My Pastor Believes in Dragons!

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Alright, well just a quick video this morning, I wanted to talk about Sunday School on Sunday. So we have our adult
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Sunday School class and we typically will go through a, a lot of times we use Ligonier from what
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I've seen, I don't know if they always use Ligonier, but since I've been there they've always used
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Ligonier. And there's a really awesome study about the Book of Job, which is an awesome book as well.
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And it came from Derek Thomas, and the thing about the Book of Job is that there is a decent amount of controversy about how to best interpret it, right?
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We know the, like, like the story of Job and the point and the lesson of Job, you know, most people agree about it, but some of the details and all of that, there's some disagreement, so it's been really interesting, the conversation.
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Well anyway, we're almost done, and if you know the story of Job, God speaks at the end of the book, right?
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And you know, it's the kind of thing where when God speaks, Job shuts his mouth kind of thing.
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And we got to the part where God tells Job to think about the two creatures, the behemoth and Leviathan.
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And in this lesson, again, it's been a really good lesson, I'm not throwing any shade Derek Thomas' way, it's been awesome.
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But in this lesson, he kind of says, you know, yeah, there's, there's different perspectives on what the behemoth is.
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Some people think it's a mythological creature, and some people think that, you know, maybe it's dinosaurs that were living at the same time as men.
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But you know, some people think the behemoth is a hippo, and the
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Leviathan is a crocodile. Let's go with that. And he said it just like that, it was just like that, it was just, let's go with that.
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And then he kind of, kind of gives like a half -hearted reasoning as to why he thinks that's the best one, even though he admits it doesn't really fit the descriptions, right?
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Like for example, the description of behemoth, it says that his tail swings like a cedar.
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Now if you know anything about a cedar, it's not like a small twig tree. It's like a mighty tree, it's like a, you know, it's a tree.
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And a hippopotamus is, it's almost comical, it's almost as if God kind of knew that people would try to explain this away by saying it was a hippo, because he made this gigantic beast of a creature, a hippo, like the proportions are just huge, like its hindquarters are gigantic, its face and head is just humongous, if you've ever seen a hippo in real life, its head's like this big.
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And then God gave it a little tiny, little pipsqueak tail, it's like this big. So you got this huge creature, and his tail is like this, it's like, that's not a cedar, right?
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That's obviously not a cedar. And then, like, Derek Thomas went into this weird explanation as to why
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God brings up these creatures. So he kind of just gives you this throwaway explanation, oh yeah, you know, let's go with hippo.
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And then he kind of gives this half -hearted, like, reasoning as to why
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God brings up these creatures. And I kid you not, this is the reasoning he gives you.
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He says, why do hippos exist? Why do crocodiles exist? You know, they're very dangerous animals.
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A lot of people don't know that about hippos, they're very dangerous, right? He says they're very dangerous animals, why do they exist?
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And this, I kid you not, this is really what he said. It's the same reason why suffering exists.
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I don't know. And that's why he brings up the hippo, I don't know. And that's what he says.
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And it's like, it's amazing, you see someone that he's tracking with Job, and he's doing it so well, he's going, and there's controversy here.
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So sometimes he says, yeah, some people think Elihu's a good influence on Job, some people think
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Elihu's bad, but Calvin thinks he's good, and he goes into the reasons, it's very descriptive, and you can see both sides.
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And then he gets to this thing with Behemoth and Leviathan, and he's like, I don't know. Who knows?
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Let's just go with hippo. And it's like, wow. So here's the thing, though. So my pastor.
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So man, I love my pastor. I really do. Jerry, I love you, brother. I do.
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Because he started the class, and normally you just go through the book. That's what I usually do when I lead Sunday school.
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You know, you go through the book, there's discussion questions and all that. It's the easy way, plus it's the safe way, because you just talk about what the author of the study wants to talk about, and it's good, it's fun.
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And Jerry said, does anyone think that he made a good explanation about hippopotamus and crocodile and all that, and why
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God brings him up? And nobody said anything, because I think everyone was thinking the same thing. I was thinking, like, no.
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And Jerry's like, with all due respect, I think it was, I don't know if he said terrible. I don't think he did.
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He was nice about it. And the reality is that when you read it, it's like the tail is like a cedar, and he's a lumbering beast, and he lives in the swamps.
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It's like, it sounds kind of like a dinosaur. Now, I think, I happen to think, that dinosaurs and dragons are the same thing, that what we think are dinosaurs are actually dragons.
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But then he gets to Leviathan, and Leviathan, if you read the description in Job, God says, consider
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Leviathan, and the Greek translates it as dragon. And Leviathan, if you read the description, it's a beastly creature that breathes fire.
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That's what God says, Job, have you considered that beast that breathes fire that nobody can control?
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And you see, that's the point, right? Because God brings up behemoth and Leviathan, what
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I would say is dragons, because dragons are uncontrollable. Humans can't, you know, they can't capture a dragon.
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They can't defeat a dragon. And God says, you can't even defeat a dragon. I created dragons.
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And that's the point. God can control them. You can't. How are you going to stand against God? How are you going to tell
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God, what have you done? That's what he's saying to Job. He's not saying, Job, I don't know. No, he's saying,
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Job, you can't even control these beasts. I created these beasts.
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These beasts do my will. And you're going to tell me that I'm in the wrong?
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That's essentially what he's saying. And so it's just so interesting. So my pastor says that Leviathan is a dragon.
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So I found out that my pastor is like, no, no, dinosaurs lived with humans.
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Not only that, but Leviathan is a dragon, a fire -breathing dragon. And it's like, it's just amazing.
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I was so happy to find that out. I should have known, because I trust this man with my life. You know what I mean? I trust my pastor, right?
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So I should have known he believed in dragons. But you know, a lot of people don't want to admit they believe in dragons. But they do, because the
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Bible talks about dragons. This is not the only place where the Bible talks about fire -breathing creatures.
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This is not the only place the Bible talks about dragons. It talks about dragons again, and again, and again, and again.
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It's very clear that dragons are real, and that we should believe in them, that they existed. But my point, though, is that when you start to play fast and loose with the text, and let me just be frank, my opinion is that Derek Thomas is doing that, not because he thinks it actually describes a hippo.
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In fact, he actually admits it really doesn't fit a hippo. In fact, he admits it doesn't really fit any animals.
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And that's why he kind of like throws a little credence to the mythological way. But he says the mythological thing doesn't really work either, because, you know, every animal he's talking about is not mythological.
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In fact, God says, I created this animal, so it's not mythological. But he doesn't...
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He wants to be respectable. He doesn't want to believe in something that he's not really supposed to.
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You're not supposed to believe in dragons. For some reason, even though every culture talks about dragons, you're not supposed to believe in dragons.
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So a lot of people just don't admit it. They don't want to. But the problem is you might think, well, what's the big deal?
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You don't believe in dragons, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is that when you change the text to make it mean hippos and crocodiles, which people can control and can capture and can defeat in battle,
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God's meaning gets lost. Because now it's a hippo, and you're like, yeah, you know what?
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Yeah, they're dangerous, but, you know, yeah, we get enough people, we can take down a hippo. God's point is, no, you can't take down this behemoth.
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You can't take down Leviathan. But I created them. And so the whole lesson was pretty much a disaster.
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And so, like, this whole study has been awesome. Then you get to the one thing that'll offend the evolutionary mindset, you change it, and that lesson is a disaster.
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It actually ends up being nothing. It's like, I don't know. I don't know why evil exists.
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Just like, I don't know why he brings up hippos. It's like, what? That's not the point.
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And it's amazing because you don't have to guess the point. God tells you the point of why he brings up these beasts in the text itself.
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You just have to let it speak. And so, yeah, the point is, don't mess with the text.
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Because if you do, you're going to end up looking like you're embarrassed of the text, and you're also going to miss the point of the text.
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This guy is very smart, much smarter than I am. But the whole point was completely missed because he refused to take the non -respectable route, at least according to the eyes of the world, and just believe
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God when he talks about dragons, because he does. In any case, I hope you found this video helpful.