Have You Not Read - S1:E8

Welcome to have you not read a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ in the edification of the

Saints I'm Dylan Hampton and with me are Michael dear and Andrew Hudson Before we dig into our topic.

We humbly ask for you to rate review and share the podcast. Thank you Today, we're gonna be diving into a few questions that we've had sent in anonymously to our website

The first off we're gonna go with is hell a real place Is hell a real place?

Well, that's a great question the doctrine of hell or the understanding of hell is in sad disrepair in the

North America Evangelical Church, and I imagine in a lot of places for reasons that Don't really pertain to the question

But the question is being asked because it's not something that we talk about or think about or are well

Discipled concerning and So people wonder is hell a real place when we read the

Scriptures very often. We find that Jesus lays alongside the teaching of hell the teaching of heaven and he talks about heaven being a real place and He talks about hell being a real place

So in that sense what we believe about hell its realities

What it means Its specific nature will also have an impact on what we believe about heaven if we believe that heaven is eternal and if that Heaven means being in the the favor and the love and acceptance of God Eternal life knowing

God and a loving relationship eternally then What we believe about hell is also so informed.

This is some passages that certainly Affirm this The for example,

I think one of them would be in Matthew chapter 25 where Jesus speaks to his return that when he comes back he's going to Raise everyone from the dead and the goats are going to be on the left and the sheep are going to be on the right

Those who do not know him who are in rebellion to his kingdom will be called the goats and they're on his left

And those who do know him and are part of his kingdom Those who are Christians born -again, they are called sheep and they're on his right and that's the vision that's the the picture in vision for us and he has two different things to say to those on his right and those on his left and those on his right he

Welcomes into his presence and promises it an everlasting Fellowship and eternal life and those on his left.

He says something very different in Verse 46 he says

Matthew 25 verse 46 concerning the goats or concerning the unsaved and These will go away into everlasting

Punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And so you see how closely those ideas are

Placed alongside one another and while there is a great deal of Instinctive belief in heaven.

Oh, of course, I believe in heaven, even though maybe the content of that belief is very fuzzy and perhaps very unbiblical

The readiness to believe in a place called heaven is apparent. Whereas the reticence to believe in a place called hell it's also just as Obvious in our culture today

Whereas Jesus talked about them side by side so often that they are everlasting eternal places

He also told a parable one time in the gospel of Luke About a certain rich man and a beggar named

Lazarus And how they ended up in very different places the reason why

Jesus used these characters in his story is because there was a

Belief in his time that if you were wealthy That meant that God loved you more that you were closer to God had more of his favor

And that clearly those who were wealthy and rich were those who were who had the best opportunity to enter into heaven

Jesus spoke to his disciples after Dealing with the rich ruler who went away sorrowful.

He was unwilling to repent of his idolatry And Jesus told his disciples that it would be easier for a rich man to get into heaven

It'd be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven meaning The largest moving creature you've ever seen through the smallest opening your eye has ever seen than for a rich man to get into heaven and Jesus was doing that for a shock value because The assumption was the rich were the ones who were up at the front of the waiting line to get in and that everybody else

You know had a much harder time of it. And so his disciples said well, then who can be saved? I mean if they're if the rich whom we assume are being favored by God Can't get in then then who can get in and then

God said that what is impossible with man is Possible with God so salvation is by the grace and power and the sovereignty of God But that brings us back to this story in Luke 16 about a rich man who ends up in hell and the the the poor man

Who they would assume was under the judgment of God because he was suffering And he ends up in a wonderful place in heaven sitting right next to Abraham and what we learned from the story is that the the man the rich man who has died and he rich man died and was buried verse 22 says and verse 23 says and being in torments in Hades or in hell

He lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom and Jesus is you know

He's bringing a story together here He's not saying that there's gonna be you know A hotline between hell and heaven and the people are gonna be talking but this is for the purpose of the story

But let's notice that the body is buried in the ground but the person the the real inner man is still existing and living and he's in torment and He sees that Lazarus is not in torment and he asks

Simply for a drop of water so that he could have some relief of the torment of the in the flame that he is enduring

What kind of flame can this be when his body is buried in the ground and that his spirit is in torment?

Well again, we're dealing with with metaphors and pictures Jesus is getting down on one knee as it were trying to explain things to a three -year -old

Because these matters are beyond us and yet even they're not comprehensible.

We can still understand them by the revelation of God and This rich man is reminded that there is no way for Lazarus to come to him

There's a great gulf fix between heaven and hell So there's not going to be anyone in hell who's going to find an escape to get out and go to heaven, right?

There's no purgatory. There's no in -between state that maybe you can get out of the suffering and get out and get on to Paradise and there's no way for Lazarus a saint

Having a good seat in heaven for him to get down to hell. He's going to he's perfectly preserved There is nothing's gonna happen where he trips and ends up in hell, you know, he's perfectly safe.

There's a great gulf So these things are fixed we read and these are the assumptions

These are the teachings of Jesus Christ that heaven is a real place a real place of comfort a real place of peace a real place of rest whereas Hell is a real place of No rest restlessness without torment without respite.

So We see that Jesus makes Makes this clear in his

Teachings that heaven and hell are real places now One of the one of the challenges that we have is that the doctrine of hell is under a great deal of attack a lot

Skepticism and unbelief a lot of denial that a good and merciful Compassionate gracious God who forgives and loves everybody

Would ever create a place called hell and that would he and how could we ever think that a loving forgiving and gracious merciful?

God would send any anybody to hell Who simply opted out of believing in Jesus or never heard the gospel preached to them?

Why would a good loving merciful God send anybody to a place called hell Where they will be in torment forever and ever that doesn't sound right that doesn't sound right that doesn't sound just That doesn't sound gracious.

That doesn't sound merciful That is that just doesn't compute with our understanding of God and it's important to realize that skepticism about hell

Doesn't come from the Bible It is everywhere affirmed The the skepticism and concern about the

Bible comes from our from man's imaginations about Who they think

God ought to be right like all those all those terms you just threw out there just loving

Gracious we've got some problems with definitions there. We do and we've got some problems with some idolatry and some pride

Everybody who complains about the plain teaching of hell in the Bible and says that that doesn't compute with a merciful

God and God Would what they're saying is that they believe that they are more merciful than God That they have a better handle on mercy than Jesus did and that's a very dangerous thing to think

We don't understand enough about the holiness of God and we don't really understand enough about the justice of God And what sin actually deserves and that's the main problem, but it's how a place yes, it is a place it is it is a distinct

Separation from the favored presence of God It is a kind of exile

But it is an exile and punishment overseen by God himself

He is the one who is bringing the hot anger of his own

Wrath against those who are in hell and so we are to understand that the

The place called hell is one that is warned about many many times by Christ and his

Apostles and we are to take warning and recognize that a holy God has every right to exercise his justice against our sins and Unless and unless we turn to Jesus Christ and find in his person and work our righteousness and our forgiveness and our reconciliation

If we go to hell we get exactly what we deserve And that's what the scriptures robustly testify to Could you maybe flesh out the differences that we get from the two terms that we have?

Yeah, Hannah and Hades and the texts Yeah, that's a good question because when you read in the

Old Testament very often you're coming across a word like Hades It's in the newer translations the word

Sheol And it's an interesting it's interesting thing that the translations some of the older translations translated

Hades or Sheol as hell. Okay, and then that was same

English word was brought forward into the New Testament and covered other covered work

Greek words that didn't necessarily cohere with the

Old Testament Hebrew words and so there could be a little bit of confusion there depending on what translation you're you're working with the

Full Explanation of what hell is is a New Testament doctrine

It is something that you find in the New Testament But it is fully affirmed by the

Old Testament in some very significant ways For example, the language of fire and brimstone in regards to hell is based on Old Testament imagery of God's judgment the language of Gehenna The the idea of Gehenna and being a valley just outside of Jerusalem Where the trash was burned and so on that is a metaphor.

That's a metaphorical Reference that Jesus uses to describe what hell is but that comes that goes back to things that were happening in the

Old Testament regarding a valley where Israelites took their infants to go burn them alive to the false god

Molech and because of that God brought horrid judgment upon these people and This same valley was filled with dead bodies that were rotting and then it became a trash heap an accursed place

So this is a perfect kind of metaphor to use when talking about God's everlasting judgment after death.

So there are some Old Testament pictures that become Very important material in the

New Testament tried to explain what hell is and again This is something that we cannot comprehend, but we are given what we need to understand

Further when we talk about the word Sheol sometimes translated Hades in the

Old Testament questions arise when we see Affirmations that not only the wicked but the righteous go to Sheol not only the wicked but the righteous go sometimes translated

Hades So so what does that mean? Sometimes people have developed doctrines of losing your salvation based off of those passages

But we don't need to do that what we need to do is think about how the Bible it talks about death that Sheol in the

Hades is an expression of the grave and death is an enemy and It is not something where we should be eager to die where we look at death and say oh,

I can't wait Or, you know, I'm really looking forward to dying and because I love my loved ones and we know what awaits us on the other

Side to be with Jesus. I'm hoping that they'll die soon, too We're not a death cult death is an enemy that we understand

Has a doom date Christ has been raised from the dead to die no more and He is on the throne at the right hand of the father and he is reigning until all of his enemies are placed as a footstool for his feet and the last enemy to be defeated is death and So the clock is ticking on death and death will be defeated.

But death is a damnable thief I hate death. I've watched death steal my loved ones before my very eyes and I can't do anything about it

Death is not something that we should look forward to embrace or rejoice in we rejoice in Christ We rejoice in the promises.

We know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord So when we read in the Old Testament about death, we need to recognize that they were looking at death as an enemy and that The righteous had some hope okay, they did have hope that they would yet still live after death that they would

They would again be raised up from they would again stand upon the earth at that after death after For when

Daniel goes to his end then he will have his rest so there was hope for the believer, but nobody was looking to die and death was a death is a reality that has been brought about because of sin in the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil you will surely die now the difference between the righteous and the unrighteous in the

Old Testament when it came to Sheol and you know the idea of Hades and so on is this

The wicked when they died this was Not only a judgment upon their sin, but they died without hope and When God brought death as a judgment upon the wicked it was it is is a judgment

In which there was no hope for them All right So we need to read it that way and understand that when the wicked were dying

They were dying and they were being swallowed up by Sheol without any hope afterwards And this was an act of a just and righteous

God against the enemies of his people So that's why sometimes when you read in the Old Testament and you read about Sheol and Hades and so on it sounds like hell

Well, why because well because hell is about the judgment of God and this hopeless death is also the judgment of God versus the righteous who

Still they they want to die Lord deliver me from Sheol. What does that? What does that mean?

they're asking for deliverance from death and truly in all of those Psalms and prayers and concerns and so on and they are resolved in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as he defeats

Death he defeats the one who had the power of death to enslave men to the fear of death

He won a great victory over our enemy in that regard. So I think that that is you know

When we look at it that way and we read the Old Testament expressions in light of the New Testament I think there's a lot of clarity in today's culture.

We still see the vestiges of understanding That who the aggrieved party is and the nature of the grievance

Should determine the punishment even criminals behind bars

When they find out that there's a fellow inmate who harmed a child

They think that just incarceration is not enough That there should be further punishment.

So even ostensibly criminals understand Why an

Eternal punishment through their own actions they understand They can't account for it but they can understand and demonstrate that this eternal punishment is just Because who the aggrieved party is and the nature of the grievance

Trying to as someone might have called it the great controversy Trying to say

I am the Nate I'm the driver. I'm the master I am the one who will determine good and evil.

I Am the one who will say this is how it should be What what greater?

Grievance could there be than to seek to throw God off his throne. I Can't think of it.

I can't think of anything else and yet that's what our first parents did

Right, too. It doesn't it doesn't sound It doesn't sound egregious to our ears when we read for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Sounds like we you know, we'll we tried but we fell a little bit short because we can't jump as far as God can jump

Well who can blame you? Did this but the reason why it doesn't it doesn't sound egregious to our ears is because We are not

Holy as God is holy. We are not as concerned about sin as he is concerned

We are not as passionate about the glory of his name as he is for the glory of his name

Because he is God and we are not and the main reason why we don't understand the necessity of an everlasting punishment called hell

Is because we don't treasure God as much as he treasures himself And if he didn't treasure himself in the way that he did he'd be an idolater

There's a weightiness to God the word glory Kabod in the

Hebrew means weightiness and that's the idea that you have in the New Testament about glory is weightiness if you were to take all of the character and attributes of God and multiply them all together times in Eternity and this was done in a measure of weight.

You'd have an idea of the weightiness of God Think about the

Think about the science teacher in the classroom trying to teach his students about gravity and he has suspended a sheet a bed sheet

From various points in the room and he gathers everybody around this dark blue Sheet and he wants to show them how gravity works and the solar system and so he takes a bowling ball

And he places it in the middle of the sheet and what happens It goes down and the entire sheet goes down with it and you can see the slope of the gravity visually and everything goes towards that bowling ball and that's the and and if you were to put you know a golf ball in there or a baseball or what they all go rolling straight to The bowling ball because that's the weightiness and when we think about the weightiness of God his glory

To fall short of the glory of God When we have been made in the image of God we have broken the standard by which he has made us

So it's falling short of the glory of God isn't well I I jumped as far as I could who can blame me that I couldn't get farther

It's I'm wearing the uniform of the of God himself and I am

Betraying that uniform every day and in every way. I am not only a wall.

I am a traitor and That's what that's what it means And then to be under the wrath of God is to be under the the weightiness of that offended glory a white hot

Fiery glory that's been offended and to be under that the wrath of God abides upon the sinner and without a mediator without Christ without someone else a substitutionary atonement without Christ bearing that wrath upon himself

Satisfying the justice of God as our propitiation upon the cross Then without that without him

Then we will bear it ourselves and that is the everlasting expression of God's judgment called

Hell, it's maybe a little bit tangential, but it still has to deal with the doctrine of hell and those who adhere to annihilation ism and The text that we've been going through in your

Sunday school class in Revelation 14 Verse 11 and the smoke of their term torment goes up forever and ever

They have no rest day and night Those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name now

I'm going to focus on the smoke of their their torment going up forever and ever when we have sacrifices made in the

Old Covenant and the smoke rises up It's it's seen as a savory sweet smell correct and something that is supposed to propitiate propitiate right so this this eternity and hell is actually a eternity of Something that is going to propitiate for their continued

Sinfulness and eternity is it not or is am I reading this?

Oddly, I would say that that God is Certainly satisfying his justice regarding their sin, right?

There is there is not any indication that These sinners go out of existence

Though we may think that you know, well certainly Certainly there's gonna be an end to it. Otherwise God isn't merciful.

But again, that's us projecting upon God rather than us submitting to him so Certainly as we see pictures in the

Old Testament about the sacrificial system and the sweet smelling aroma coming up to him

But those are the shadows of Christ because those were substitutionary atonements, there are other passages in the

Old Testament that deal with smoke rising up before the Lord and Even the expressions that there's smoke rising up forever and ever a passage in Isaiah 13 about Babylon and her smoke rising up before the

Lord forever and ever as an expression of God's justice being satisfied regarding some judgment that he has brought to pass

But the judgment of sinners for their sins And they have no mediator

I don't know if that's ever called a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord who does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked

Okay, so we find that we find that in the scriptures that it isn't something where he

We see the substitutionary atonement in shadow throughout Israel's history

And those are sweet smelling aromas, which are fulfilled in Christ sacrificing himself for us

We also see other kinds of smoke rising up and that's when there was no mediator and there was no salvation and it was the judgment of God and he is righteous and good and There is a

Satisfaction there a satiation. Yeah, there's a satisfaction there But the question is is there a delight filled pleasure there?

And we're not given that language. We're not given that language and there's something there that's you know, of course beyond my ability to grasp but there is a delight and a joy when we

Do something for somebody else that didn't need to be done Right where where we do we when we give a gift and we are we show kindness and we or we

Put some effort into doing something for somebody that they never saw coming and it was a huge and there was a does a joy there's a savoring and delight in that and but then there's also a different time now,

I don't take a Sweet savory delightful joy and perhaps doing something that needs to be done that has to be done and I've got to do it and and I may in my

Preference desire something else But I know this is the right thing to do and I'm gonna do it and when it's done well that needed to be done and These of course are not what we project upon the

Lord, but I think there's something of God Reveals himself to us

Having a right hand and sitting on a throne and so on even though he's a spirit and does not have a body like man he also reveals himself to us in man shaped words

Having to do with affections and emotions and so on and so forth so that we can understand him again He's accommodating to us in that though I'm not trying to put our emotions on to him

But I'm saying there's something reflective of of God us being made in the image of God Being renewed in Christ godliness being worked out in us that we can kind of understand the difference between the smoke rising up as The substitutionary atonement of Christ versus the smoke rising up of hell both show us the justice of God Both show us that God is holy and that he does not sweep

Sin under the cosmic rug, but he deals with it yet in Christ There is a delight there

That is not it is not there when it comes to hell, right? It may be propitiation wasn't what

I was like. I was looking for satiation But yeah, what has to be quenched there is is the need for God's justice?

Yes, and if you have annihilation ism nothing that that need is not satiated, right?

And so that smoke doesn't go up forever and ever as it should Signifying his justice forever and ever.

Yeah, so the annihilation the annihilationist argument focuses in on man Okay, and talks about the limitations of man the the nature of man and it's very man centered

The the doctrine of eternal hell the reason why it's eternal and I think that the scripture is just easily testified to that Focuses on God his immutable holiness

His everlasting nature. Well, that's good We'll take a quick break from the heavy questions and we'll go into our book recommendations or media recommendations

Whichever you so choose start with you Michael. Okay. Well, I am reading about Bitcoin Right now and I've finished up One book

I think it's called layered money, which is interesting. It was basically a distillation of a Somebody else's more heavy academic work about the nature of finances and the role that Bitcoin is currently playing in that regard and that was interesting read because I not spent a lot of time thinking about what

Currency is or what money is in its nature? and Even though I'd heard a lot about Bitcoin and messed around a little bit with it.

I really don't understand it, you know But then through that book I learned how complicated the

American dollar is and you know, I kind of like Oh, I thought Bitcoin was complicated. The American dollar is like even more complicated.

That's crazy That was a book that you actually lent to me Dylan. I appreciated that and then I got barely started on another

Book called the Bitcoin standard and we had a lot of disruption in our life. So I'm just now getting back to that but In between those and talking about media.

I wanted to teach my kids about what I had learned So as part of our part of our homeschool we do

Some history science focus throughout the week and so I wanted them to learn about the science of economics

What is a dollar how to how those finances work, what does it mean so on? So so we watched some stuff on that and that was that was great.

And then we made our own We made our own cryptocurrency And I played around with that for a little bit and they were you know

Trying to hire each other to do their chores and stuff like that So so that that was fun as we kept track of our own public ledger together and and and experimented with that So what about you

Andrew? I'm gonna talk about the seduction of Christianity by Dave Hunt and the premise of the seduction of Christianity is

Departure from biblical Christianity into self -help ism and how psychology has

Played a large role not only society in society, but also in infiltrating what some would call

Christian counseling The idea that you're not credentialed and so therefore you have nothing to say regardless if you're a

Pastor or not. Oh, you don't you don't understand these matters. So it was a really it's a really good book to help you to understand

The origins of where psychology coming into the church arose and then also some of the ramifications now

I will say that he does talk a little bit about how you know like in End -times type things and this is a these are signs of the end times and I'm one of those people that it's like it's been the end time since Acts chapter 2 at the very least

Very explicit there. But yeah, it's it's a great resource to understand the infiltration of pop or psychology in the church

Yeah, very interesting. I will go ahead and Recommend or talk about something

I do kind of in my spare time as far as reading through different types of books, I Have talked to Michael about this before but I'm going through a sort of a study of dragons and how they've been dealt with through literature throughout time where they originated from That serpent of old we as we know he he was there in in the garden so that's where I first take my cue of dragons and and how to understand them as a as a character, but I've I've gotten to the point to where I've taken different different texts like Jason and the

Golden Fleece Bale wolf epic of Gilgamesh Bell and the dragon which you recommended to me and And juxtapose them to The types of literature that we have today like the reluctant dragon

Aragon Tolkien which he's to me Tolkien and Lewis are kind of special characters because they don't take

The same the same view as a lot of modern literature does on dragons tales of Earthsea as well has a lot of dragon stuff in it as well and Just looking at oh and the the eon trilogy which

I was forced to read the first book of and I do not think I was forced to read it in college for a

Fiction course and I do not think I'll I'll read the other two, but that's that's besides the point But just seeing how we've gone from the dragon and understanding the dragon as opposition to the king in any given situation

Most of the time in classical literature even in pagan literature mind you like, you know

Gilgamesh he's he's an enemy of the dragon and Jason is an enemy of the dragon but today we we have the reluctant dragon that we cozy up to and there's supposed to be this big fight, but we as main characters in those that literature we cozy up to the dragons and watching it kind of morph into a

To the point to where now we attach consciences with dragons and Aragon and they're a part of our conscience

And I find that a little bit Worrying especially if you're supposed to view dragons in a certain in a certain way with certain typology and I know that maybe that may be getting a little too

Meta for certain people, but I see it as Especially in the trilogy

Aeon where they they use the dragon in a sort of transgender leading towards an exception of transgender mindset and ideology, but all these all these texts of about dragons have been especially the classic literature have been real fun to read and Understand the difference between the pagan view of what the purpose of the dragon serves and narrative versus a

Christian view Whereas in Beowulf the dragon comes to the king provokes the king before his face and the king is even though he may win glory in Fighting off the dragon.

He's doing it to free his people and his and his land from the scorch

Whereas in pagan literature Gilgamesh and Jason and the Golden Fleece. They're actually going to seek out dragons

It's not self -sacrificial necessarily it's not risking something whereas in Beowulf obviously he risked his life and so did a wig left with him but the the pagan use of the dragon as a mechanism or as a character versus the

Christian one is definitely interesting to watch and Juxtapose one to the other.

Yeah, whereas dragons in more classic literature were used for contrast

Now they're used to Synthesize and mix things up and bring everything together into one and in actually like you are to in most of these cases the

Consolation of the stories in modern literature with with the heavy emphasis on dragons is harmony with dragons, right?

you're brought into one with dragons your conscience becomes one with the dragon and We all rule together now and we bring peace on earth through demon possession

And that's that's that's kind of the point where I'm getting towards it and I know that maybe No, you're just nitpicking but I'm seeing this kind of push from modernism to post -modernism this push to give way or Give a little credence to Dragons being reformable if you will

So that that's those that's my recommendation and all the all the classic dragon stuff and if you're able to go through the new stuff without being

Tempted to and enjoy that to too much of a degree Go ahead and go after it.

But I it's a it's a dragon study. That is not an obsession with dragons. We'll say that But I actually think my recommendation leads into the next question quite well

Oh good, or at least my understanding of the next segue the next question It is what does the

Bible say about dinosaurs? Oh Yeah, so what does the Bible say about terrible lizards?

Okay. Well we have language in the Old Testament concerning Leviathan and behomoth that God uses in humbling

Job so God describes, you know beasts that he has made that man can even

Begin to figure out how to tame or Remember that God, you know told Adam be fruitful multiply fill the earth subdue it

You know take dominion over the beasts of the beasts of the earth, you know And to exercise dominion over these creatures and we have

Adam naming the animals and so on But when God talks to Job he talks about these animals these creatures that man

It obviously doesn't know how yet how do we

Exercise dominion over these beasts that are so far beyond our capacity and and of course

God is making a point with the descriptions of behomoth and Leviathan that You can't handle these

You know and I made them That's the that's the point of the passage is to humble

Job And kind of put Job in his proper place And then when we read the passages we say, okay well these descriptions of Leviathan having no scales and breathing fire and you know

Good luck taking him with hooks and we read about the homeless with the tail It's like a like a tree trunk and you know all these descriptions that do not don't fit a hippo and don't fit a crocodile and so usually the

Fashionable thing to do today is to associate the descriptions of these two with pagan mythos the gods of various other people groups and to talk about how there's pagan mythology in the book of Job and how this this worldview is so incompatible with other parts of the scripture and and so on and that's the fashionable thing to do is to is to run with it to show the tension attention in scripture where clearly

Things in the you know, there's there are contradictions in the Bible and so on that's it That's a interesting little distraction from God saying

I made these creatures You know and you don't even know how to handle them in that God answers job out of a whirlwind

Which is another thing that God made you can't handle and so on and so forth. So yeah, they're dinosaurs in the

Bible Sure. Yeah, we call them dinosaurs terrible lizards And these are these are massive creatures of God's creation that you know

That are far beyond our ability to to handle we have plenty of evidence in the fossil record large animals and creatures that have been preserved and show that God made a whole lot of stuff

That we don't have around currently in great abundance though. We haven't been everywhere

Yet, and I think we're in the single digits of exploring the oceans, but we pretend like we knew everything

So there's been a lot of species that the experts have told us 100 % have been are extinct and then they find they find them living and thriving in other places

So, you know, I don't know. I'm somebody who thinks there's plenty of reason to believe that what we would call dinosaurs today

Some of them are still around probably and if If anything, they only recently were all taken out by various for various reasons

But the fossil record is not something that supports You know millions and billions of years either.

There's too many holes in that theory if you use the scientific method and and stress the the the hypothesis that you know this sediment layer was was this aeon and the next sediment later was this aeon and so on and if you use the scientific method to to investigate that and then you have

Fossils running, you know vertical through hundreds of millions of supposedly of years of sediment and then you have

Things that were supposed to be extinct and higher levels and things that weren't supposed to have evolved in lower levels and so on You come to say

I don't think that the hypothesis holds up over time To which people say trust the science

But yeah, I think there's plenty of evidence that the Bible it says the Bob the the world was created 6 ,000 years ago great lizards were a part of it

There was a massive flood and we live we we have the evidence of that all around us Did any of them survive the flood though?

Well sure. Yeah, absolutely Because Job Job came after the flood right, right

I mean, I like this like the idea that you know, we find his we find his name his longer name

Jobab in the list of Esau's descendants as one of the kings of Edom in Ezekiel in Genesis 36 and it makes sense that when his compatriots come to talk to him and they

Talk about certain subject matters. It doesn't really fit, you know, kind of the individual rancher kind of guy

But it really fits somebody who has had a rulership On his shoulders and he's responsible for all kinds of things and then they're and they're dealing with him along those terms

So God's talking to Job about dinosaurs In the days in which

Israel was living in Goshen and perhaps experiencing

Some of the first vestiges of their enslavement to the New Pharaohs and so on I mean that time frame

God's talking about dinosaurs. So yeah, the reason I thought it'd be a good segue From dragons to dinosaurs is because I've heard recently that they judging by the

T -Rex's Short arms and the way his fingers are set that they actually could have had massive wings attached to them

And there's your dragon, right? Yeah. Well that makes sense I mean, is it they also said hollow bones and they were light and and so on and so forth

So I did find some T -Rex Bones up in was it

Montana or where'd they find it? They still had the blood in it So, you know people were getting excited like maybe they could have a real life

Jurassic. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah well since we had that Light -hearted question.

We'll go right into another light -hearted question. You're big on family and Education will you ever have any of the kids and here on the podcast to see what they've learned test?

The small young minds. Well, that would be interesting to maybe interview some of the children

I have found that when you're not Necessarily setting up a formal interview.

They tend to do better I'm always more impressed with what comes out under a little bit of pressure

Or maybe just off the cuff that the things that they remember It's are so surprising to me the way that they

Interpret Situations and maybe say something that's based on something that they learn

I'm always Encouraged when I have been teaching or trying to or my wife

Beck has been teaching the kids and especially the boys Their attentions is all over the place, you know, and they look like They can't sit still but then they've been listening the whole time and They Process it and are able to talk about these those things

Even applying the truths that we've shared with them later on So those are the things that I think are most encouraging.

I like to read a proverb a day and Though one of those proverbs that you know, they run two sentences long

And each one is an image right each one is a picture it it's it strikes the imagination in like a like a match right it just just flares up in the mind of a child and Then you just talk with them about it and ask them simple questions about the image and before long they get it you know and that They can all kind of discuss it together and if my kids are you know?

15 11 10 8 I'm getting it wrong 11 10.

How old are they? 8 and 5 and so on so I can and of course Jackson's little infant but we we ask ask him questions and they can do they can grab hold that image and they can talk and they can kind of go back and forth and so Those are the things that I think that are enjoyable.

I don't know how he would do on an interview You know give him a topic, you know Yeah, I don't know it's like when they take a test it's like freeze up and get all nervous and that kind of thing so Or we could just do what

Joel did to us earlier and he just hits record without telling us Yeah in the middle of conversation. Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, I don't think Killian would do real well in a seat Let alone with a microphone.

These spins. So yeah, these would be very popular All right, just not a lot of room in here to do the calisthenics.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Gotcha I don't know what to say to the question per se.

I think it might be an interesting thing to explore one day However, I'll just go where my mind went with this question my son who's seven was sitting in the church sermon time and There was made mention of a floating goat

Yeah Trampling and It really caught his attention and I I really think that there are times

Where when we're reading Bible passages, we're not necessarily Seeing it for what it is because really how do floating goats trample anything

Right, but it drove a great conversation when we got home that Where he left off from his understanding of what was being talked about to my daughter who is 12 now and us being able to talk about the

Empires of the time and well Who are who is this floating goat that then has four subordinates that takes over afterwards?

and of course you have Alexander and his generals and then really you only we had a hard time remembering the other two generals, but the

Seleucid yeah, and Ptolemaic Empires really took ascendancy and It was something it was a great point of discussion for not only the sermon but to really weave in a lament that my wife and I had about how in public school learning world history

Doesn't have any meaning. Hmm. It's meaningless It's just one thing happens and the next thing happens and the next thing happens, right?

Cuz who cares? every every culture or every generation is tabula rasa a clean slate that you're

You should chart your own destiny who cares what came prior or or whatever is spoken of Prior is done.

So in the sense of what a shame right? How awful was that because we have this sense of Superiority of the now, you know, we're so far more advanced and we're we're much better people than what came before those idiots

We're moderns now. Yeah, you know the moderns from a hundred years ago. They said they were moderns Yeah, but we're there we're very civilized and we don't do barbaric things anymore

Well, I'm in that's just that's the that is the language of the service of the state when you're teaching

History went with a presupposition that the state gets to interpret the taboo when the state gets to interpret whether Calvin Coolidge was better than FDR or Vice versa.

They're the ones that are gonna put that out there for you. They're gonna write those textbooks for you Calvin Coolidge was better. Oh, I agree It's just you don't hear anything about Calvin Coolidge in public school, right because that would overturn the almighty dollar and in FDR is the one who kind of propped propped up our dominance in the world and in the economy and we have to Hold on to that.

We have to grip that so tight. And so we're gonna have The 400 experts the 400 priests right 400 textbooks 400 profits of bail on on payroll

Yep, and we are we're gonna go disseminate it out to the people and this is what I experienced lived under in public schooling and was

Never really taught to read outside of or to think that you could read outside of that, right? Like you were you were taught that that is the only thing

That matters is the language or the learning that serves the state. It's mythos

It's a narrative and that's exactly it's a good lament to have on a car ride home but that's what you have to we have to be brought back to is the understanding of That's that's a presupposition built upon the state as God Yeah, and and even

I mean we have we have a lot of homeschoolers here and of course, Oklahoma Being one of the best states.

All right, it's not the best state in in these United States Thank God for Oklahoma.

Yes for homeschooling and of course This stretches back to the 80s when it was

You know a very difficult thing to do and my parents homeschooled my brother and I here in the state of Oklahoma But we also need to recognize that even even as Christian Families often not always but often as we're trying to homeschool our kids even when we're using

Curriculum that has been designed by our fellow fellow brothers and sisters in Christ That they are that they are constructing education as a parody of What the state has?

Forged already, so Why do we separate subjects the way that we do?

Why do we do grades? What grade are you in? Why do we do that? Why when it comes to our older children

Why are we trying to? match their high school education with state education standards when we have quite properly

Exited the the cult and the in the temples and Brought our children out of that because we didn't want to render our children to Caesar We want to render them under the

Lord to raise them in the third dimension of the Lord Why are we modeling our education based on the paradigm offered to us by the state?

This was the question that was really actually it was burdensome to me. I don't even know it

I want my children to be able to read And to write and do arithmetic in the fear of God That's that's what

I want them to do and there's all sorts of things in God's good creation to learn about the animals he's made and The way that that he's created things like, you know the atoms and molecules and and the created, you know things on a galaxy level and on the molecular level and Things about the laws of logic and the laws of arithmetic and and then what about what about history?

What about the way that and what about the shape of the earth and here's this country and there's this history and but but reading things in light of the the spread of of the gospel these last 2 ,000 years and The the hope that was built up for the arrival of Messiah the previous 4 ,000 years and doing education in such a way

Using curriculum and curriculum is great But using it not to see how close

I can get to the state standards so that well I can look kind of acceptable and that my children if someone was look at my my child's train high school transcript

That they would recognize it and put the state seal of approval on my children education

God never gave the education of my children to the state He gave it to me and my wife were the ones you're supposed to educate them

And if and the state doesn't have anything to do with it This day has nothing to do with it.

I Don't want their seal of credential upon my kids Now if if some employer says you need to have some sort of paperwork saying that you've graduated high school

You need some kind of this. Well, that's your household. That's your business That's the way you want to make sure that you if you're gonna hire somebody you're gonna do so, okay fine

I have no I have no problem. They're not gonna they're not gonna fail a GED They're not gonna have any problems with that if they need to go get some training or whatever that that's fine

But I am NOT Raising up my kids So that they can be formed in such a way that they can

That they can go through and get a bunch of state accreditations that are just full of an unapologetic flaming pagan

Agenda that is not why I'm raising my kids To me that's a very important part of this whole thing

You know when we talk with our kids and we train our kids and we raise up our kids is not that we're trying we Shouldn't be trying to pigeonhole them into the patterns that have been

Established by pagans. Well, don't you see Caesar wants to hold? the keys to the financial gravy train

And so therefore these these credentials are being dangled in front of you. Whoa, if you want success

You're gonna have to submit right? That's where I think that we have to begin to think to begin to think differently

About how we're raising our kids and there's been like this huge question mark hovering over the church and Christian families and so on for a generation or two

You know, why are our kids all you know acting pagans, you know, even before they leave the church

They've left the church before they head to college. They're already gone All these different things.

Well How are they being discipled? All right, what what structure is being handed to them about how the world works and what's the world all about when you read the scriptures

What is what is rejoiced and celebrated in the fear of God fear? God is beginning of wisdom the fear of God is beginning of knowledge

The fear of God is the beginning of understanding the fear. The Lord is to depart from evil that a fear. The Lord is life

Okay, it's the fear of the Lord again and again and again and it's the the wisest men in the scriptures

Are the God -fearing men and they do math and they and they read on our learned men and they know all sorts of things about all sorts of subjects, but but it's it's controlled and organized and and And brought into harmony by the fear of the

Lord, you know, these are not idiots These are not dumb lazy men a lazy man is a brother to a destroyer.

I don't want my kids to be lazy I want them to be educated and that begins with the fear of the

Lord When you have these state accreditations from top to bottom when the state goes or its apparatuses leave

Your your papers are largely useless now you know the one the ones that you had to go prove

I Did my time in this institution of yours and in this institution of yours when they go, how is that applicable?

How well, how do those pieces of paper? How are they going to be in in general? How are they gonna be used when that state goes and another one takes its place?

I sure hope that state has a reciprocity agreement, right? Otherwise, it's gonna be useless but also also

I think we need to recognize that the education system that the state has been so heavily invested in is failing on a public level

It's always it has been failing for a while but it's failing in a public way more than it than it has been previously all of these

Covid lockdowns and so on and then oh, we're gonna have to do distance education digital education and so on and so forth and this is just demonstrating what a failed system that the whole thing is and It's become very very humorous now that every time there's a problem

The school says well if we just had more funding, you know What I've noticed what I think is happening right now is that education is as we know it and I'm talking about Like, you know kindergarten through twelfth grade

I'm talking about your four -year bachelors and so on and so the whole gambit

This is an analog system in a digital world. This is a This is like a brick -and -mortar

Blockbuster, you know in in in an Amazon Amazon Prime Disney Plus world

Because like you're talking about About YouTube being the library of Alexandria and so on you're wanting to give me an analog

Credential and I can go find out what I need to know to succeed By being diligent and I can get to the information and I can go talk to people

I can I can make contact with people that I never could have before because we live in a digital digital world

I can contact people I could talk with them. We can we can chat we can I can learn from others I can find people who will share and and will mentor me even if it's for five minutes in 4k exactly and and So I think that the whole system is crumbling.

I don't know why anyone wants to hold on to it I mean, I think that education

I think if you fear the Lord if you fear a man Then it's oh we have to imitate everything that they are doing

If you fear a man that's a snare if you fear God then whatever is true and Good and beautiful You are free to pursue because you're not being tied up about what what man think about if I don't get my credential

Right. So yeah instead of how does my work look before the eyes of God? yes, and and we can we can talk about how it mirrors a lot of the

Happenings of round Rome when centralization starts to become decentralization, which is

I believe what we're starting to watch absolutely very distrust of The central planners is an all -time high.

Yeah, and that that means education. That means that means political whatever it's well -earned

They've done a good job Earning our distress and I think I think well another thing too that we're gonna see is all this decentralized learning digital

Learning is gonna Create more decentralized cultures, but it's also going to allow us to live more analog.

I Believe I think the more that we can learn about analog things digitally we can

Decent since that knowledge is decentralized we can apply it and live more analog outside of it than we have with things like the brain rot that is

Facebook Twitter Instagram so having having this information disseminated in a decentralized fashion is actually going to Reverse that a little bit, but that's just my personal hypothesis

And we can we can go on to the next segment in this week in witchcraft and I actually have brought my own

Oh good, because I'm seeing it all over the place people griping about it the word health and we can go

Okay, we can go a number of different ways with this but the two that I've kind of focused on or I've seen focused on most recently and And one is actually further in the past that we heard a lot

But we didn't really always catch was what what women's health care is So the first one women's health care we we used women's health care to explain

Child sacrifice human child sacrifice That's exactly what it is And even to me abortion seems like a bit of witchcraft in itself just to call it abortion because what's really actually happening is a baby is being sacrificed either for the convenience or the satisfaction of the mother to To get whatever she wants or the father to get whatever he wants and even even the abortionist to to get what he wants

Which is usually the dollar but the other one for the side of health is Seeing pop magazines or ads pop up that are it says health and You have somebody doing some sort of athletic motion, but they are not the picture of health themselves and almost all of our health

PM's administrators in the state are the exact opposite of health if you will look at the

German health official administrator I think he's maybe or she is maybe like she's bordering on 400 pounds and just Puppy and just it's just out of control

Canada's is the same way and then ours is A man posing to be a woman. So like this type of witchcraft is being brought down from health officials

Who are obviously first of all? lying to themselves about themselves being healthy and then they're

They're they're taking it back out as experts into the world to everybody else. Well, obviously the real health crisis here is being a sizist

Right. Yeah, that's my that's my problem and and being transphobic and that is of course where the real health crisis is as Joe boot was commenting about the situation in Canada as they are locking things down and Quebec is showing itself as a an example to Trudeau about what he may want to do for the rest of the country in Shutting down all church services finding churches if they try to meet putting pastors in a prison and so on Why?

To promote health if you don't get your if you don't get your vaccine and all the boosters that go with it then you are creating a health crisis and Therefore They're going to change all the rates on the insurance and so on and so forth

You're not going to be able to get the health care that you need because you didn't get your vaccines so you get bumped back and down off of the

Socialized health care that they have there in in in Canada but even though they're gonna charge you more and penalize you for not taking these the the two -shot vaccine plus the two boosters for 99 % survivable virus

There is no penalty if you contract all manner of sexually transmitted diseases

Living a sodomite lifestyle if you weigh 400 pounds, you're not being penalized you're being celebrated because you have positive body image and this is the kind of thing going on where it's if it was something where They're saying we have a health crisis on our hands what kind of health crisis well people are eating too much they are they're being very promiscuous in their sexual lives and nobody's like careful around everybody else are sneezing on each other and everyone's just really selfish and This is causing all kinds of health problems in our society.

It's not consistent. I mean, it's not like that. They are picking Certain things that they want to be

Demonized or they're picking picking certain things. They want to be protected and they're using the term health

To cover those things and that's why you can see it's it's very it's yeah It's very witchy and they're declaring war on it, too

Right, like it's a perpetual war that they continue to pull out more debt in order to pay themselves for fighting as well

Yeah, it's very much like and you'll notice the pattern of the state to gain more power when you you go back and just take the history of Of the

United States. Okay, just go back to right after the of course World War two was his own thing

But right after World War two we have what the Cold War and there's this massive horrendous scary threat

School children are practicing getting under their school desks and hugging their knees because this is the way you prepare for the atomic blast and everybody is really really really scared of Of the communists and hey, they're pretty evil

But this gives your state government all kinds of leeway to start taking away all manner of freedoms

We feel unsafe. Please take some of our liberties and keep us safe Eisenhower warned about the

About the military state and all the the military industry and so on and they spend gobs and gobs and gobs of money

In their arms race against the communists. They get all this money. They get all this power they they take more of the liberty and the freedoms away from the people and Then the

Soviet Union collapses in 1989. It's no longer really a threat the Cold War doesn't seem as so now

What do we have now? Exactly we're on drugs and we're gonna run this for a little while and everything's about the war on drugs money money money

Here's all the power or so on and so forth and then the war on drugs You know goes away and Terrorism and then we have some terrorism starting up with some wars in the

Middle East and getting it a little bit more intense and Then 9 -11 really the war on terrorism and again

This never ends this never ends and the the state keeps on saying you're unsafe We are the only ones who can keep you safe in order to keep you safe We're going to take this that in the other and then once the war on terror begins to kind of wind down now what?

Now hell now it's health. Now. We've got this we have this pandemic of Of a flu -like virus that you know, it's the end of the world folks.

And so we're gonna print 80 % of all American dollars that have ever been in existence in the last 23 months.

Well, why are we gonna do that? Why are we going to steal 40 % of your dollars and never call it a tax?

Well, because we're keeping you safe. Mm -hmm, right? It's an emergency. We have to do this. So The beast is always hungry

The beast is always hungry. It always wants to eat and it will use witchcraft To call things what it needs to call things

To in order to get that done and we're seeing the cracks and some of the kovat stuff come to light which

I think that's I think it's a good thing. I think we've seen some light Shown out of the darkness some of the stuff we've seen.

So what's the what's the next war? Does anybody what do we think? We're on one. Well, if I were to detect a theme, it's all about the fear of death

Right. Well, it is isn't it? That's just the the base level of protecting, you know, we're gonna keep you at 98 .6

degrees All These are promises to just continue you yeah really, they've been trying to start the they've been really really wanting a climate change to be that great nebulous threat

That justifies, you know taking people's liberty and so on You're gonna die, right?

The only problem is you've got so many really really the experts man Trust the science man, but they keep on saying you in ten years, you know,

Florida's gonna be underwater in ten years later Florida is just going along just normal as ever and all of these experts that claim absolute perfect data

We have 500 people saying the same thing. We're all expert climatologists.

We have all of the data. You don't understand it You're not an expert and here is what's gonna happen in 15 years

You better believe it and if you all these people are gonna die and it's your fault because you're doing X Y & Z and then

It doesn't happen They've been doing this for 40 50 years they've been saying this over and over and over again and then people get a little upset when we don't trust them when they start talking about a virus

I'm like there's a reason we don't trust you is because you keep lying and lying and lying and The thing that makes it work again, like Andrew says it's the fear of death.

Yeah, which is slavery You guys have pointed out where they've they've been in the analog still right like they've been in all these issues are analog

My view of it is the next is the digital realm. I think the war on internet terrorism or internet threats or You're gonna have to have an internet pass if you're not on our fully vaxxed list

You don't get to access our servers and you do you do not get to access the Internet if you're if you're not

In line with us and so I see the I see that next war being an internet internet terrorism slash internet viruses

Yeah, whatever language whatever language works About you know, keeping the internet going because again, that's where people like have their lifeline.

They feel safe. They need their entertainment So I think they're already behind in it But I do think that's where they'll go next or it could even just be a wrong thought or wrong speech on a specific platform

Obviously we have platforms out there who are already, you know putting you on their naughty list

Well, what's to say that you're in it? Your internet service provider is not also one of those companies that gets

Eaten up or through a conglomerate and now, you know Google owns fiber networks and they also own all these social media sites

Now you're no longer gonna be getting on the net or all you have to do is host your website with AWS right, like so if you're hosted by a central a

Central server like that Government can come in and say or even just that that central server can say you're done

See ya, and what we're seeing that actually happened a lot more but it's it's been mostly some somewhat of a

Fascist controlled thing where it's incentivized to take people off like that. Yeah, but eventually it's gonna be it's gonna turn from incentive to Out and out for enforced.

Yeah But yeah, I think that's I think that's where the witchcraft's going Because they're still behind they're still in the analog and they haven't hit the digital yet But when they when they get there, that's what we're gonna start kind of seeing a little bit of coming up coming up forward

Well after all that talk, let's hear what we're thankful for. Michael. We'll start with you I'm I'm thankful that Sunday and today my

Whole family was able to sit together at the table and have a meal I just have a meal together where everybody could be there

Of course we get a little Jackson and his bouncy seat on the floor, you know Making his grunting little man noises, you know, right?

Yeah, and He doesn't have like these soft little purrs and coos. He's like You know down there but we just we just hang out as a family and that we can eat together and pray together and Read Proverbs together those kinds of things

We just we've missed that with you know sicknesses and difficulties and problems and It's just a grace that we really

I'm really thankful for. Amen I'm thankful for the strength to labor.

There will be a day that My strength will fail and while the

Sun is still shining and there's work to do. Yeah. Yeah, that's great I like that a lot me too I'm thankful for my friend

Robert Foster who passed this afternoon he was a great friend of me and Went a long way with me and a lot of my learning sanctification refinement and was a

Dear friend right up until the end and I'm gonna really miss getting to debate him on all manner of subjects and then have a little breaks here and there talking about Polyponnesian Wars and Persian history and all that stuff because that's where he was at right before He passed but it was a it was a wonderful friendship to enjoy and I am happy that He's gonna be there when

I show up to so praise the Lord for Saints older than myself who are great friends who are great teachers great debaters and Will be there in eternity with all of us

So I'm very thankful for that and we are thankful for all the listeners who continue to listen to us faithfully and Join us again when we meet to answer common questions and objections with have you not read?