Have You Not Read - S1:E6

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

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Saints. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me is Michael Durham, David Kasson, and Andrew Hudson.

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Before we dig into our topic today, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you.

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To begin today, as we did on our last podcast, we're gonna talk about or recommend books that we've been reading recently.

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Michael, we'll start with you. I'll start with Andrew. Did you get the

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I'm unprepared? Pass. So, jokingly,

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I had, somewhat jokingly, I'd mentioned the Bible as being a book to have been reading.

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I highly recommend it. What do you think about that, Michael? Very prepared. Yeah, I think that's a solid recommendation.

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I'm finishing up a book by Andrew Murray, John Murray, excuse me,

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Dutch Reformed, South African. It's a commentary on Hebrews, so we're talking, you know, if you're gonna read some people, make sure they're old and dead.

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That's one of those guys. And I have been really enriched going through it slowly, but what what

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I've been trying to do is read a chapter in Hebrews, and then

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I'm doing that like each day. So there's other things, you know, we're reading, but I think

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I've gone through Hebrews a dozen, two dozen times now, just in a row, and I have never done a detailed study on Hebrews.

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So this is, I mean, and I say that to my shame, that really this is the really the first year.

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And then Murray's book has really been helping. It's called The Holiest of All. That's the title of the book.

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It's referenced to, you know, the holy of holies. It's referenced to that chamber, and it's referenced to Christ himself, through whose flesh we go to the holy of holies, and he is the holy of holies.

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He is the ark. He is the temple. You know, all that's that that Hebrews brings all of that out. So highly recommend that one.

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My recommendation is In the Days of These Kings. It is a book about the book of Daniel.

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It's written by a man named Jay Rogers, who doesn't have a lot of accreditation, but I think his work speaks for himself.

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He basically wanted to do his best to understand the book of Daniel and study not only the text of the word and the particular prophecies of interest that seems to capture a lot of attention, but then also do the work about the historical background to when

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Daniel was written and the things that Daniel talks about. So he threw a long series of publishing posts and things on his website, and then later on increasing them in depth and getting a lot of helpful feedback, and even brothers in Christ who disagreed with him showing him where his arguments were weak and so on.

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He was greatly benefited from their help and so on, and so it was a real labor of love.

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It's a very thick book, In the Days of These Kings, and the subtitle is The Book of Daniel in Preterist Perspective, and there's three sections of the book and they're very unequal.

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The very first section is a light commentary on the twelve chapters of Daniel, just a very light commentary kind of setting things up for later, and some of the statements are going to be better supported later on.

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The second section is dealing with the basic prophecies of Daniel. Daniel 2,

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Daniel 7, Daniel 9, you know, so on and so forth, and kind of walking through those in more depth and dealing with the different viewpoints and so on.

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The third section, which is the thickest by far, is dealing with all the historical background information.

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So when you have this line in Daniel that says, you know, so -and -so did such -and -such, well, he has compiled all this information about the actual goings -on in history where this prophecy is fulfilled.

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You know, when this king went into Egypt and did such -and -such, well, he's got six or seven pages of the story behind that one line of prophecy, and what happened with all of that.

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And there are a lot of helpful charts in the book that show you the progression of certain historical events, the different kings of the different empires, who came when, what's going on.

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And in this, it's a very unique book. It's helpful because it brings all of these ancient things that we don't have a lot of familiarity with, and shows you the actual timeline of what happened from the the primary sources and the ancient historians.

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And it's a wonderful history book. It's very fun to read, because I love history, and there are things in there that I never knew about.

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And it's just a fun book to read, but then you realize, oh, this is, this was all prophesied of by Daniel.

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And look, it came to pass, and it came to pass, and it came to pass. So it's edifying to the faith as well. Where do you disagree with Rogers?

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Well, I disagree with Rogers on some of his some of his interpretation on the prophecies, because he is looking for what we call a kind of real -world physical fulfillment.

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Sometimes in swinging the pendulum away from any kind of so -called spiritual interpretation,

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I think he misses some things. So for example, last week, or yesterday,

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I was preaching through Daniel chapter 7, and there's this expression where the fourth kingdom, the horn of the fourth kingdom and the fourth kingdom are destroyed by fire.

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And the burning fire in that passage is expressed in such a way, in agreement with Revelation 4, to make you think this is the

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Holy Spirit. So God is a burning fire. His throne's on fire.

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His wheels of the throne are on fire. There's this flaming river in front of him. And this is agreed with in Revelation 4, that the burning flame before the throne of God is the

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Holy Spirit. Okay, so when in Daniel 7 it says that the beast and the horn are consumed by the burning fire, what is that?

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Well, preterists, and J. Rogers I think is one of them, who read that, they're gonna say, okay, well, there was a big fire in the capital of Rome that Nero started, and there were a lot of problems that occurred in Rome due to this civil war with the

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Jews and the destabilization of the year of the four emperors, where they almost, you know, fell apart.

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And there were bad things that happened to Rome later on, where you could consider it to be, you know, widespread destruction.

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And to keep the perspective there of only sociopolitical outcomes as the possible fulfillment of this burning fire,

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I think ignores what's in the text. Rome was overtaken by the gospel.

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Rome was overtaken by the gospel. The burning flame and the fire that came wasn't the kind that the sons of thunder were looking for to burn up the

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Samaritans, wasn't the kind that the Jewish zealots wanted to fall upon the Roman Empire, but it was the burning fire of the

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Holy Spirit Pentecost fire that consumed, and this is why Justin Martyr and Tertullian and John Chrysostom were able to say what they said about the rapid spread of the gospel filling everything in the

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Roman Empire. And this is my reading of the text, because I think it's in the text, and I think it's supported by other texts, and I think it fits biblically.

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Can I go look at some historical reference where there's a big fire somewhere?

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Not really, but I don't have to force it that way, right? So I think that that would be an example where he's looking for maybe some sort of political fulfillment, because, well,

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Babylon went down politically. Well, Medo -Persia went down politically. Greece went down politically.

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So those are the first three kingdoms, so Rome has to go down politically. Well, they eventually did, but when you read the text in Daniel 7, it talks about the burning fire.

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Well, in the context, the burning fire is the Holy Spirit proceeding from the throne of fire, so I want to try to stick with that.

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And then when it says that the dominion that was taken away from those other three kingdoms, but then they also persisted for a time, but they also passed away.

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I take that to mean their pagan influence eventually waned as the gospel went forth.

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So this would be an example of where I would disagree with J. Rogers, where, again, what he's trying to do is so helpful in showing us the historical background, but I think sometimes the pendulum swing is a little bit too much, too sharp.

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Right, and we can put the fire on level with the mountain that strikes the clay and the iron and fills the entirety of the earth.

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And it's a stone that is not carved by human hands, meaning my kingdom is not of this world.

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It's in the world, but it's not of the world. Just like we are in the world, but we're not of the world.

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So that's stone not carved by human hands. I thought that was a meteor. Well, no.

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Here we go. No. If it was a meteor, then there was an actual statue. And I think that's the point that you're trying to make, that you don't get to come to the text and say this is how it should have been fulfilled.

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Right. You know, you're importing that onto the text versus allowing the text to tell you, or even going to the

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New Testament and saying this is how we should read it. It's kind of mind -bending when you're, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, obviously

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Medo -Persia succeeded Babylon in a very political, violent way.

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You know, armies were involved, and you watch that march between the four empires, you know, one succeeded the other, and there was military involved, the political was involved, the violence was involved, it was real territory, economies, and everything else.

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And then to have the next transition where the fourth kingdom suffers judgment, where the other kingdoms lose their influence, and so on, it's hard to make that transition to think in terms of the gospel taking over things, the kingdom of Christ taking over things, so that his, so as it's used expression from Bonson, that the crown rights of Jesus Christ are being pressed into every corner of society, which they were doing their best to do as the

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Christians in those time frames. But it's important to remember how Jesus phrased it to Pilate.

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You know, my kingdom is not of this world. He didn't mean I have no kingdom until I reign in this world.

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He said the kingdom is not of this world, meaning the source of it was not of this world.

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He did mean that his kingdom was in the world, because he specifically requested that all those followers not of the world to be left in the world.

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And I guess I'll round off the what have we been reading section here. Everybody's been doing mostly theological text, so I'll throw in a little fiction book here, even though you mentioned

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Tolkien last time. I am listening to War and Peace on Audible, so it's a 63 hour listen.

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But if you listen it, add it to times, two times. It's intelligible, you just, it's actually, it's kind of crazy how your ear can acclimate to that sort of speed and comprehend now.

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So it's just 31 and a half hours. Right, it's just 31 and a half hours. And you still have, what's interesting to me at 2 .0

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versus 1 .0, you still have the same problems keeping the characters straight, the names straight, just because they're all

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Russian. But I'll say Tolstoy is the master of the novel and changed my mind.

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He was also a red -letter Christian. Yeah, yeah he was. There's that.

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And he throws his philosophy in there too, and you gotta watch out for that type of stuff.

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But man, that man was gifted, and he had time to work on his gift and craft.

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And it is one of the, it's just magic compared to all the other fiction that you can have out there.

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And you know, it's kind of like having milk or meat in the pulpit. And once you've had meat, you never go back to milk.

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It's really, it's really kind of tough to sometimes go back to other fiction of the modern variety.

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Well now you have me intrigued. How many hours again did you say it was? It was 63 I believe it was.

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So 2X is still in the 30s. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, like I'm halfway through right now and I've been listening to it since last week.

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I've been going through, I went through, I was taking like half of my day and going through the Gospels. And you know, one

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Gospel last morning, if you listen to it at 2 .0. And then if you listen to Tolstoy at 2 .0,

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it's going to last you two weeks. So that gives you, that gives you the context. So who's narrating the

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Gospels for you right now? It's on just the Bible App. It's just some guy that they paid.

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I'm not sure. I went the cheapest route I could possibly find. Is he okay? Yeah, he's alright. Some people

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I can't listen to. Oh, I know. He's a, it's a deeper voice. It's a lower register. And it's a little bit, it's not super methodical.

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Sometimes he, he reads it like you should read. So it's not too terrible, but.

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Okay. If we're talking about Bible audio versions, I have a version called it's produced by Streetlights Bible.

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It's the whole goal of their ministry was to provide something relevant for the urban scene, if I could put it like that.

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There are some hip hop artists in the Christian community who have lent their talents and I believe they use the new living translation.

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However, they have done all of the new Testament and they're still working on completing the old

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Testament. It's a good listen to, to provide a little bit difference.

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It has a background track to music and spoken word. And on, in the

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Gospels, they even have different people for the different characters. Oh, interesting.

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That kind of helps you keep track of the discourse. It is. It's very helpful because when

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I read it out loud, it's my voice that I hear for each person speaking. Yeah. And you probably couldn't really speed that up because you've got music.

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Right. So it would kind of make it sound a little funny. So you're going to have to listen to that at a normal rate. I just can't highly,

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I can't recommend Alexander Scorby highly enough. It's kind of the quintessential.

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Yeah. That are maybe Johnny Cash reads the Bible. Well, that too. Yeah. Where'd you get

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Scorby at? Audible? Alexander Scorby. He's like the first one who did it. No. It's like you just go on YouTube.

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Okay. Yeah. It's amazing. He's great. He's very helpful reading. There was an episode of the

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Simpsons where Homer was going to die. And so he talked to his neighbor and, you know, his

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Flanders kind of helped him out. Give an audio book of the Bible.

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I think it was Scorby. The last scene was Homer sitting in his chair with his headphones on, holding the cassette player, listening to Alexander Scorby read the

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Bible until he fell asleep and dropped the cassette out of his hand. I think I remember seeing that episode.

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Very touching. Gets into the genealogies and starts fast forwarding. But when you have somebody who can read like that, it really helps with the names, places like,

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Oh, that's how that's pronounced. I was totally wrong. Well, now that y 'all have mentioned the Simpsons, get ready for some office references because you've opened up a can of worms here, but I'm not going to do that right now.

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We're just going to go straight into questions here. Question eight on this list that we've received from David.

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And I'm glad we kind of talked about the kingdom with Rogers earlier, because that's kind of the theme what

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I'm going to go with questions today. Someone challenged me on the idea that Jesus is not actually reigning as king.

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Now he is not on the throne in Jerusalem, but is instead at the right hand of God, the father in heaven. He is awaiting the time when he will come back and then he will reign.

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I do not. I do not know what to say. The Bible calls Jesus the king of kings, but doesn't he have to come back in order to establish his kingdom?

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If Jesus is king, what throne is he on? Because he is not on the one in Jerusalem. He has to come back first and then take that throne on Mount Zion, which in, which is in Jerusalem.

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Psalm two six says this. Well, the person who challenged you on this is on the cusp of hearing some really good news.

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Amen. Amen. Oh, there's some really, really good news that Jesus is on Mount Zion and he is reigning and he is king of kings and he is reigning now.

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Now I understand, I understand why there is some concern about whether or not that is so.

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And I think the concern derives from a desire to ensure that scripture is taken seriously, that it is, it is not appropriate to have an over -realized eschatology where we're reading promises in the

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Bible and saying this has been fulfilled in some mythical, symbolic way.

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The approach that is being taken here, I assume, is the same type of approach that was developed in reaction to the liberals who say that the promises that Jesus Christ would raise from the dead are not going to be actually fulfilled.

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They are realized in us as his teachings of love emerge in our lives or some such nonsense.

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The Christ consciousness. Yeah. So, and so the person who wants to take the

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Word of God seriously, I'm in full agreement with, and the person who wants to make sure that these promises are, you know, these need to be fulfilled in the way that God intended them to be fulfilled,

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I'm total agreement with that. So I think the key is, and here's the encouraging thing, is that because we can sit down together and we both have a love for the scripture and we both have full confidence in the

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Word of God being true and unfailing and that all of God's words come to pass, that we have this common table to sit down at and to proceed from.

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And so I think that gives us opportunity to share some really good news. So here's one part of the challenge.

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One part of the challenge is that how can Jesus be reigning now if he's not on his throne in Jerusalem?

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So there's two things about this, but instead he's at the right hand of God, of God the

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Father in heaven. There's two things about this, and they're related. One of them is, what is

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Jerusalem? Okay, and the other is, what is the nature of the kingdom?

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Okay, so you can start with either one and you'll come to the answer of the other. And so they're related but not exactly the same.

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So my question, I'm going to throw it back to you all. Why do you think it would be difficult to believe that Jesus Christ is reigning now, that his kingdom, as I've been saying, his kingdom is in this world and that he really is reigning as a king in this world now if he's not on earth?

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We know that Christ is not here on earth physically. Jesus Christ is still fully

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God, God of very God. He's fully a man, man of very man. The dust of earth is seated at the right hand of heaven.

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Jesus Christ, our Savior, God incarnate, is located at the right hand of God, and he is not currently on earth.

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Now, I believe he still reigns here on earth. He still reigns over us, and his authority is felt in the here and the now, and his kingdom is in the here and the now, even though he is in heaven reigning.

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But what is the challenge? What is the difficulty in believing that he can reign from heaven and his kingdom can be on earth?

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What do you think the main challenge is? Well, the first challenge is that if he's really reigning now,

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I'm not seeing it. All I see is sin and corruption and God's people that are being—they're more martyrs today than there were a thousand years ago.

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I mean, isn't it getting worse? It means there's more Christians. Nice.

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And then I would say, is not the body of Christ here on the earth?

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Yeah, and I would say, have you not read Hebrews 2 .8,

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where in speaking of Christ, you have put all things in subjection under his feet?

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You have put all things in subjection under his feet.

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That's from Psalm 8, and the writer of the Hebrew says this is speaking of Christ, and then has this note about that.

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Because, I mean, yeah, you look around and say, hmm, I see all sorts of things that are not under subjection to Christ, that are not submitting willingly to him, that are actually in opposition to him.

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Well, then the writer of Hebrews explains, for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him, but now we do not yet see all things put under him.

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So this is the case, isn't it? Not all of the enemies of Christ have been made a footstool for his feet, but they will be.

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And in this, I think all Christians can agree that not all things are yet in happy submission to Christ, have not been brought into perfect agreement with him.

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We can all see that, but we know that they will be, and we know that he's

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Lord over all. We have this expression, he's Lord of lords, and he is a king of kings. He's received a name which is above every name, and this is,

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I think, part of the reason why the book of Hebrews also tells us that we are to walk by faith and not by sight.

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You see, believing, when you live your life with an acknowledgement that Christ is king of kings and Lord of lords, and that he is reigning and his kingdom is even now in this world and advancing, yeah, there's lots of things that could be discouraging.

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You look around, you can see discouraging things, and you can't see Jesus right now. I mean, he's not returned in his bodily visible way, which we know that he will.

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Amen. But how are we to live in the here and now?

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We are to live by faith. Hebrews 11 says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for.

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Romans 8 would say, if you already have it, you can't hope for it. It's not here yet because you're living in hope.

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The things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So yeah, you can't see

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Jesus standing at the longitude and latitude and longitude numbers that constitute the location in Jerusalem.

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You can't see him there. He doesn't have feet on the ground. Well, he's still king.

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You're called to live by faith that he is king. And it's how we enter into the kingdom is through repentance and faith.

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That's what Jesus said when he came preaching in Mark chapter one, where he said, the time was fulfilled.

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The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. You enter into the kingdom by faith.

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You had just said that Christ is not on earth.

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He is at the right hand of God in heaven. And the

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Bible repeats that. That's quotation Psalm 110, and it's repeated multiple times.

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In what sense is Christ with his people? I mean, we have the words of Jesus himself saying the kingdom is in your midst.

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Well, that's because the kingdom is wherever the king is. So the king is here in front of them.

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It says kingdom in your midst. It's right here because he's standing there, but he's not here.

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He's at the right hand of father. So if the kingdom is if he's actual king, where's his kingdom?

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Wherever he is, where is he? Um, when I was reading about five years ago with my wife, the book of Acts, I was reading it and my heart was on fire.

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Um, reading it for the account of what it, the revolution that happened.

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Um, so in Acts chapter two, starting in verse 29, this section really challenged me to think about the nature of the kingdom.

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I'm going to read it and then expound on it. So men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch,

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David, that he is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us to this day.

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Therefore being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the

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Christ to sit on his throne. He foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the

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Christ that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

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This Jesus God raised has raised up of which we are all witnesses.

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Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the father, the promise of the

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Holy spirit, he poured out this, which you now see in here. For David did not ascend into the heavens, which makes me think, is that where David's Roman, but he says himself, the

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Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies, your footstool.

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Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this

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Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.

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He is the king and David's throne. He has sat upon. Yeah. When we think about the nature of the kingdom, it's not kept a, it's not kept a mystery from us, but it is something that Jesus reveals to his disciples and his apostles give full expression to in the new, in the new

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Testament. Um, you know, Jesus said the kingdom of God is not something he's like, well, here it is or, or there it is, but the kingdom of God is already among you.

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How do we know that? Um, well, I've, I'm casting out demons by, uh, by the finger of God.

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You know, I'm, I'm casting out demons in front of your midst. This is how, you know, the kingdom has shown up and it's not something you can point and say, well, there's the border right there.

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There's no beyond this wall. There's the kingdom. But on this side of the wall, that's the kingdom's not there.

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He said the kingdom is, is in you, in your midst or within you. And this is why, um, we know what, what's the border then what's the boundary of the kingdom.

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Well, Jesus told Nicodemus that he said, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

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As soon as you're born again, you get to see the kingdom. You get your, cause you're in the kingdom that the, the boundary is your, is the new birth.

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Uh, how do we, how do we know that? How do we know that as soon as you're born again, you're in the kingdom?

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Well, when you go to a Hebrews as one example, and there, there are many, uh, very encouraging words, uh, about this.

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Um, but when you come to a Hebrews chapter 12, there's a contrast between the covenants.

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Between the old covenant and the new covenant. And in Hebrews 12 in verse 18, it says, uh, this is, again, this is to write into Jewish Christians, primarily about those who are tempted to go back to the old ways of sacrifice and holiness codes and so on.

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And so this is a, this is a, this is a evangelistic, um, very, uh, fortifying kind of sermon to, to Jews.

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Verse 18, for you would not come to the mountain that may be touched. Okay. So then the old covenant, they came to a mountain that could be touched.

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The new covenant, it's not a mountain that you can touch. Okay. For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched, that burned with fire into blackness and darkness and to tempest and to the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words of the, those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore for they could not endure what was commanded.

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And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stone or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said,

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I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. That's what happened at the, at the forging of the old covenant, the clarification of the old covenant.

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However, you know, you know, the people who study the covenants want to call it when you get to Sinai and you take a look at that, here's what

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Hebrews is saying. The old covenant was like this. That's what it was like. Physical mountain.

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And it was terrifying. And oh, we need a mediator. Oh, we need a mediator.

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We are so scared. Moses, you go talk to God because we don't even want to get close to this mountain.

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And Moses is like, I don't want to go up there either. Like this, the holiness of God is such that we,

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Moses is like, what about me? I need a mediator, you know? So in contrast to the old covenant, which was shadow.

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Now we have the substance. Now here's something that we need to pay attention to. But first 22, very huge contrast, but you have come to Mount Zion.

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Now remember what verse 18 says. You have not come to the mountain that may be touched, which means what you have come to Mount Zion.

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Is that a mountain that may be touched? No. And that's just the plain reading of the text.

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This is the very same mountain that Psalm two talks about. I have established my anointed, my

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Messiah on the holy mountain. Okay. You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

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God, the heavenly Jerusalem. If the mountain can't be touched, can the city be touched?

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Are the boundaries of the kingdom something you can say, here it is, or there it is? Jesus says, no, it's not.

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It's not that way. You've come to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect to Jesus.

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We have come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.

35:05

See this text itself, we're not importing the idea that it's a contrast between old and new covenant.

35:11

The text itself is saying, this is a contrast between the old and new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

35:20

Now, what is the import of this? The so what, the application?

35:28

Well, the preacher to the Hebrews says this, see that you do not refuse him who speaks. Don't refuse

35:34

Christ. Don't refuse God as he's calling you to this heavenly mountain, the mountain that cannot be touched, calling you into the heavenly

35:44

Jerusalem to this new covenant. For if they did not escape, he refused him who spoke on earth.

35:53

Remember that first generation or that first generation that did that, that, that refused God that broke covenant and then they died in the wilderness for if they did not escape, he refused him who spoke on earth.

36:05

Much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven. See how much more important the new covenant is, how higher, how more intense whose voice then shook the earth.

36:17

But now he, remember he shook the mountain. He shook Sinai like when the forging of the old covenant

36:23

Mount Sinai shook. But in the new covenant, Mount Zion does not shake.

36:30

It's not a mountain that could be touched. Therefore, it's not a mountain that could be shaken. So whose voice then shook the earth.

36:37

But now he is promising yet once more, I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven is from Haggai in the context of the prophecy of a new temple.

36:46

Okay, so he's going to shake heaven and earth and shake things up and turn things upside down and in the prospect of what?

36:54

And making a new temple. Okay, which turns out Jesus also defines what the new temple is.

37:00

And so does first Peter chapter two and so on and so forth and Ephesians and so on. So now this yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken.

37:11

The once more shaking, the removal of those things that are being shaken. As of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

37:20

So there's a big shaking up going on, folks. And the stuff that had been made and are shakable, they are being shaken and removed.

37:28

So as to make clear the stuff that cannot be shaken, it's all that's left, right?

37:34

This is all a piece of what the writer of Hebrews has already said, that the old covenant is obsolete and ready to pass away.

37:41

So he said the old covenant is, the old is obsolete and it is ready to pass away. It's ready to be shaken up and removed out of the way, but the new will remain forever.

37:51

Now let's pay attention to everything that's been happening so far. Okay, verse 18, you have not come to a mountain that can be touched.

37:57

Verse 22, you've come to Mount Zion, a mountain that you cannot touch because you can't touch it.

38:03

It can't be shaken. The old stuff is going to be shaken and moved out of the way, but you have a Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken.

38:08

Verse 28, therefore, since we are receiving, present tense, this is the way it is right here in the here and now, not in the future, but present ongoing.

38:19

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom, which cannot be shaken. What kingdom is that?

38:27

Mount Zion, City of the Living God, Heavenly Jerusalem, General Assembly of the Church of the Firstborn, so on and so forth.

38:34

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom, which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our

38:42

God is a consuming fire. So these are the kinds of passages that I read and I read and I read and I read, and I just think this is really good news.

38:55

You know, this is just really good news. And as I look around at all the bad news in our world today, this good news remains.

39:02

Our world is getting shaken, right? Things come and things go.

39:08

People get really upset. I was buying, I bought some more rabbits today for my rabbit herd that I'm trying to restart.

39:16

And I bought them from a self -confessed prepper and she's got 50 other rabbits that she's got back at home.

39:22

And she was just talking about how everything's, you know, getting really, really bad and everyone needs to prep, prep, prep, prep because the end is nigh.

39:30

You know, and so forth. And her hope was in how much food she had stored up, right?

39:38

In contrast, where should our hope be? Our hope is in an unshakable kingdom, present tense.

39:44

We are, we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, shaken. So that's why

39:50

I say there's, there's good news for somebody who's concerned about these things. Um, when we look at the testimony of the scriptures, we see that he's at the right hand of God.

40:01

He, all authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth. He's king of kings and Lord of lords. He has not left us orphans, but he has sent us another comforter, the

40:10

Holy Spirit, whom he has poured out upon us. And therefore, where is the kingdom?

40:16

Well, where is the spirit? Where is the kingdom? Well, where is the word of God being proclaimed in the power of the spirit and followed by the power of the spirit, the flesh profits nothing, right?

40:28

Um, where is the kingdom? Well, look where Christ's authority is being advanced. That's where the kingdom is at.

40:35

And, uh, it's all over the place. It's like, we're a cancer in a good way.

40:42

The increase of his government, there shall be no end. And maybe, you know, I don't think we're stage four, you know, maybe we're stage two or something, but you got to know that people are worried, right?

40:56

The enemy is worried. Speaking of the enemy, here's something to think about.

41:01

The folks that are concerned, very serious about the Bible, concerned that Jesus can't reign in a kingdom unless he's present on the earth, physically present on the earth.

41:12

Please show me where Satan is physically present on the earth, right?

41:19

So how can Satan be, and I think the text in Corinthians is that he's the ruler of this age.

41:25

I don't think, you know, people read it ruler of the world that the, the, the, but if, if Christ can't reign on earth unless he's physically present, then how can

41:33

Satan be seen as the ruler of the earth? If he's not physically present, it's something to kind of work through.

41:42

What about, I saw Satan fall like lightning. You've been reading something about that, haven't you? Yeah, just a little bit.

41:48

Yeah. It sounds like past tense. Yeah, that's true. Does it have something to do with memetics? Uh, it could possibly.

41:54

Now that the retort is always saying that, uh, Satan prowls around like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour.

42:01

So we're not saying that he has a physical form, but that Satan is on the earth and active and doing things.

42:11

Um, and while Christ would be in heaven, but the paraclete is here.

42:17

And he's present with his people. Now, Revelation chapter one is walking among the lamb stands that wherever the king is there, the kingdom is so inaugurated, but not consummated is another way of people would phrase it, um, an overused term already, but not yet.

42:40

That is just gets a little cringey at times because you're not quite sure what they mean by that, but it's a very safe thing to say.

42:50

Well, what's not safe is reading Hebrews two and then reading Hebrews 12 and then saying deal with that.

42:58

That's not safe. Right. Yeah. We're challenged the safety of being in the word.

43:03

I mean, yeah, but we're being challenged, aren't we? About some of our, some of the assumptions that we, that we've been handed.

43:09

Um, uh, but, but again, that's the challenge is to read the scriptures and say, okay, what is this really saying?

43:18

Um, uh, in, in, in my obscuring the clarity of it because I don't feel comfortable with it or, you know, am

43:26

I, am I receiving it as it's, as it's coming in and it's agreement with the other passages? All right, well, we'll move on to, and we've taken up quite a bit of time with just that one and our recommendations earlier, but we're going to move on to one that I saw earlier and was interested by it.

43:43

We're going to skip a couple, um, about the kingdom or about Christ kingship.

43:48

And we're going to go to question 12. Psalm 110 is repeated several times in the new

43:54

Testament. This is a poetic passage. It is a song and meant to be sung aloud and corporately.

43:59

Why does Jesus? And then later the new Testament writers use a poem to make their point about Jesus being king.

44:07

Wouldn't it hold more weight to use a didactic passage instead of a poem? Could you please point to a didactic passage?

44:18

I didn't, I didn't ask the question. Isn't, I just read it. I think that, um, the meaning behind the, the question itself was, well,

44:29

I mean, you have poetic imagery, wouldn't it be better to look at it as well?

44:36

Here's the historical, you know, David, here's the historical Solomon, and these were the patterns and we should be, you know, go back, go back to, you know, some solid history.

44:49

Things that I, you know, you can, you can dig up things in archeology. Wouldn't that hold more weight than something that should be taken more figuratively?

44:56

Seems a little squishier. Isn't concrete better would be the implication, the underlying implication of that, that question.

45:05

So that's kind of an assumption of that. Um, a strict, not necessarily a materialistic view of learning, but one that is, it's, you're kind of excluding poetry and it's really a modern thing to learn in that fashion where we, we don't have, we don't have, uh, especially in later years of education, we don't have learning that is based in any sort of song or worship.

45:34

It is, it can be done in, or, uh, in chant or in, um, repeating of a phrase.

45:43

But as far as, um, learning in that fashion in our older years, we don't really do it that way unless it's through radio or something like that, where we, but psalms and song were used quite frequently in their time to learn concrete things or have clarity even, because that's what you're asking, right?

46:04

Is how, how can this poem have clarity? Um, whereas I would say they would, they would assume that it is very clear as a poem.

46:16

In the passage I read previously, Peter says that David is a prophet. So this is as much a book of prophecy as it is a book of songs.

46:26

Let me think about the way that, um, the Jesus and the apostles and how they would take up the

46:34

Old Testament scriptures. They took them up in the form of the Tanakh, the Torah, Nevi 'im and Kethuvim, the law, the prophets and the writings.

46:43

And sometimes for shorthand, the New Testament will say, well, doesn't the law say, it isn't written in the law and they may quote a prophet, but it was just kind of a way of shortening the three.

46:56

But sometimes you even see the all three. Well, I'm, you know, this is spoken of in the law and the writings and the prophet, the law, the prophets and the writings.

47:06

And Jesus said that all three testified to him. So when you have the

47:14

Torah testifying to Christ and you have the prophets testifying to Christ and you have the writings testifying to Christ, and they're all in agreement, what is the value of quoting

47:27

Psalm 110 more than any other passage in the Old Testament? Well, that's the power of poetry.

47:33

It's the power of poetic imagery. But when they quote Psalm 110, that poetic imagery is backed up by all the didactic passages in the

47:46

Old Testament. This is what poetry does. Poetry is working with all of these various truths, these aspects of goodness and beauty and truth and bringing them together in such a way that is, in this case, in Psalm 110, celebratory.

48:07

It is hope -filled. It is victorious.

48:16

That the fact that, you know, when you break Psalm 110 down and you look at it very, very closely, you are going to reach to the didactic passages that it's built upon.

48:27

But the value of Psalm 110 is that it brings it together in such a coherent and clear and powerful form that it becomes, you know,

48:41

Psalm 110 is so deep. I mean, you know, anybody who's ever tried to exegete the passage and preach a sermon out of it knows that, you know, knows their inadequacy pretty fast.

48:54

But Psalm 110 and those poetic lines, those images that reside there, each line refers to vast swaths of systematic theology.

49:07

But we don't have the time to invoke all of that. So we employ poetry.

49:16

And in doing this, many times we're more accurate. Many times we're more accurate than if we would use the didactic systematic theological language to spell everything out precisely.

49:31

And I mean that we're more accurate in the sense that when we're trying to get across the glories of Christ in a coherent way, if we were to break it down with so much analysis, we're actually not going to be communicating well at all.

49:50

But poetry helps us communicate better. Kind of a different kind of example of that is when we read about great destruction in the

50:01

Bible, like when a whole empire goes down or a capital city goes down and just so many people get killed and there's just disaster everywhere.

50:13

The Bible resorts to poetic language. The sun is darkened.

50:19

The moon turns to blood. The stars fall out of the sky. God comes down and melts the earth like the mountains like wax.

50:28

All sorts of things happen and these are all poetic expressions. Now is that, I think it's a better expression and more accurate to what happened than running a list of, well, it was $2 billion in damage and we had 1 ,100 casualties and 45 ,000 injuries.

50:50

And these casualties came in the following forms and list all those out. And the injuries came in the following forms.

50:56

All of that. And here's the different kind of damages that we had and which one communicates better?

51:04

Which one is more to the point? Which one can bring together the fact that God is actively involved in these things and these things happen to the expression of his wrath and this is what it felt like here on earth.

51:19

So the poetry in many cases is more accurate, more effective, and God's preferred form of communication to the didactic lists.

51:31

It's condensing the rabbit hole, right? Like it's bringing it all together and it's just a reference machine.

51:37

Every word you can go to and reference all of the places where it's used and where you can bring it in and have the context for it yourself.

51:46

And that's what you've done in a poem is you've condensed the rabbit hole and you've given an atmosphere as well. Like you get the feeling of what the moon darkening or turning red looks like the sun darkening and you, it's probably because you don't deal with history and the person who controls history as data points.

52:05

You deal with them as a person. Experientially. Yeah. You just have to listen to soldiers from World War II describing storming the beach at Normandy and they had the imagery that they used, figurative language, bullets singing past their heads.

52:26

The bullets weren't actually singing. There were rivers of blood. There were not rivers, but there was a lot of blood.

52:34

You know, there were swarms of men storming. They weren't swarms.

52:39

It was just a lot of people, but that imagery is what communicates more accurately than the point by point passages.

52:48

But I loved how you said that the Psalm 110 in particular is built off some pretty stark, clear prose of Melchizedek.

53:01

Some prose of the Davidical kings. They're just some very clear passages that you, it built upon.

53:11

But you know, if you went through every single line, that's a lot of, a lot of rabbit holes.

53:17

Oh yeah. The ultimate rabbit hole. So then the poetic imagery that the

53:22

New Testament writers use, and they use that Psalm 110 over and over, they used it because it was poetic, because it was figurative, because it was the right genre of language to communicate this incredible truth.

53:38

Yes. And it also communicated very well to most of the primary audience were, you know,

53:45

Jews. You know, the early church was made up of a lot of Jews. And of course, they grew up singing these

53:51

Psalms and memorizing these Psalms. And it's kind of like when maybe you're dealing with somebody who has been a nominal

53:58

Christian, but for whatever reason has been in church their whole life, and you know how powerful a witness can be to them when you start quoting lines from the hymns they know by heart, but all of a sudden it has real meaning to them.

54:12

And it's like, why didn't you, you know, get out Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology and talk about regeneration with them?

54:21

Because it was way more effective and on point to quote lines from a hymn, you know, from, you know, you know,

54:34

I woke the dungeon flame with light, the chains fell off, you know, and you're quoting things from the hymn.

54:40

And then like, oh, and so the Psalms, of course, were very effective with the Jews to for them to reflect.

54:48

And then, of course, and go back to Hebrews, a lot of quotes from the Psalms in Hebrews and in having them think, oh, that was about Jesus of Nazareth as the

54:57

Messiah. And you just imagine their, you know, you know, mind grenades going off. They had been singing it for so long and yet, oh.

55:07

Right. Epiphany. There's a wonderful story that somebody asked

55:12

R .C. Sproul, what is the greatest theological truth that he has discovered?

55:19

And he was actually quoting someone else when he did this. He says, in all your study, what is the greatest theological truth you've come across?

55:26

And he said, Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so.

55:35

Wow. Yeah. R .C. Sproul, smartest man, smartest man alive at the time.

55:42

And that's the greatest theological truth that he's ever come across. And I thought that was incredibly profound. Yeah. So is this just an entire argument to sing the

55:52

Psalms congregationally or? Well, not exactly, but now that you mention it. Oh, okay.

55:59

No, we love singing the Psalms here. All right. Well, we have expended our time.

56:06

So we'll move on to our last two sections of the day. We'll start with this week in witchcraft.

56:11

The elements have been conquered with intense heat and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan. Can you spot it out in the wild?

56:18

All right. I have one in mind, but what about you guys?

56:24

Have you spotted any witchcraft out in the wild? Any terms that have been invented to cover the realities of sin or maybe some definitions that have been changed while retaining the same words or some sort of confusing babble designed to impede understanding?

56:48

Inflation is good and also transitory. Wow. That's a great one.

56:56

Yes. Right. So if it's good, why do we just want it to be transitory? Why is it? Why are we having?

57:01

More, more, more. Wow. You just pulled that right out.

57:09

That was fantastic. Yeah. So when you work with it, first of all, you have this, you know, you have inflation and they changed the moral quality of it from something that would be, you need to try to avoid it.

57:23

Something that the Federal Reserve on record time and again said, you know, 2 % is our goal.

57:30

We don't want any more than 2 % inflation. Um, and then all of a sudden they do something with it.

57:36

And then they say, when we talk about inflation now, it's not talking about controlling it.

57:42

We're not talking about 2 % per year. We're talking about all of a sudden this is a

57:47

Republican talking point. This is, this is, this is a complaint from the oppressors.

57:53

Um, they want, uh, this is the capitalist oppressors who don't like inflation.

58:00

And so there was a job, there's a job done on the ethical quality of what inflation is.

58:08

They haven't, they haven't changed the definition of what it is, but they've changed the ethical quality of it.

58:15

And then that doesn't, that doesn't work very good, you know, because the prices still go up.

58:21

Okay. So what's a different ethical thing? Well, it's transitory. It's temporary.

58:27

It's, you know, it's, it's, it's not going to stick around. It's going to be fine when it does stick around. Then what?

58:34

Oh, now it's good. They haven't changed the definition of what inflation is. Inflation is still inflation.

58:40

Okay. They haven't changed the name of it. They haven't, they haven't decided to change the name of inflation as, um, this isn't inflation.

58:48

Uh, this is economic, this social inflation. Yeah. This is like, we're trying to come up with some term to cover over that nasty term inflation.

58:58

So they've left the, this is interesting. They have left the name intact. They have left the definition intact.

59:04

What they have, what they have tackled is the, is the ethical quality of it.

59:12

And they've now redefined that. And this is a form of witchcraft as well.

59:17

They've also, they've also messed with the numbers historically. You can actually go back and you can have 2 % as a goal.

59:23

But if you look at the way they manipulate the CPI, the consumer product index, it's been well above 2%. Almost the entire time that they've had this goal of 2%, they've just manipulated the

59:33

CPI to let you believe, lead you on to believe that it has been around 2 % when it's actually been more and more and more.

59:39

And 6 % is, you know, that's been one of the numbers tossed around. That's just,

59:44

I'm saying that's low balling compared to what it probably actually is. Yeah, this is, to me, this is an example of when they can't, you know, when they can't ignore the issues anymore, how do we want you to think about it?

01:00:00

You know, this is a practice of divination where you, you're changing the, the ethical and moral value of words.

01:00:10

And so he's like, well, inflation is good. Why? You get, well, you know, you get, you get paid more and, you know, it's good for the economy and whatever.

01:00:19

And they just kind of try to, try to force this new ethical quality. And so, so what does that mean? If you are against inflation, you're for what's bad.

01:00:29

The oppressor. Yeah, inequality. Yeah, exactly. That's why they called it a, it was, it was a problem only for rich people.

01:00:40

That's what came out of the White House. I said, it's really, really, it's rich people that are caring, you know, care about this.

01:00:46

Walk into the convenience stores that I deliver to every day and tell me it's just a rich person problem. Yeah, it's wild.

01:00:52

But again, witchcraft is the, is the praxis of paganism. Okay. So it's, it's not about, it's not about words relating to, you know, facts and trying to, you know, express the truth clearly.

01:01:10

You know, it's, it's, it's all, it's all power play, all power grab and so on.

01:01:15

So, you know, to do something with it.

01:01:20

So they, they completely take it up and they, inflation used to be bad.

01:01:26

Now it's good. So that's a great example. What was the one you were thinking of?

01:01:33

Well, we had been talking about a little bit before we got on the air, but we are talking about a redefinition of words and one of the redefinition of words in terms of sin.

01:01:49

And this was something that was interesting when I was in my undergrad and I went to a Wesleyan holiness tradition school, primarily because my brother went there for a music scholarship.

01:01:58

And, and I went there because I got a scholarship as well and we're trying to do things debt free and education was what you make of it.

01:02:06

So I went there and there was a lot of discussion about what, what is the definition for sin? And they were very insistent that sin isn't sin unless you are conscious of it.

01:02:18

You have to know that it is sin and you have to willingly engage in it like, like full, like full culpable.

01:02:28

I know this is sin and I will do it anyway. Before it's sin.

01:02:33

What were they using for proof texts on that? Well, they, they would, they would,

01:02:39

I don't know, but they would point to different passages in the Bible that talks about, you know, to him who knows that something is good and then does it not to him that is sin.

01:02:49

Well, that's, that's great. That's great. But also then that's certainly true. Yeah, that certainly is true that that is sin, a sin of omission.

01:02:57

Yeah, that's good. But when you look in the scriptures, 1 John says sin is lawlessness.

01:03:04

Sin is lawlessness. Now you can be an unconscious lawbreaker pretty easy.

01:03:10

Right? You can, you can know that it's not, not the law and you can be ignorant of the law and still be lawless and break the law.

01:03:20

So that's, you know, in terms of what sin is, but I didn't understand why they were so, um, why they were so careful to try to, to guard the definition of sin in a very particular way.

01:03:36

And there was two reasons. Yeah, it's really hard to be holy if sin is very easy to do, right?

01:03:46

So if sin is hard to pull off, then it's way easier to be holy. It's like you've changed the limbo bar.

01:03:54

So the definition of holiness, right? Yeah. The lower the bar, yeah, the easier it is to clear, but they also, because they taught, you know, the whole, the, the group

01:04:05

I was with, um, it was, uh, Anderson, Indiana Church of God Reformation Movement. Uh, to, to, to, to make it, uh, more clear historically, there was a guy named

01:04:15

DS Warner who was something of a contemporary with Finney. Um, and he, like Finney, began to teach a second work of grace in which you could get perfectly sanctified and never sin again.

01:04:26

Well, how is that possible that you never sin again? Well, again, if the, if it's really hard to sin, you can maybe pull it off.

01:04:33

Um, so that was, that was interesting to me about, you know, and I remember sitting in class and being all confused and I didn't know, you know,

01:04:39

I didn't know anything, but then somebody was, you know, he was, the professor was trying to say this and it was like, so you're saying that somebody, uh, could go out, you know, and they were raised by homosexual parents.

01:04:52

And I was saying this back in like 2000 or whatever. Um, it's 2001. I was like, so you're saying that somebody was raised by homosexual parents and they thought homosexuality was the norm and they went out and conducted themselves and homosexual ways.

01:05:02

You're saying that they, that they are not sinning. That it didn't make, it didn't make any sense to me then as you know, still doesn't make any sense to me now because God is the, um, it's, it's not about cause what they were doing is they were focusing on man.

01:05:18

Sin is relative to man's knowledge and man's desire rather than sin being defined by the character of God, the character of God being expressed by his law.

01:05:29

Therefore, that which does not agree with his law does not agree with his character. Therefore that sin. Sin is lawlessness. And the, the fight, the battle for the definition of sin is ongoing.

01:05:40

Um, even surprisingly within reform circles, you know, where, uh, people who, uh, claim to stand in the tradition of reform theology, um, who are big on doctrine and exegesis of and so on, um, are interested in redefining sin as something that is a lot harder to pull off, not as common and making room for new things.

01:06:09

So if you re, if you enchant the word sin with the new definition, then, uh, you, you end up with some, you end up with two issues.

01:06:25

One of them is there's also, there's passages in the Bible that stopped making sense. Of course, that's a problem.

01:06:32

The other problem is that you end up with people who need to be saved, but now it's impossible for them to be saved.

01:06:40

There's no salvation for you. Let me show you an example. When revoice came out in 2018, it was all about, you know, how the, the, uh, the straight white evangelical church is, you know, oppressing, um, these gay but celibate

01:06:57

Christians, these same -sex attraction Christians or so on by, um, by not allowing them, you know, space to operate in their same -sex attraction, um, and so on in their churches.

01:07:12

And how is, how is the desire, how is the desire to commit sodomy not a sin?

01:07:21

You may ask. Like, oh, I, I desire sodomy, but that's not sin. How? Well, because I've never acted on it.

01:07:29

I'm celibate. I don't act on it. The desire is there, but I don't act on it. I've not committed the act. Um, is the lust of it, if you dwell on it and proceed down those thought lines, is that sin?

01:07:41

Well, yes, of course it is, because Jesus said, if you lust after a woman in your heart, so is same principle. So you can't actively engage your will in response to that desire and continue it, but the desire itself there, they said, is not sin.

01:07:58

Right? So it's the old, the old word is concupiscence. It is the lust that works upon you before your will is ever involved.

01:08:08

It was a acknowledgement from, uh, the, the reformers that this was, you know, things that the church fathers wrestled with, you know, about the nature of sin and depravity and so on and so forth.

01:08:23

Well, the Roman Catholics believe that concupiscence, although it, uh, pertained to sin, it was not sin itself.

01:08:36

Even though it was evidence that things weren't right, the common word is brokenness, um, that it's of itself was not sin.

01:08:50

So if it's not sin, then it can't be forgiven. If it's not sin, then it doesn't need to be cleansed.

01:09:01

If it's not sin, you're not supposed to flee from it. Therefore, you have all of these folks developing, you know, queer theologies for the

01:09:12

New Jerusalem, wherein the church has a lot to learn from those who, um, have this variant of sexuality that is as broken as everybody else is, no matter what you, what you are.

01:09:29

And you can't get rid of that desire. That's your identity. That's your identity.

01:09:35

It's who you are. Okay. So by, by enchanting the definition of sin with a new definition, with new meaning, then all of a sudden there's no cleansing, there's no forgiveness, there's no hope, there's no salvation for those with same -sex attraction.

01:09:50

And this is, this is one of the most fiercely defended thoughts by the advocates of this position that there is no, there is truly no one who has ever come out of this.

01:10:05

Even though there are several examples, they will deny them and they'll say that they are being oppressed and so on and so forth.

01:10:13

And they just refuse to believe that there's cleansing or salvation. So this is a, this is a form of witchcraft in which you've redefined the definition, you've redefined sin and you end up with all these problems.

01:10:28

Anything to add? No, I think it's very helpful, um, as we ask about this week in witchcraft, that you continue to define each one of these terms, enchantment, divination, sorcery, in imbibing words with, with new meanings, changing meanings, changing ethical qualities of words, speaking something into existence, saying, well,

01:10:57

I, this is, I declare this to be so, you know, why that is modern day witchcraft.

01:11:05

You know, continue to, continue to, you know, keep those terms defined because, you know, it's like, well, this is modern day sorcery.

01:11:12

It's like, well, you know, I'm sorry, I don't play Dungeons and Dragons anymore. I don't, I don't think that this is actual sorcery.

01:11:18

This is no, this is this week in witchcraft, what you were engaging in is actually divination.

01:11:25

Let's talk about that. Yeah. So keep your, keep your eyes open and ears alert and see if you can spot any examples and we'll talk about them.

01:11:33

Amen. We'll move on now to what are we thankful for? Michael, we'll start with you. I'm thankful for failure.

01:11:42

Not, not in the moment of it, but later on in retrospect, failing at things and then seeing, realizing, oh, this came about because of a lot of bad assumptions or maybe lazy preparation or, you know,

01:12:00

I just heading off in the wrong direction. And so I, uh,

01:12:06

I think of a lot of different examples in my life, but I never, I never enjoy the, the process, the actual event of crashing and burning and feeling all the waste of a failure and, you know, thinking of, uh, how many, uh, hours or days or months

01:12:25

I've invested in X, Y, or Z only to find out that this has all been, it feels in the moments like this is completely worthless.

01:12:34

This is vanity, vanity, always vanity and, you know, whatever I'm trying to do at the moment, you know?

01:12:40

Um, uh, however, later on, uh, looking back, trying to learn the lesson of it, uh, seeing that, okay, right now

01:12:53

I know better and I can, uh, try again. The reason

01:12:59

I can try again is because my salvation isn't based on my success.

01:13:04

It's based on Christ's righteousness. So I am free to serve him as best as I know how and to try new things and completely fail.

01:13:14

And it doesn't affect my status with God. I can safely, happily get back up and try again.

01:13:24

There needs to be a failure chapter in productivity, doesn't there? Yeah. Yeah. I am,

01:13:32

I'm thankful for the house that we have moved into in the last couple of, last couple of months.

01:13:38

Um, when we first moved to Oklahoma, I rented a home because I did not think we were going to be here for very long.

01:13:47

Uh, my, uh, my girls have, uh, fallen in love with, um, the city, the state and, uh, of course the, the people and said,

01:13:57

I think we're going to stay. I was convinced we were either going to move back to Arizona or go to the

01:14:03

East coast, um, where, uh, Amy's side of the family is from, but it says, no, this is home now. Uh, so this house that we just found, um, ended up being in the, uh, same area, same neighborhood, and it was much more conducive to having people over.

01:14:21

Um, so, uh, while Amy has been going back and forth across the country as, as, as have

01:14:28

I, she's like, I really want to have some of the youth, um, from our church over.

01:14:35

Um, so the first, you know, gathering that we're going to have, we, we, we, we tried to have some of the adults and stuff over and it just, that, that just didn't work out.

01:14:43

But now we're finally having some kids over. So none of you are invited. You are all too old.

01:14:50

Um, but that will change. Um, we, uh, so I'm just thankful for this home.

01:14:56

I'm thankful for this, this house and I'm thankful that Amy is turning it into a home and that, um, it's, it's set up in a way logistically where we can actually have people over and, and, and celebrate and exercise the, um, uh, the discipline of, of hospitality.

01:15:18

I'm thankful for the love of God. This past weekend, the sermon was delivered about the holiness, um, with which we can see

01:15:30

God in, uh, the scriptures and Daniel flaming, flaming fire and being exposed to this

01:15:43

God of flaming fire that we have peace through his son.

01:15:54

During the sermon, I looked over at my son. Yeah.

01:16:00

Y 'all, I wouldn't have given him for you. Yeah. But while we were enemies, he gave them to us.

01:16:18

Yeah. Amen.

01:16:25

Well, I am very thankful for all of you guys here to have as brothers, as mentors, um, and as companions in this walk that we have, um, and that we have the

01:16:41

Bible to take us along the entire way. We have God's word. We have his spirit within us and he has circumcised all of our hearts so that we may sharpen one another.

01:16:51

We may do the works that he's given us to do. Um, and it's a delight to come here.

01:16:58

Uh, I know beforehand I'm rushing around. I asked Heather the day if she was feeling good enough for it.

01:17:06

You know, I got the two little boys, uh, given her everything that they have to make it difficult.

01:17:11

And, uh, yet we, we made it work and we got to come here. And, you know, in the beginning where you're, you're thinking, oh, it's just another thing to do.

01:17:22

It's just another thing to do, but we get here and we get to show up and we get to talk about the things that God has so graciously given to us.

01:17:29

Um, and all the joy and love that he provides.

01:17:35

It's a wonderful time to be with you all. So I'm thankful for that. And I'm also thankful for that wife and boys that can, uh, graciously give over that time with me in order to come here and, and hang out and, um, really try to plumb the depths of not just our knowledge and test our knowledge, but plumb the depths of what all we've been given.

01:17:59

Um, so with that, we appreciate all who listen and support this content. Please rate, review, and share.