abraham's hand given by the angel of the

01:10:02

Lord, who is the pre -incarnate Christ, ending up being God in flesh, the incarnate

01:10:07

Son of God, who himself would be laid upon the altar, after carrying the wood on his back to the place of the sacrifice, would be offered.

01:10:17

And as Isaiah 53 tells us, it was the will of Yahweh to crush him.

01:10:24

For our sins. To place our sins upon him, so that we could become the partakers of his righteousness.

01:10:31

His perfect life. He takes our transgressions, he takes the price for our sins, and we merit the spoils, the value, the victory that's been secured, which is that perfect righteousness that was provided.

01:10:44

And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself I have sworn, declares the

01:10:50

Lord. Notice that. Verse 15. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time and said, by myself

01:10:58

I have sworn, declares the Lord. So it's the angel of the Lord speaking, saying, I have sworn by myself.

01:11:06

Whose word carries ultimate gravity and authority, and cannot be broken other than Yahweh's.

01:11:12

That's right. So it's the angel of the Lord who is distinguished from Yahweh himself, but swearing by himself, as the

01:11:18

Bible tells us only God can do. Because only God's word can be unbreakable. He never breaks his promises, ever.

01:11:24

Swear by myself. By myself I have sworn. That's the angel of the Lord. Declares the

01:11:30

Lord. Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you.

01:11:36

And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the seashore.

01:11:42

And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.

01:11:51

Now we're getting to the T. Now we're getting to the T. Right? Transformation of the world. So we have indirect prophecy, if you will.

01:11:57

We have symbolism aplenty. And then we have the promise. It's all connected. That the sacrifice that will be given will lead to Abraham's descendants being as numerous as the stars.

01:12:09

And that his offspring, which the book of Romans tells us, are the heirs of the entire world.

01:12:14

That's right. Those who inherit all things by faith, trusting in these promises, will possess the gate of his enemies.

01:12:21

And that promise is actually used all throughout the book of Genesis. Yes. It's spoken about by the patriarchs, even of their very brides.

01:12:30

So Rebecca, Rachel, there are specific promises spoken to them. Daughter, may you be blessed.

01:12:36

May your offspring inherit the gates of their enemies. That's a blessing spoken over the wives of the patriarchs.

01:12:43

Really powerful stuff. So carrying that through the book of Genesis now, you have

01:12:49

Abraham and you have the angel of the Lord giving the specific promise that the offspring of Abraham will possess the gates of his enemies.

01:12:56

Jesus saying the gates of hell shall not prevail, also in fulfillment of that. And then in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

01:13:05

That's the promise is that all the nations are coming to God and they're going to come through Abraham's descendants and through the Messiah that comes through his line, a .k

01:13:12

.a. the provision made at the altar to take away sins. That's right. Go ahead.

01:13:19

One cool thing, I didn't want to distract you, but at the Creation Museum, one cool thing that they did, there's all these little nuggets here and there that you miss if you're not paying attention, but they do this walk through the progression of the

01:13:31

Garden of Eden and there's people and little scenes and stuff.

01:13:39

And after they sin, there's

01:13:45

Adam, there's a lamb that's been slain, skinned, and Adam's wearing the skin of this lamb.

01:13:54

I've gone through it before. I never caught it before. I was like, that lamb does not have any skin. I was like, oh, that's because Adam's wearing it.

01:14:00

But it's the same picture you're talking about. God provided the sacrifice. He provided the clothing for Adam because of sin and all that.

01:14:08

Covered his nakedness, covered his shame. It's really powerful. We could go literally forever on this. But when

01:14:13

God puts Abraham to sleep and gives him the dream and the two animal halves are set and the smoking pot goes through the animal halves and God, again, swears by himself, essentially saying that if I don't fulfill this promise, let the eternal

01:14:28

God take on the punishments that these animals received. Let the eternal God be temporal and be divided.

01:14:35

And that's exactly what Jesus does. The eternal takes on time.

01:14:41

He enters his own creation and he himself is the sacrifice. He bears that curse.

01:14:47

So much of the symbolism. You could just go for days. But there's a layer that we don't often talk about.

01:14:55

A little bit. We don't often talk about in terms of Genesis 22 where you have Abraham is told that this is the son of the promise.

01:15:03

And you guys are all familiar with the text. It's quoted in Romans 9, 7 through 8.

01:15:10

It says, through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And so it was through Isaac that this whole story was to come to fulfillment.

01:15:18

So descendants as numerous as the stars and like the sand on the seashore, like it's through Isaac. And so like Abraham is given the specific promise.

01:15:25

It's through Isaac. It's the son of your love, your only son. This is who it's coming through. Now, all of a sudden,

01:15:31

God tells him, all right, now I told you that it's through Isaac this is going to happen. Ultimately, we know leading to the Messiah.

01:15:37

And that's how the whole world is going to be blessed by this. It's through Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. And now God tells him, now go kill him.

01:15:44

Sacrifice your son, the one that's the son of the promise, your only son, sacrifice him.

01:15:49

Now, all Abraham knows is he's got two things right now in his mind. One is that it's through Isaac that the entire world's going to be blessed.

01:15:57

All right. The next thing is, is he's telling me to give my son, my son of my love, the only son. He's telling me to give him as a sacrifice.

01:16:04

So what is the writer of Hebrews say regarding what was Abraham thinking? Well, it's clear because when

01:16:10

Abraham takes that three -day journey to Moriah, what does he do? He tells the companions, he says, me and the boy are going to go worship and then we'll return to you.

01:16:19

And so Abraham had in his mind, look, God already said he's going to bless the world through this Isaac. This is my son. He's going to do it through him.

01:16:25

So if he wants me to go offer him on the altar over here, then that must mean that I'm about to witness a resurrection, right?

01:16:31

Because that's what has to happen. If it's going to be through Isaac, then there must be a resurrection. And proof that that is what

01:16:36

Abraham thought is, A, in Genesis 22, he tells the companions, we will return to you.

01:16:41

We're coming back. My son's coming back. That's all I know. And then in Hebrews 11, verse 19, talking about Abraham, it says, it says he considered that God to be able even to raise someone from the dead.

01:16:57

Okay, so there's the understanding in Abraham's mind. Apparently I'm about to witness a resurrection because this is the son of the promise, the son of my love.

01:17:04

So then you move the story forward into the life of Jesus. You got God's son, his only son, the son of his love, who carries the wood to the place of the sacrifice.

01:17:12

It was that specific place of the sacrifice. And what's interesting in terms of looking at the two different stories, when

01:17:18

Abraham and Isaac have this experience, he thinks he's going to have to witness a resurrection from the dead because the world's not going to change without the seed.

01:17:27

Won't change without this specific seed. It has to be this one. And so I must be,

01:17:33

I'm going to see a resurrection. But then God withholds him from actually sacrificing his son. So there is no resurrection.

01:17:39

But then when you get to Jesus, after carrying the wood to the place of the sacrifice, he actually does die.

01:17:45

It's the will of the Lord to crush him. The Lord lays on him the iniquity of us all. God does not withhold the knife on that specific place.

01:17:51

The lamb was provided. But the amazing thing is, is that there was a death and a resurrection.

01:17:57

And here's why. Because ultimately that seed through Isaac is getting to Jesus. And it is through Jesus that the entire world is going to be transformed where the offspring is as numerous as the stars.

01:18:07

So ultimately without a resurrection, there is no prosperity to the seed.

01:18:14

There had to be a death and a resurrection. And Abraham was expecting it but didn't need to see it because he was stopped from doing it.

01:18:20

But when Jesus comes, he dies, is resurrected, and then that seed blesses the world and the offspring multiplies.

01:18:26

And it's just a powerful thing. That's how you know Calvinism is real. That gift of faith, or Abraham's faith had to have been a gift.

01:18:35

Because I don't know, I could have murdered my son. You know what I mean? When God called for that, do you think

01:18:43

Abraham was shocked? I'm sure he was initially confused. Like, okay, and how will this be?

01:18:50

I've spent my whole life praying for this son to come from my barren wife. And now he's come, and now you want me to offer him up?

01:18:58

Like, would it have been confusing? Or would there have been an understanding in Abraham's mind, like communicated at least at this point in history, that there needs to be a death.

01:19:07

Like God is calling in the debt for sin. And it comes through a firstborn son. Like was that communicated somehow to him to where he was like, all right, this is how it has to be.

01:19:17

But I know because of what he's promised, Isaac's seed is going to be the vehicle of this whole thing.

01:19:23

So he will come back. I know he's coming back. Just convinced by the promise alone.

01:19:31

Yeah, there's just so much there. Again, I hope this excites you guys as much as it excites us.

01:19:36

But that was just Genesis 22. We did talk a little bit about the Exodus and Passover as well. We could just go for days here.

01:19:42

But we still have the tea to do, and we'll get to that. That's the transformation of the world.

01:19:48

And get ready to get some straight, full -proof post -millennialism when you hear it.

01:19:54

Because that's one of the things that just convinced me of post -millennialism, is the victory of the Messiah in history. There's no way to detach the progress of the gospel in history and ultimate victory from those messianic prophecies.

01:20:08

It's just they're all connected. Like you saw in Genesis 22. The prosperity and the victory of the Messiah and his kingdom is connected right next to all these direct prophecies or the symbolism.

01:20:20

It's a powerful thing. And so we're glad you guys joined us today. We're thankful for all of you guys.

01:20:25

Want to encourage everybody also to, if you're just getting in on this, to go to ApologiaAllAccess at ApologiaStudios .com.

01:20:31

Sign up for All Access. We have more coming over the next year. Some exciting things we're going to be doing here with Apologia to try to reach more people with the gospel.

01:20:39

We're thankful for all of you guys who have been All Access with us. And some of you guys have been All Access since we started.

01:20:45

So we're grateful for all of you. And it means so much to us that you're a part of this ministry with us. We've got some stuff we want to point people to, right,

01:20:51

Luke? Yeah. I bet you Abraham wish he had an Amtac blade. Yeah. Smooth cutting device.

01:20:57

I mean, he wouldn't have had any issues cutting any animals with one of them. Uh -uh. You can go to AmtacBlades .com.

01:21:04

Our good friend Bill Rapier makes those knives, former Dev Guru Navy SEAL, true

01:21:10

American hero. You can get one of his blades there. You can put Apologia in the coupon code for 5 % off.

01:21:16

And then he will donate 5 % also to End Abortion Now. That's right. Nothing like getting a blade from a member of SEAL Team 6,

01:21:23

Dev Guru. Yeah. Yeah. They're sharp. I know. Yeah. Cut myself multiple times. And then, of course, we got some of this wonderful coffee.

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Pre -sip at shop .apologiastudios .com. We're in our tracks. We got clothes. We got hats. We got all the stuff.

01:21:38

Clothes like this? Clothes of the soulless Christmas. I wore this one today on purpose. And, of course, please visit

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HeritageDefense .org. Speaking of Bradley Pierce, we're also going to be in – you're speaking to his thing in October, I believe, and then we're going to be with him in Louisiana on September 6 at Brian Gunter's church.

01:21:59

But if you homeschool your kids, please, please, please go to Heritage Defense right now and sign up.

01:22:06

Put Apologia in the coupon code. Get some legal defense, Christians. Legal defense for your families at an insanely, stupidly cheap price.

01:22:15

Yes, yes. A ridiculous, not fair kind of price for that kind of legal representation.

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You need it, especially in light of the current circumstances and the regime that's in charge right now, people being accused of hate speech and all the rest.

01:22:30

If you've got a family, you've got to protect them. Make sure you do it. Yep. Hook up. All right, so that's

01:22:35

Luke the Bear. Peace out. I'm Jeff, the Coleman Ninja. Oh, we got a bunch of – Oh, do we get some Super Chats? Yeah, sorry.

01:22:41

All right, Super Chats. Let's do them. You want to throw them up on the screen there? I just came in. Got the chat. Okay. Well, let's –

01:22:48

A bunch of them were from Paul Romero who was trying to get your email and so we took care of that. Thank you,

01:22:53

Paul, for that. And then the other one that just came in I saw, Judoka512.

01:23:01

Judoka. Ooh, I like that. Do you know what that means? I don't. Sounds like a martial art.

01:23:06

Judo. Yeah. Okay. Greetings, brothers. As a post mill seeing all the governments of the world turn against Christ, are we to assume a great revival will come of it?

01:23:15

Say that again? As a post mill seeing all the governments of the world turn against Christ, are we to assume a great revival will come out of it?

01:23:26

Yeah, I mean that's obviously what you would anticipate taking place. I mean if it's the gospel that's going to ultimately transform the world and if, as Paul says in 1

01:23:35

Corinthians 15, we're going to see Christ putting all of his enemies under his feet before he comes to destroy and defeat ultimately death, that's how it has to happen.

01:23:43

I mean obviously the gospel is going to go forth. History comes in these stages where, like, we have great revival victory and then we kind of collapse a little bit.

01:23:50

And great revival, it's how history has looked, is it's been huge sweeps forward, little drops, huge sweeps forward, little drops.

01:23:57

Always trending upward. Trajectory is always trending upward. But yeah, being a post -millennialist and believing in those promises of the victory of the

01:24:04

Messiah doesn't mean that you don't believe that there will be historical judgments and that judgment on nations even or post -Christian nations.

01:24:12

And so yeah, ultimately I would say 1 Corinthians 15, we're going to go into many of the texts to talk about the victory of the

01:24:18

Messiah in history, but 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says Christ is reigning now and he must reign until every enemy is placed under his feet as a footstool for his feet and then he comes to defeat death.

01:24:28

So death is defeated on the tail end of his gospel victory. So it's gospel victory, then death is defeated.

01:24:35

And so if that's the case, yeah, I think all of us would anticipate that there's going to be great revivals, moments of great transformation, growing, growing, failing, growing, growing, failing, growing, growing, failing until ultimate victory in Jesus.

01:24:50

And so in the end, yeah, I think the thing we have to pray for is not simply the externals but the internals of our nation, focusing on the hearts and minds of people in our nation.

01:25:00

That means preaching the gospel and preaching it full proof without holding back. So I hope that blessed you guys.

01:25:06

That's Luke Thibert. Peace out. I'm Jeff Thicke, Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, Ninja. That's Zachary Conover, Director of Communications at End Abortion Now.

01:25:14

One more thing I want to point you to, please, if you get a chance today, please pray for End Abortion Now. Lots has happened, lots of stuff is happening.

01:25:20

I will, by the way, put that link into the description of this episode so you can sign up for August 20th to meet me in Cincinnati.

01:25:28

All the details will be there. You do need to sign up for dinner and for the meeting. And please pray for us,

01:25:33

End Abortion Now, and if you can, please give at endabortionnow .com. We do need your financial help to save more lives, to equip more churches, and to get these bills of abolition in.

01:25:41

We need you to stand with us prayerfully and financially. We do need your financial help to fight these battles.

01:25:47

The enemy has a lot of money, a lot of money. We have very little, and so we need you to stand with us so we can fight these fights.