Cultish: Does the Bible Teach That The Earth Is Flat? Pt. 2

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Is Protestantism Heresy? Pt. 3 - The Pope | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

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All right. Welcome back to Cultish. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I'm one of the co -hosts here.

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I am joined here by Andrew. We both have our trusted

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Mike Winger coffee cups, and Mike has his. We are here with Mike Winger once again from BibleThinker, talking about whether or not the

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Bible teaches that the earth is flat. Mike, how are you doing, man? I'm doing good, man. I'm doing great.

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Awesome, man. I'm just so excited to have this coffee cup. I mean, there's now just so many possibilities.

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I'm trying to fathom all the different things that are going to be in this cup. Right now, it's water. Tomorrow, it might be coffee.

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It might be some night tea or whatever. So I'm excited to have this coffee cup. So again,

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I appreciate you still with that. Possibilities are endless. Yes. Yeah. Speak of endless possibilities, there are people a lot of times saying there's endless possibilities of how you can come to different conclusions about what the

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Bible talks about a different particular subject, where in this case, we are talking about whether or not the

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Bible specifically talks about whether or not the earth is flat, whether or not it adheres to this specific model.

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So again, what we're trying to do is just lay out certain verses that are brought up in the whole flat earth conversation.

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And again, just for the sake of time, there are certain categories. We just didn't really have the time to get into and prep for our episode because we have things we're working on with a little revamp of Coltish.

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Mike, you've got your own stuff that you're working on. So specifically, there will be some articles actually available right now at thecoltishshow .com

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covering the firmament, kind of going into the original languages, explaining different aspects of that in response to people saying that's talking specifically about in talking about the dome, and also the story of when

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Moses was holding up his staff and that whole battle where Joshua had his whole army and the sun standing still.

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We're going to be kind of dealing with a broad variety of things not brought up, expanding on this conversation.

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So we're not avoiding that, just so you know. Just for the sake of time, sometimes with a production, there's certain things you can do and certain things you can't do, okay?

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If you don't understand that, start your own podcast and see how that goes, or your own YouTube channel. So Mike, so anyone jumping in this definitely part two, just tell them again real quickly about what you're all about and where they can find you if they want to see your other content.

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Yeah, my goal is to help people learn to think biblically about everything. That's my agenda. That doesn't mean that my teaching is 100 % perfect.

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I'm sure it's not. I mean, not to my knowledge. I don't know of errors I'm propagating, but we all make mistakes.

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My goal, though, is to show the process of how to evaluate scripture in context, to bring historical insights, and to try to demonstrate evidence along the way of how

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I'm getting where I'm getting, so people can make informed decisions about what scripture says. I really believe the Bible is way better than people think it is, and it's a bigger blessing, and it's more evidentially true, and it's better in just about every possible way than people give it credit for.

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And by diving deep into scripture, we get those blessings. And so I really want to help people learn to think biblically about everything.

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That's my whole agenda. And when it comes to the topic of flat Earth, that's the agenda here is I'm not interested in the science, to be completely honest.

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I'm not interested in any of those other aspects. I'm really just interested in are these proof texts that people use to say that the

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Earth is flat, are they being taken in context? What is the Bible really saying on this topic?

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Right, exactly. And that's our focus as well, too. And that's the thing we want. Again, we had quite a few comments when we initially announced this, and we get your passion behind it, but the goal here is to think critically, but to also think biblically when it comes to this.

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So again, that's going to be our primary focus. So before we jump in, let me let you know about a couple of the sponsors of this podcast.

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So definitely check that out. All right. So jumping into this in the last part of the podcast, as we are part one, again, this is part two of this discussion.

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We are looking at some of the proof texts talking about the pillars of the earth. So honestly, if you just Google flat earth,

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Bible teaching flat earth, you'll see the model of what it looks like. And usually at the bottom, depending on who it is, you'll see specifically these pillars that are at the bottom, literally holding the earth up.

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So we looked at Psalm, I'm sorry, look at 1st Samuel 2 .8. We look at Job 26 .10.

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One other passage that is used is Psalm 75 verse two.

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And I'm just going to give you my, I'll read it and I'll give you my thoughts and you guys can give me yours as well too. Psalm 75 verse two says, a set time that I appoint,

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I will judge with equity. When the earth totters and all its inhabitants, it is

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I who study its pillars. So I'm assuming according to this, it's, it's, they say, okay, well, there's pillars of the earth.

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Therefore, these are the pillars that are holding up the earth. So does this mean if you want to take the flat earth model to his logical conclusion?

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Again, I'm not trying, there might be people who give me a hard time saying I'm trying to straw man. I'm just trying to think through this interpretation.

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So is this saying that when the earth totters and there's earthquake, if it isn't for the

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Lord intervening that those pillars at the bottom of the earth, it's going to collapse. Like when Samson pushes it apart and the whole earth is just going to collapse in on itself.

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Is that what this specifically is saying? Honestly, I don't think that's the case.

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Again, if you look at the context, when you're looking at pillars, you're looking at the context of, I would say of rulers.

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And because again, he's talking about, it's God who judges with his, it's God who's judges righteously.

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He judges with equity. And so it's him versus the pillars of the world.

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At least that's the conclusion that I'm coming to. I don't think you can look at Psalm 75. And again, if you want to believe that model is correct, go ahead by all means and do it.

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We're not arguing against that. I think what we're trying to say is you can't use Psalm 75 too to articulate that position.

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Right. Like maybe the most cautious way we could say it is if the earth had literal pillars and we had especially clear teaching in scripture that the earth had literal pillars, then a statement about the earth's pillars would be taken that way easily.

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But when your proof text, when the text you're getting to prove that the earth has literal pillars is coming from Psalms, I mean, it is poetry.

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This is intended to be poetry. There's tons and tons of poetic imagery in Psalms. Just imagine reading through Psalms and taking everything totally literally.

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It's going to, you know, he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water.

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Well, where's the water? I'm going to turn into a tree apparently, you know, or it just ends up being the wicked are like chaff, the wind blows away.

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Well, this is, there's a lot of symbolism and poetry throughout Psalms. So this doesn't seem like a good proof text.

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He says, you know, he's going to judge and there's going to be this tottering of the earth and its inhabitants. And God's going to hold steady its pillars.

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This might be that God is preserving through judgment, those who are in the right, those who are righteous.

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And that could be the holding steady of the pillars because that's at least fits the context of Psalm 75. The whole

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Psalm does seem like it's not talking about like a cosmological descriptions of things. It's, I agree with you.

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It seems to be talking about leaders or at least important individuals that God's singling out.

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Right. But even if you look in, and I just pulled up Psalm 75 here on my, and praise God for technology, on my iPhone.

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So Psalm 75, if you just go down a little bit and here's another example where you see some sort of measurement language being used.

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And the question is, are we, how do we even interpret that? So later on in Psalm 75, verse six, just a couple of verses down says, for not from East, for not from the

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East or from the West and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is

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God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another. So what the emphasis on it's about righteous judgment versus unrighteous judgment.

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So the question is, if you're going to be taking things literally, so can you say that, is the early giving an actual geographical measurement in this passage for it is not from the

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East or from the So it's saying you have to make a measurement specifically in the Eastern direction or the

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Western direction. That's not the point of what this is talking about. This is a talking specifically about just the general known, like everywhere.

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You can't don't look anywhere. Don't look here. Don't look there, but look to the Lord. Like that's what it's articulating.

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What are your thoughts on that? I think that that's great. And I also think, you know, putting one down and lifting others up, we're talking about the tottering of some and the holding up of others.

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The symbolism seems to be about people, not geography, but also keep reading verse eight.

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We shouldn't obviously take this literal. For in the hand of the Lord, there's a cup with foaming wine, well -mixed, and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

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So God has a cup and everybody's going to drink out of the one cup if they're wicked. If you read on, verse 10 says all the horns of the wicked will be cut off.

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Wait, so wicked people actually have horns. I mean, this proves it. In fact, I guess that's how I know they're wicked. They have horns.

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Oh, but wait, no, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. So I guess if your horns last, right, obviously it's not intended to be taken this way.

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This horns are speaking of pomp, are speaking of declaration of your own glory, of your own sort of the things that represent your strength, right?

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But it's not meant to be taken literal. So if I don't take the cup to be this literal thing, and I don't take the horns to be literal,

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I'm just being consistent when I look for the term pillar to represent something about God judging the and holding up the righteous.

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And that's good. I mean, yeah, part of, yeah, part of what I'm thinking, uh, in general is, is if we're reading the

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Psalm like this, literally, we're actually missing out on what the tap, the text is actually saying.

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That's a big deal. Cause we want to know what the scripture says because it benefits us, right? It's like, his word is a lighten to our feet, right?

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A lot were lightened to our path. Like we want to know what the scriptures say, but if we're taking these things in their types, literally, you're actually not going to understand what scripture is communicating.

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And the Holy spirit is trying to communicate something clearly to us though. It has been poetic language. There's actual meaning that has purpose that can change your life.

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That's in here in Psalm 75. But if you're taking these things, literally, you're going to miss out on the actual meaning of the text.

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And I think that's a very dangerous thing. Don't you think that's dangerous? Pastor Mike? I absolutely do. And like you say, the, what will happen is

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I'll read a passage like this. And my emphasis becomes cosmology. When God is speaking about be ready,

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I am going to judge the wicked. And that's actually the emphasis here is it's a judgment discussion and about how he will lift up the righteous.

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So this is supposed to set ourselves up, you know, in our lives on this idea of future judgment, not a debate over cosmology where the term pillars is just being taken to mean something that doesn't seem to be talking about.

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Yeah. So let's, let's jump back over Mike to something that you brought up in your video. I think this is actually a great verse and people have mentioned this as well to the circle of the earth.

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Okay. So Proverbs 8, 27, and this is actually one of my favorite passages.

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And it's weird for me because you ever have those verses that you go to, and it's like, you always go to it because this is my favorite, you know,

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Jesus is God text, or this is my favorite text to say that, you know,

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God is sovereign or whatever. But all of a sudden, well, for whatever reason, someone brings in the conversation.

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Now it's like you're viewing it in a totally different light. I feel like this is for Proverbs 8, 27, and I'll explain that.

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So Proverbs 8, 27 says, when he established the heavens, I was there when he drew a circle in the face of the deep, when he was made firm from the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep emphasis, when he assigned the sea to his limit so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations, then

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I was beside him like a master workman. And I was daily his delight rejoicing before him, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.

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And so prior to even this whole conversation about the flat earth, this passage for me would always come up when

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I was talking to different cultists, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Trinity and the deity of Jesus, this specifically would come up.

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Like I see this has been one of my favorite passages to see really Christ in like a, it's a appearance of Christ in the

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Old Testament. I love this verse, but so Mike, this is actually used to try and articulate a flat earth model.

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And there's certain things that are highlighted specifically the fountains of the deep. So maybe you did your research, maybe you explain for us, how are people, what conclusions are people who adhere to a flat earth model coming when they look at this passage and how should we interpret

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Proverbs 8, 27, from your perspective? So my understanding is they'll, you know, look at this passage and they'll notice like the circle of the earth, the fountains of the deep and especially the earth has foundations.

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It specifically mentions foundations of the earth. And so they take those to be physical foundations under the surface area.

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Now, it also deals, of course, with he made firm the skies above, which is one of those passages they'll use to say there's a solid dome over the earth.

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You're going to have content that deals with that on, you know, that you'll put up with the show as well. So people can talk about that.

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I think for the sake of today, I just want to acknowledge to people, whether you believe the firmament is solid or not, you still have not answered the question of the flat earth.

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I'm just saying this is actually a different question because you could have a solid dome firmament over a globe or something else.

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It just doesn't answer the question. So this I see as a distraction for the question we're dealing with today. So I understand a worry that people will have that I'd respond and be like, well, it's poetry.

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Like it's my magic wand, poetry. And it just goes away. But I think the question we have to ask first is, is it poetry?

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Proverbs 8 is poetry. I mean, Proverbs, the book is poetry, but Proverbs, this whole section about wisdom and the woman there is very much poetic.

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And like Job is not to be taken literally in all of its poetic descriptions. This is talking about wisdom as if wisdom was a woman who was there when

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God created the earth. And there may be some typological significance with Christ, but personally,

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I wouldn't call it an appearance of Jesus. I would say we could try to find typology here, but typology is different than saying wisdom literally is this woman who's with, because it's feminine here throughout

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Proverbs, what wisdom is seen as a woman, describes wisdom as a woman. So if we take this as a literal woman called wisdom was there, then we have a bunch of issues that I'm just going to add.

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I'm going to say, Hey, if you're going to take it that way, and then, and then we're going to take the whole section as, as quite literal, then we have several issues we should consider.

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If God literally has created literal foundations, at least I, cause

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I could see foundations on a globe or a flat earth. I could see foundations on both of those. I wouldn't really have a problem with that term or fountains of the deep, which could just be under underground

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Springs. Easily. The Bible talks about underground Springs. We know that there's such thing as underground Springs as well.

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Circle on the face of the deep could be the horizon, or it could be like a circle across, which would not,

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I don't know if it's out on the face of the deep or is a circle on the, on the, on the ice wall. It's not really in the water on the ice.

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So I'm still confused by that. But the but the, the discussion here also says that God measured things that he marked out the foundations of the earth.

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That is, he, he measured it. So did God have a giant measuring tape that he used to actually measure the earth?

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He marked it out. He said a line upon it is, is depending on your translation, you've got there. No, we would say, oh, that's just, that's just poetic.

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It's just representing that God determined the measurements of all things. Okay. So it's not literal there because God's omniscient.

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He's, he's spoken into existence. Like from the script, from this text, you would think that God was like a builder who was measuring and building and constructing something yet from Genesis, you would think he just spoke it into creation.

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Right. Right. But that's because this is not meant to be taken that way, but let me give you more before you, you know, any pushback or thoughts here.

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Yeah. So Proverbs eight verses one through three, this is also a description of wisdom, right? This is the same chapter.

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This is the beginning of the section that we just read. Does not wisdom call out, does not understanding raise her voice on the heights, besides the way at the crossroads, she takes her stand beside the gates in front of the town at the entrance of the portals.

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She cries aloud. Should I think that wisdom is literally yelling at all of the gates of the cities?

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Right. Like there's like this literal woman there, wisdom would like, Hey, listen to me. No, obviously not.

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I mean, obviously this is poetic. It's not meant to be taken that way. Where are wisdom's gates? Look at Proverbs eight 34.

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We're going to go to just past the section we read. It says, blessed is the one who listens to me watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.

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Well, obviously here we have construction descriptions, gates and doors. Like if you take a flat earth perspective, you're going to take all these things literally here.

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So where are wisdom's gates and doors and how do I go stand by them? So I can get, so I can be wise, so I can be blessed.

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It was obviously it's not meant to be taken that way. I think we're just mishandling the text. Right, exactly. And Andrew, you gave me your thoughts too.

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I mean, it's one thing that kind of comes to mind when I kind of looking through what is being discussed, you're looking at just the intricacies in regards to God's creation.

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So when it says, when it says there, I was beside him like a master workman.

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And even if you think like during the ancient times, you think of somebody who was a stone carver, you know, I'm thinking of what's the 10 commandments in the 10 commandments.

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They had Joshua who was like the stone cutter. Right. And so he was, you know, you think about an ancient times or someone who has whatever tools that they use to be a master workman on any level when

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Christ went, when mean, when the world was being created, like the context of this, does this mean that there were these particular ancient tools that were used to like form the earth together?

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Like, no, it's talking like there's like a master workman. It's giving, it's correlating with somebody that's like, it's helping them understand their native tongue, like what that passage is saying.

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So that's a case where I think you can't take it literally. So one thing that also like sticks out to me, and again, this is also an example you mentioned, like in Job where you need to think about it.

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And again, it's not just a cop out or caveat. We want to again, think biblically when it comes to these proof texts.

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So Isaiah 40, 22, it says, it is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

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So from my understanding, Mike, so the debate over this passage in this whole flat earth discussion is that when it talks about the circle of the earth, so if you were to actually view, if indeed the flat earth model is correct from the aerial view, it's circular.

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That's the understanding. And then the bottom we mentioned earlier, those are the pillars that hold it up. Is that what they're trying to argue?

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Yes. But it will get a little challenging because on some flat earth models, there's also corners on the earth because this is what happens when you take all of these passages literally, and they're not intended to be that way.

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So yeah, that's the idea though. There's a circle and there's like a dome over it, the outside of the edge of the circle is this ice wall.

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And then there's just nothing after that, right? At least nothing that we would call earth. Yeah. Okay. And so from that understanding, so here's an example.

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So for someone who's using this as a proof text then to say, hey, this is emphatic proof that this is what the

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Bible teaches. And if you hold to another, like a heliocentric model, you're incorrect.

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You're unbiblical. How do you respond? How would you explain this passage as well?

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How should we think about this biblically? Well, on the flip side,

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I've heard globe earth perspective, people say, hey, Isaiah 40, 22, that word circle, it refers to a three -dimensional ball.

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It's actually saying this is a proof text for demonstrating that the earth is a globe. And I'm kind of on the fence on this actually for a couple of reasons.

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One is I don't know that it's actually trying to give us a description of the entirety of all that is earth in the most broad sense.

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I don't know that it's trying to do that in the first place. It could be a two -dimensional view of a three -dimensional object. You could say, oh yeah, there are other words in Hebrew that could be used there.

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It just ends up being a debate. I don't know how to get to the conclusion of personally yet. Maybe someone else does.

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I'm just on the fence a bit on that. The word's indeterminate in my opinion, but I think it's actually phenomenological, which is to say, as we get continually in the text, we're not getting people trying to describe the nature in the look from space at earth, what are we looking at?

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We're rather getting people who are describing from an earthly perspective as they look around what they see.

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So it's the phenomenon that they're observing. This is why it discusses things the way it does.

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So what would the circle of the earth be? I think when you stand up and you have an open field around you and not a city full of buildings, if you stand up, you look around and you see a circle.

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It's a horizon that's around you. God sits above the circle of the earth. He's sovereign. He's exalted above all that you see.

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Does it mean to tell us that at the edge of what you see all around you, that's the edge of everything?

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I don't think it's meaning to comment on this at all. It's just saying, here's the person who takes the flat earth perspective, and they take this to mean flat disc, there's a challenge for them.

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And I'll present this to us. I think this is something that they'd really have to be challenged on. If they take the word circle and they go, well, in the

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Hebrew, this means a flat disc. It's telling us the shape of the earth in the broadest sense. The same word, circle, is used to describe heaven in Job 22, 14.

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We read it, it says, thick clouds veil him so that he does not see. And he walks on the vault of heaven.

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Now it's translated here as ESV vault, but it's the same word in the Hebrew. But every flat earth person

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I've ever seen thinks that heavens, we're talking about a dome. And so here they think this word, this circle word must be a dome.

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But then later in Isaiah, they're going to use it to mean it has to be a flat disc because of the nature of word.

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So this is just not how we, we can't be logically consistent. What we should do is say this word has a variety of meanings.

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It could go either way. I don't know. I think it's just talking about the horizon. Gotcha. Gotcha. Andrew, do you have any thoughts on this?

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What are your thoughts so far? It just blows my mind how amazing God has constructed his word in the fact where if people are trying to put an outside standard into his word to interpret it, that the word itself will typically refute the standard.

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When you're just doing a deeper exegesis or having a correct hermeneutic with your approach to scripture, typically other places in the

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Bible will show you, God will correct you by showing you these things that you're not being logically consistent.

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And I think that's a, that's a great thing to have. I mean, God's word just blows my mind. It's just amazing. Okay. Yeah, I definitely would agree for sure.

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And so I think that's again, we'll have some more additional content on this, but again, what you do, the point in being and bringing up these particular areas is that when, regardless of whether it's a flat earth, regardless if it's anything that's brought up when someone is trying to give proof texts to prove their point, it's important to look at the context.

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So again, I think ultimately when, at least my personal opinion is that I don't think the

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Bible adheres towards a globe model or any particular model. I think the Bible ultimately, a lot of that is used as a catalyst to declare the glory of God as Him being the sovereign overall creation and creation emphatically declares

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His glory. And I think ultimately the Bible gives us the preconditions of intelligibility to think scientifically and to kind of, and understand the true world around us.

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And so that's really my personal conclusion when it comes to all this. But again, our focus is, and again, that could be a catalyst until a whole other subject when it comes to this whole discussion of flat earth.

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But our point, again, it's just to look specifically context -wise.

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So another proof text again, because we were talking about the ends of the earth and Mike, you're talking as well to the corners of the earth.

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So here's a passage, and again, this is, regardless of where you stand eschatologically, this is, it's important to understand what is being articulated here.

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So Revelation chapter one, I'm sorry, Revelation chapter seven verses one through four says, after this,

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I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, and that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree.

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So this is a verse then in your research then that would come up as also an additional proof text, because I was seeing some graphics even entered that pulled up that was talking about a map and stationary earth where people were showing there's literal corners of the earth.

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What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. So I mean, if you know what we're, the habit I hope we're seeing here, the consistent habit of those who've tried to use the

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Bible to support a flat earth perspective is taking descriptions in a very literal sense.

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This is the two habits I see. One, take it very literally. And two, apply it to the entirety of earth in the modern sense of the planet or whatever you want to call that, right?

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Not just land or local area or area that you can see, which is how the

28:26

Bible usually uses it, but rather apply to everything. So notice that the term earth here in Revelation seven, one through four, the angels standing at the four corners of the earth.

28:37

Okay. But then if you read on in the verse, it says that no wind might blow on earth or sea.

28:44

Wait, or sea? Isn't earth the whole thing? Isn't it everything? Why does it say or sea? Isn't earth sea just part of the earth?

28:51

Well, again, we're seeing it's just, we're just reading too much into the passage. This has challenged some flat earthers though, because now if you're going to take it this way, you have to say that the earth has corners, yet the earth is a circle.

29:03

So it's a circle and it has corners. So you get these interesting ways of trying to put this together. And I don't even know how to interpret some of these images because I'm like, okay, so there's like a circular earth with an ice wall that you can't go beyond.

29:15

And that's the edges of the earth. But beyond that, there's these corners and the earth is square or, you know, almost cube like an uneven cube or whatever.

29:26

I don't know what you, what do you call that size? I don't know what that's called. The Cuban thirds.

29:31

And there you go. Yeah. And this, this becomes like seen as a literal thing. There's literally four angels literally standing there.

29:39

This is what happens when you use poetic language to influence your cosmology. It's not the point of the text. It starts to get difficult.

29:45

You can't glue it together because it was never intended to be that kind of picture. I think that Isaiah 11 challenges the idea that there are literal corners.

29:53

So let me read to you guys, Isaiah 11, 12. It says he will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

30:03

And why would I quote a verse that says corners of the earth to say the earth doesn't have literal corners, because here the text is talking about gathering them from local countries that aren't really that far away actually.

30:16

So the corners of the earth here is like countries, 500 miles away, a thousand miles away.

30:22

It's not talking about the entire planet or whatever you want to call that. You, you have to, you'd have to make these corners, like in the image that you have there, you have to make these corners inhabited countries now, where Israelites are being gathered from.

30:38

You know what I mean? It's, it's like, wait a minute, that's, this is not working because I thought we couldn't go over there in the first place. That's part of the whole idea.

30:45

Another verse from the, for this is Matthew 24, verse 31. It says, and he will send out his angels,

30:50

Jesus speaking, with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.

30:58

Now it's clear in the context is it's people that are being gathered. These are, these are people that know

31:03

Jesus, right? These are safe people and they're being gathered from habited lands. These are countries all over the place, which is again, an amazing prediction that Christianity is going to spread all over humanity.

31:15

But this is just generic language for all over the place from the four winds, four corners of the earth. We even have specific countries that are mentioned in scripture that are said to have corners from the four corners of it.

31:27

And it's, and it's a country. So those countries aren't squares that have like, they have to have actual four corners.

31:34

It just means all over North, South, East, West. It's just generic language. Yeah. And, and then usually like in the flat earth model that usually the, the country, the continents, they're all kind of centralized.

31:45

And then if you look at it from a aerial perspective, it's usually the ice wall, like on the very outskirts, but then out to the, out to the, pretty much the ice wall, it's pretty much just water and all the continents are centralized.

32:00

That's, that's the, that's usually at least what I've seen. So to try and say like with this, it would make

32:06

Isaiah 11, 12, very problematic because how do you gather Israel from unless there's like some water world scenario where you have, you know, people on these sort of floating, whatever, like out on the outskirts, you start to really jump into hermeneutical gymnastics for sure.

32:23

Yeah. They're not even being gathered from beyond the Middle East. Right. At that point. And so we're, we're looking at, yeah,

32:30

Isaiah 11 talks about the Middle East as the four corners of the earth, because it doesn't mean planet when it says earth, it doesn't mean everything.

32:38

It's just, it's a term that has a variety of meanings. And from the perspective of the original writers, if you're, if you're living around Jerusalem, you're like, yeah, like if you go walking around in the

32:49

Middle East, Babylon feels pretty far away and you're not looking at it from space and thinking of the earth as this little thing on a paper in front of you.

32:57

Yeah. Yeah. And again, and I think you emphasize that as far as too, when you mentioned to the foundations of the earth.

33:03

So again, you know, you mentioned like Micah 6, 2 Isaiah 51, 6, where this language is used, like you need to understand the broader context.

33:11

Like these are not these purposes. If when you look at the, like read the entirety of these, like read the full chapter and what you'll see there's not a specific cosmology given as much as the discussion of the earth is a catalyst to declare the power and the glory of God.

33:30

Like that's, that's what you're seeing. And I think when you start getting into the specific, if you try to start focusing on the specifics, oh, this means it's this particular model in this case, being the flat earth model,

33:40

I think you're losing sight of what that passage is trying to articulate. And that's why it's regardless of what the topic is, you go through chapter by chapter, you know, verse by verse, like don't read things in isolation.

33:54

Look at the, in the same way you want to zoom out, look at the big picture when it comes, when it comes to the text.

34:00

Another, yeah, go ahead. Well, there's, there's one verse we didn't cover yet, but it was about, it has to do with bases, the earth having bases and a cornerstone and a foundation and it's in Job 38.

34:10

Did you want to go over that one? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. That's good. So I think it combines a yeah, it's a good, it's a good one.

34:19

Now these, these are verses that proponents have used. Like I've heard these use, I got them all from them.

34:24

I didn't just make them up. So Job 38 verses four through seven, it says, where does God speaking to Job again, where were you when

34:30

I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding who determined its measurements, surely, you know, or who stretched the line upon it.

34:39

Again, we have a picture of God putting a line out on the earth, which would, you're like, he literally did it.

34:44

If you're gonna take it all literal here, then he did it. He put a giant line. How long was that line? Where is it now? Where did it come from?

34:50

Why did he have to do it on? What were its bases sunk or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars started saying together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

34:59

Now, from a flat earth perspective, there's a literal foundation with a literal cornerstone somewhere on the earth, right?

35:06

And all you have to do is keep reading. Okay. So here's me. I'm just going to keep reading. Here's the next few verses, totally in context, just starting with the next verse or who shut in the sea with doors.

35:17

When it burst open from the womb, when I made clouds, it's garment and thick darkness, it's swaddling band and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors and said, thus far you shall come and no farther.

35:29

And here shall be your, shall your proud waves be stayed. Now, if you want to take this poetic description in Job as literal, then you got to go whole hog and you got to believe that the sea has literal bars and doors that keep the waves from coming up onto the coasts, right?

35:47

Literal bars and literal doors, because there's a literal foundation and a literal cornerstone. There's gotta be a literal measuring line.

35:53

We have to be consistent. The text seems to be very clearly indicating. That's not the meaning of it, right?

36:00

You have to believe that where ocean meets land, God put literal bars and doors. This is easily testable and known at the time, but they had coasts accessible to them as they're reading this.

36:14

It's using picturesque language of bars and doors to talk about how God sovereignly set up things so that the oceans stop, so that we could have land, so that we could have society, so we can have all these things.

36:26

There's an order to stuff and we give God credit for that. So you can go back to that cornerstone passage in Job 38 here.

36:36

If it's a literal cornerstone, you have to believe in a literal gigantic measuring tape that God used in sizing the earth.

36:41

Because in the same verse, he says, who stretched the line upon it? Did the ocean come from a giant womb?

36:49

Because that's what the text says here in verse eight, the sea burst from a womb. That's interesting.

36:55

Who's that? Whose womb was that? Exactly. No, it's just poetic language to discuss the nature of things.

37:02

So it's rich poetry not to be taken literally. And I think that's the case with things like foundations. Although in my opinion, you could have an earth with foundations, no matter what shape it is.

37:12

All you need is large amounts of solid material underneath the surface dirt and the earth has foundations.

37:18

So that doesn't seem like it proves much to me. Right. No, exactly. And even, for example, and this is just example, when you look at what you're trying to prove a point,

37:29

I think this is the case, what we're seeing from our perspective is that we're seeing where there's a commitment to this is the definitive model of what the earth is.

37:41

Let's find verses that have a word that backs up the general model. And then, but you're not really looking at what's your, what's your ultimate conclusions and things you actually have to accept along with that, because if you're going to accept this type of interpretation, then there's other things you have to account for, like the line going through and things like that as well, too.

38:02

Jerry, real quick, real quick. I think part of what I find extremely interesting is the fact that, you know, that there aren't these big doors stopping the sea from going on the earth because you can see it, right.

38:12

You can actually see it. I think part of the issue with some of the flat earth conspiracies, the fact that they believe that the earth, the earth is a disc because they have not seen what the actual earth looks like.

38:24

No, one's actually been to space, right? So everything that we see of the earth, everything that we see of a space, there's some type of a computerized image or something or the other.

38:36

So there's no proof essentially to them that has never been seen. Well, the question I would have for you guys is I understand why on your flat earth models, you don't put big doors on the edge of the seas because you can see the seas, right?

38:46

But have you ever seen the bottom of the ocean? Personally? Have you been to the bottom of the ocean? How do you know there's no doors on the bottom of the ocean, right?

38:53

Why don't, why don't, why aren't those on the flat earth models? All the images you see of the bottom of the ocean, did you actually visit it?

39:00

Or have you seen the specific pillars, you know, which apparently, you know, there's these giant, which means that on the bottom earth, there's just these giant, you know, gaps of open space because that's what a pillar is.

39:11

It holds up a foundation. And so it's kind of like they're making that model, but they're not, it's that I think a lot of times people will make an argument, but they're not truly accounting.

39:22

Like they'll, they'll use that against the person that they're arguing against, not realizing, well, well, can you actually account for that as well too?

39:28

You know, I think, and this is a total, a different category, Mike, and you can give your thoughts on this too. It's that, you know, when people will argue against a mostly charged argument about, you know,

39:38

Anne Frank, you know, why did, why did Anne, why would God allow the

39:44

Holocaust to happen and for Anne Frank to go through what she went through? Well, if you have, your worldview still has to account for that.

39:52

I mean, you, you have to, at some point, all right, let's, let's take out the Christian worldview.

39:57

Like how, how do you account for that? Congratulations, you refuted Christianity. Well, now you have to account for, you know, if you're arguing from the point of being an atheist, well, okay, well, what's, where's the ethic wrong that that survival of the fittest going to its logical conclusion?

40:12

What are you, what are you complaining about? So I think a lot of times people don't really look at what you're actually trying to articulate.

40:19

And even the breadth of the earth, for example, you know, regardless of where you understand, you know, where you stand in eschatology, whether you have more of a, of a partial preterist view or a futurist view of Revelation.

40:31

Again, when you look at, and you mentioned this too, Mike, in Revelation 20, verse seven through nine, this is something that's brought up as well, too.

40:38

When it's talking about Satan being loosed out in his prison and he shall go out to see the nations that are in the four quarters of the earth,

40:47

Gog and Magog. And then it talks about, and then to gather them together in battle, the number of them of whom is in the land of the sea.

40:56

And they went out to the breadth of the earth and encompass the camp of, and the beloved sea and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

41:05

And so even in this, and Mike, you can give me your thoughts too, like regardless of where both any eschatological position, like it's not arguing for a specific cosmology.

41:16

You know, even if you go to like the MacArthur study Bible or somebody who holds to a dispensational view of Revelation, that's not arguing for a cosmology.

41:25

If you have, you know, if you believe that the majority, you know, we would hold to that the majority of Revelation was already fulfilled, right?

41:31

And that's another discussion we could have at some point. But the point in being is that the context, eschatologically, it's not arguing for a cosmology.

41:43

So you can, again, you can hold to that model if you want to. You can't use, for example, like that passage in Revelation, regardless of what your eschatology is, to try and say, this is

41:55

God showing that this is his model of the earth. That's my thought on it. Yeah. Like, like, and just so people get, because we're, we're grabbing all these passages and going, oh, that's not cosmology.

42:04

That's kind of, there are times where the Bible is just speaking plainly, literally about things, you know? So when it, when it says like in John, well, there was a pool,

42:11

Bethesda had five porches, a pool of, where is it? Not Bethesda.

42:20

Anyway, someone's, someone's, we've been talking for a while. That's all good. They're going like, how did you get that wrong?

42:26

Right. Anyway, I mean, archaeologists have discovered this thing. Originally they thought, oh, this is, there was these weird theologians,

42:34

Germans. I mean, I love Germans. Don't get me wrong. Germans are great. But there's German theologians from like the 1700s who were just wacko.

42:40

And these guys were like, well, John is doing an interesting thing about the Pentateuch. There's five porches because there's five books, you know, in the law.

42:50

And you know, that's the reason. And then they go digging in Jerusalem and they're like, oh, there's just five porches there.

42:55

So that's just talking about a literal description for sure. And physical things that happen there. But what we see in this passage,

43:02

Revelation 20 verses seven through nine, it's really interesting. It's partly interesting because it would never occur to anybody that this passage has affirmed cosmological anything about the earth normally,

43:14

I think, right? Unless someone's probably telling them it does. So the indications are, well, there's four quarters of the earth.

43:20

There's nations that are in, quote, four quarters of the earth. And then they're going to be gathered together for battle.

43:26

And then they're going to go up on the, quote, breadth of the earth. And then they compass about the camp of the saints around Jerusalem for a battle.

43:36

And well, Dean Odell, who's, you know, is or was, I don't know, a big proponent of the flat earth views.

43:43

He says, well, this is this word for the breadth of the earth. It's the word platus in Greek.

43:50

And that word, it's, it represents a flat earth because it's where we get our

43:56

English word plateau. Now this has like 30 problems with it when you actually evaluate the claims, because first off, even, okay, where we get our

44:05

English word in a modern English, like, okay, so we've heard this, I've, you know, Calvary Chapel pastor, I've heard this a million times. We get our, we get the word, the

44:12

Greek word dunamis, that's for power, the power of the spirit company. Well, that's our English word dynamite.

44:17

We get the word dynamite from, which is true. We do get dynamite from dunamis, but there was no dynamite in first century

44:23

Greek. And so nobody's thinking about that when they're writing it, who cares what your

44:28

English 2000 years later, we borrow this word for this purpose. It just doesn't matter. But the second problem with it is if it's a plateau, like nobody says, do you see that plateau?

44:38

And then their friends turn them and go, are you affirming the flatness of the entirety of earth? Yeah. It's like, it's a plateau.

44:46

I just mean, it's a plateau. I'm not saying anything about cosmology here. I just look, there's a plateau. So just finding the word plateau connection there wouldn't mean anything.

44:54

If you take the breadth of the earth to be a plateau, then all this means is that the army went up on a plateau.

45:01

Unless you take the word earth to mean the entirety of earth, in which case you have an army that is literally covering the whole earth, including the oceans, because they're saying the earth is flat and they mean all of it.

45:15

So it just starts to be like, what is going on here? How are we interpreting this? But Dean Odell presents this in his teaching, like he's discovered this amazing thing.

45:23

And he's like, I looked into Strong's. I looked into Strong's because Strong's is not the best resource out there.

45:28

I used to think it was when I first was dabbling in really serious Bible study. And then I found out it's a good resource, but it's not what people think it is a lot of the time.

45:39

So are there actual nations then on each of these corners of the earth? And then they're gathering up and they're going up on a plateau earth, the breadth of the plateau.

45:48

It just doesn't mean that. This is an army that covers the entire planet, flat planet earth, and then gathers around Jerusalem based upon, say,

45:59

Dean Odell's interpretation of this passage. When in reality, in ancient warfare, you need flat areas to stage your armies.

46:10

This is just how you stage an army. You don't stage them on a mountain. You stage your army on a flat area. Watch Lord of the

46:15

Rings, okay? You stage your army on a flat area, and then they go to war. And this is what they're doing.

46:21

They're marching, maybe at the valley of Megiddo. There's connections there in scripture. This is a frequently used area for staging armies for battle in the area of Israel.

46:30

And so I think that's probably all that's happening here. Right. Yeah. And even, for example, here's one as well, too.

46:36

And Andrew, you can kind of give me your thoughts, too, if you have any thoughts on these verses as well. Again, context matters.

46:43

So, one of the categories, too, is Daniel 4 .11, which says, "...the tree grew and became strong, and its top reached the heaven and was visible to the end of the whole earth.

46:55

Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all.

47:00

The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it."

47:08

Verse 20 says, "...and the tree you saw which grew and became strong, so that its top reached the heaven that is visible to the end of the whole earth."

47:17

And so even something like this, and I can get for someone who is, again, and I've watched those videos, and again,

47:23

I appreciate the passion that they have. And again, the thing that they at least they're right on when it comes to people who adhere to the they're passionate about God's Word being true, and it having the say in areas of life, and in this case, the creation.

47:40

I get that. I think, but at the expense, but you're jumping into that at the expense of context.

47:46

So, even Daniel 4 .11, like this is a dream that Daniel's having. And even, and I'll admit,

47:54

I've had some weird dreams. And one of the things with dreams that it's always, you're always doing something weird.

48:01

Like, you get into a fight. Like, every single time when I'd be in my dream, whenever I'd be in a situation where I'm fighting for my life, all of a sudden,

48:08

I would be in slow motion. I couldn't move. And all of a sudden, I'd be going there. Or then, I would have a dream where I'd be falling.

48:16

And as soon as I land, I hit the ground like I wake up. But it would be sometimes I'd speed up really, I'd slow down and then speed up when

48:23

I'm falling. All these weird things. And then once you realize you're in a dream, you wake up. So, the very idea of a dream, like the conditions of a dream is that you're seeing things that aren't, they aren't normal.

48:39

Like, the metaphysics of being in a dream is different than being alive here on the earth. So, people have, like, context does matter in that regard.

48:47

Yeah. You know, to take Daniel 4 .11 as saying, hey, if a tree is visible all over the earth, that means it's a flat earth.

48:55

It doesn't work on a globe. I mean, well, I agree that doesn't work on a globe. It doesn't really work,

49:00

I don't think, in real life. I mean, I can't see Mount Everest no matter how powerful my telescope is. So, I don't see how that works.

49:07

But that's kind of like saying, imagine, if you will, a flat earth. It's true now.

49:14

Because Daniel 4 .11 or 4, you know, this whole section is, these are the visions of my head.

49:20

It's described as the visions of my head. So, we shouldn't take that as literal cosmological descriptions. Does Jacob's dream of a ladder, right?

49:28

Does that mean that angels have to climb up ladders to get to heaven? Is that what that means? Like, does

49:34

Joseph's dream about the sun, moon, and stars bowing down to him, does that mean that his dad, Israel, is literally the sun?

49:42

Right. Does that, is that what it means? Does Nebuchadnezzar's dream mean that Jesus is going to return as a literal gigantic meteor?

49:51

Obviously not. Like, this is all, and that's part of the same set of visions and dreams that's in Daniel kind of clustered together.

49:59

So, yeah, I don't think, I mean, it's a dream. Like, that's, what are we supposed to do? It's a dream.

50:05

Yeah. And see, and like, when I think of this passage, I think of other conspiracies, like the giant silica trees that a lot of people believe used to be massive and would grow all across the earth.

50:17

They would say that, what is that rock in Australia? That, that crazy mound looking rock that used to be the base of this giant massive silica tree.

50:25

But I think part of the root of the issue, which I was bringing up earlier, was that if you haven't seen it, right, if you haven't seen it, then you can take poetic language and make it to be literal.

50:38

However, the poetic language that we see in other tests of scripture, talking about the bars of the doors on like the sea and the land, obviously you don't take that as poetic because your eyes have actually seen it.

50:49

But I find that that's an illogical way to interpret scripture because now you're breaking up one section of poetic language and then the next, because you're trying to use it to fit something that's foreign to the actual full body of context of scripture.

51:04

So if you're just trying to use something because it's convenient for you to try to prove a point, but you can't use that same logic to interpret the verse right underneath it, which is a consistent thought process, then it's probably not a good form of harmoneutics in my opinion.

51:21

Yeah. Andrew, so one other question too, we're kind of towards the end of just the verses we're going to cover.

51:27

And again, for those of you who are still hanging around again, thank you for taking the time to listen to us. We are going to have, we have blog content available right now at thecultistshow .com

51:38

under our blog, where we're going to be talking about issues of the firmament, the story of Joshua with the son stood still, and a couple other verses that we didn't cover in this whole discussion.

51:49

And so for any of you who adhere to this, again, we love you guys, guys and gals. We, again, we're here, really the whole point of this is that we need to look at the

52:00

Bible holistically and properly. And again, our gracious contention that we're trying to at least get here is that, you know, if you want to believe that, go ahead, but you're not getting that from these proof texts.

52:15

Like that's what we're saying. And so we're saying that you need to just look at what is the Bible actually saying, and you need to look at it holistically and look at the context.

52:24

So one of the last passages, we'll kind of jump into this. One of the last ones here is the story.

52:30

It's actually one of my favorite, I remember being as a kid, being fascinated by this. It's the story of the temptation of Jesus.

52:37

When Jesus goes out into the wilderness for 40 days, and then all of a sudden he's tempted by Satan in many particular ways, and Jesus combats him with scripture.

52:47

And then the final temptation is that Jesus gets taken up to the high places, and he says, all of these things

52:54

I will give unto you if you bow down and worship me. And he sees all, I believe just all the treasures of the world is how he articulates it.

53:01

Just all, everything that the world can offer. And then he said, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

53:06

So Andrew, when you read that, just from your perspective, just what do you see like when you read this whole passage about this temptation of Jesus, and all of a sudden, you know, the culmination of him being brought up to the high places.

53:21

When you've read that initially, and when you go through that, what do you see, what do you think is the main point of that story from your perspective?

53:28

Yeah, the main point of that story from my perspective is that Jesus is succeeding where Israel has always failed.

53:35

And he's being tempted, yet he is without sin. And he does what Israel always should have done, right?

53:40

Like Israel always built altars in the high places in the very land that God gave them, right?

53:46

They are the great covenant breakers, and I'm no better. I am a covenant breaker myself. I sin every single day.

53:51

So I don't want to say anything in terms of saying I myself am better than ancient Israel. I'm not, but I do have the grace of God that is sufficient for me.

53:59

But I see that in the fact that it's the God, man, Jesus Christ, who succeeds in his righteousness in which

54:06

I wear, where humans fail, where humans fail. But thinking of this text as a, if I was to think of someone who held like the flat earth model,

54:15

I'd have to say there's got to be some mountain in the world that we can go to, that we can see, and we can stand there and see everything.

54:21

But is there? Right. But is there? You actually have the ability now to do that. Go climb the top of Mount Everest.

54:27

It's the tallest mountain we have. Can you see everything there? Or do you believe that everything you've seen on Mount Everest is actually not a real photo of Mount Everest?

54:34

That it's all just, I don't even know how you'd say fake photographs or these people never really actually went there, that it's just a stage in a

54:42

Hollywood set in order to make you think that you can't actually see everything. Because I think that's what you'd have to do if you hold to a flat earth model.

54:48

Or anyone who's ever taken a picture on the top of Mount Everest who used a fish lens camera. They're fake. Yeah, it's fake,

54:54

Jerry. It's fake. Again, we're just showing the logical conclusion. But anyways, yeah, that's what I've seen. In fact, when I look at this passage too,

55:00

I just see really the sovereignty and the supremacy of Christ. And also I see really the importance of maybe what we're talking about in this whole conversation.

55:10

Again, Mike, thanks for, we appreciate you coming on here. It's just the importance of the authority of scripture.

55:17

That Jesus never appealed to his own authority. He had always appeared to, he'd always appear to authority outside of himself.

55:24

And so he's not saying the same because I said so. He quotes to him scripture specifically.

55:30

But yeah, as we wrap up here, maybe give me your thoughts too on this passage. How you saw this being used particularly when it came to your research in the initial video that you did.

55:41

And how should we look at this whole story of Jesus being brought up into the high places and having this interaction with Satan?

55:52

How should we look at this? Well, I mean, I agree with Andrew's summary. It's beautiful and perfect. Yeah. These are the high places.

55:59

Jesus succeeds where Israel compromised. Jesus doesn't compromise with making these stones into bread.

56:08

Israel compromises with like, we're sick of this man, give us meat. Wherever they fail,

56:13

Jesus succeeds. Here he is in the wilderness overcoming. And it's awesome.

56:19

I love it. The theology of it's really neat stuff. He's the one who was tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin.

56:25

But from a Flat Earth perspective, I've heard this used to say, Hey, there's a mountain somewhere.

56:31

Jesus was taken up to it and he saw all the kingdoms of the world. This means he had to have seen like China and he had to have seen everywhere.

56:38

Right? And so now there's some, some of this is just a lack of awareness about topography in Israel.

56:45

So in Israel, within walking distance during Jesus's temptation, he's not just in some random wilderness, right?

56:51

He's in the wilderness, North of the Dead Sea, South of Jerusalem in walking distance. Let's see.

56:56

You can go to Jerusalem. That's 2 ,474 feet high. Mount Scopus is 2 ,710 feet high.

57:03

Most likely the closest, you know, or the highest mountain he could reach in the 40 days of temptation without supernatural powers being used is 3 ,300 feet.

57:14

Now some would say, well, there's an, there's Mount Hermon up in the North. That's 9 ,000 feet high. It is it's 9 ,000 feet high, but guess what?

57:21

There was a temple on Mount Hermon and they, they had gone up to it.

57:26

I remember hearing Michael Heiser, one scholar who in many ways I do like, but on this particular issue, I think he propagates some things that aren't accurate.

57:33

And he said, you know, they didn't climb mountains back then, but actually there was, I mean, the highest mountain in there, anywhere in the region was

57:40

Mount Hermon. It was 9 ,000 feet high. And there was a temple up there. So people had gone up there and guess what they knew. You can't see all the

57:47

Kings of the world on any of our mountains. So, so here's the thought.

57:52

I think this is a supernatural vision, which is why Luke records it slightly differently. It says in Luke 4, 5, the devil took him up and showed him all the

58:01

Kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Took him up in what showed him all the

58:07

Kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Why is a moment of time relevant? Because it's relating to a vision.

58:13

He had a brief vision of all the Kings of the world. It's, you know, either you just showed him the

58:20

King, you know, it just doesn't make sense to add the phrase moment of time unless it's vision related, I think. But another scripture that balances this out is when

58:28

Jesus calls Nathanael to be a disciple of his, I think it's really interesting when I realized this was kind of a parallel passage from a flat earth perspective.

58:35

And he says in Nathanael, Hey, I saw you when you were under the fig tree. And Nathanael's like, how did you see me under the fig tree?

58:41

That doesn't make any sense. Wow. You have divine knowledge. You must be the son of God.

58:47

And on a flat earth perspective, Nathanael would have turned to Jesus and be like, you must've been on a mountain, right?

58:55

Because you could naturally see me. If you can see China, you could see me under the fig tree. But there's a natural understanding that no, you can't just go up high enough to see everything there is.

59:05

This seems to be a vision from the text. Yeah. No, that's, that's really good.

59:10

And then I think just one thing to maybe as we wrap up here, I just have one thought. Someone actually asked me on our cultish page on our

59:20

Instagram, someone actually messaged me. So I actually took a picture of your, of your awesome cup.

59:27

That's great there. So we got to put, you're going to have a bunch of people who are all of a sudden going to want your cups because, because of this podcast, but you know, someone actually asked,

59:36

I think it's a good question. You know, someone asked if, if the

59:41

Hebrews believed a flat earth, biblical cosmology, why didn't God correct them?

59:47

And I think the answer to that question is that, you know, throughout the entirety of history, there have been a lot of different ideas about cosmology whether or not it's the earth is centric, whether or not the sun is centric, or, you know, people in the ancient times had their, had their model as well, too.

01:00:05

Well, ultimately, if you look at the whole story of the Bible, one thing we can agree on is that the

01:00:10

Bible is a linear story. It starts at the beginning and it goes to a conclusion. And the whole purpose of the redemptive story of Jesus coming was not to convince people of a particular model of a particular cosmology.

01:00:25

It was that, it was to talk about the coming of the Messiah, that he was going to save his people from their sins.

01:00:31

That's the story of the gospel. Like that's, that's the whole point being is to save people from their sin, because the main thing is not, the main issue that we have, that mankind has right now, and all the brokenness and all the sin and, and brokenness that we see here in the world, is not a misunderstanding of where the earth is versus where the stars are.

01:00:52

Our biggest problem is that we are separated from a holy God, and that we're tainted with sin. That's the purpose of the gospel.

01:00:58

That's the purpose of the Messiah coming. That's really the focal point, Jesus being the center of history, is that it's

01:01:06

Christ dying for our sins, being raised on the third day according to the scripture, his sin for our righteousness.

01:01:13

That's the hope of the gospel. That's, that's, I think, my perspective, really the focus of the entirety of history.

01:01:21

So I think, really, in this whole aspect of this whole conversation, one, you guys can give me thoughts as you wrap up here, is that we should look to creation, understanding it declares the glory of God, but understand, too, that creation, again, it condemns mankind, it makes them without excuse, and it shows people that they desperately need, they need a

01:01:43

Savior, they need Christ. Like that's the focal point. The focal point of the gospel is saving, is people being saved from their sins.

01:01:51

That's what people need. That's where the focal point needs to be when it comes to us as Christians, is

01:01:56

Christ dying for our sins, not a specific cosmology. I think that's, it has its place, but I think it can be incredibly misguided.

01:02:05

But I think that's, that would be my answer to that question. Do you guys have any last thoughts on that or anything as we wrap up here?

01:02:12

Yeah, yeah. It says in James 3 .1, it says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

01:02:21

That should be terrifying to people when you're opening up God's word, when you're posting things that you're reading necessarily, maybe on YouTube.

01:02:28

Whether you feel that you're correct, Jeremiah 17 .9 says, our hearts are deceitful. We must be able to be corrected by scripture.

01:02:34

And I pose a question to anyone who does oppose the flat earth model. In Acts chapter 7, verse 55, this is the stoning of Stephen, it says, but he full of the

01:02:43

Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, behold,

01:02:49

I see the heavens open and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out the loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.

01:02:55

My question for you would be, how high is that? You could see it, right?

01:03:01

If we're taking these things literal, just as everything else that may be poetic in language in scripture, and I don't think this is poetic by any means, but I'm saying if I'm to think as a flat person who holds to the flat earth model, if I'm looking up, literally heaven is above the firmament.

01:03:17

He must have seen something, but wouldn't it be a speck? Wouldn't it be a dot? Would he actually be able to see who it was? I would say that your thought process of scripture couldn't rightly even understand this.

01:03:28

I would say heaven is close, but we can't see it. We need to be consistent.

01:03:33

And remember, if we teach, we will be judged with much stricter judgment.

01:03:39

It's a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the living God. All right. Mike, thank you again for coming on, man.

01:03:46

Any last thoughts from you as we wrap up here? Well, I do have a couple of thoughts. First, I'll just say thanks for having me on, you guys.

01:03:52

I appreciate this. This content, I think, is really needed in this discussion, and I'm really glad to have it get out there.

01:04:00

In response to the question about what if just the Israelites were holding to a flat earth understanding of things at the time,

01:04:09

I would say this is not okay. It's good for historical background to know what the people at the time already believed, but it's not good to project those beliefs onto scripture if scripture doesn't actually teach it, because then you trap

01:04:25

God into the already beliefs of the people of the time. And so there's times in Israel where they believe in weird things.

01:04:32

They're like, here's God, and here's his Asherah, his heavenly wife, right?

01:04:37

There's Israel to believe that, but the Bible refutes that. The only way we can let the Bible teach us something different than what we or someone else already believes is if we don't just make the very reckless statement of, well, if ancient

01:04:49

Near Eastern people believed it, then the Bible automatically teaches it. And what we're doing is we've said, look, even scholars promote things like they say, well, the ends of the earth is talking about these actual edges on the end of the broadest sense of the earth.

01:05:02

But we showed you the verses in context is talking about Babylon. I'm like, you don't have to be a scholar to know they're wrong.

01:05:08

This is just basic reading skills 101, just taking scripture as it comes.

01:05:14

And so I also am skeptical that the cosmology of the ancient

01:05:21

Near East was this model that we keep seeing put in front of us. But that to me is a different discussion, right? Because whatever they believed,

01:05:27

I can just show scripture doesn't teach that and move on. Yeah. And I think also you have to take with a grain of salt, you know, reading through the lens of the ancient, of whoever the people were at that ancient time, just because, and again,

01:05:42

I think, you know, Mike, you mentioned Mike Heiser. I think he's someone who's definitely a brother and there's aspects where I appreciate him. I think one of the areas where I do disagree emphatically is that I believe he has an overemphasis on reading the scripture through the lens of the people like during that time.

01:05:58

And I think one of things problematic with that is that mankind's history overall is condemned by God in Romans chapter one.

01:06:05

So what you actually see are people during ancient times who know the true and living God, but they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness and they're worshiping the creation rather than the creator.

01:06:16

And versus when you actually have God's covenant people who are truly worshiping him. So they are really a blip in, they're really a grain of sand in comparison to the entirety of history as far as God's covenant people go.

01:06:29

So I think that's another aspect too, just an example why you need to look at things holistically and not take anyone's word for anything.

01:06:36

Don't take my word, don't take Mike's word, don't take Andrew's word, but, you know, look at what God says and have that be first and focal and foremost.

01:06:45

So all that being said, this has been a great discussion. So if you guys have enjoyed this podcast and conversation, go to our social media, definitely let us know what you thought in regards to these passages.

01:06:57

Again, we weren't, there's a lot more we could cover. We didn't just for the sake of time and prep, we didn't have the time to cover everything.

01:07:03

So go to the cultistshow .com to our blog. You'll see some content discussing the firmament, a couple other passages we weren't able to address just for the sake of time.

01:07:13

But once again, Mike, thanks for coming on and we will have to get you on in the near future at some point. Sounds fun, man.

01:07:19

I love getting to spend time with you guys and I really believe in what you're doing. So awesome. And we appreciate keeping on keeping on. Yeah.

01:07:24

And we appreciate you as well. All right. Thank you guys for hanging out with us. And we'll talk to you next week on cultish. Talk to you guys soon.