The Prophet Jeremiah Part 20

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The Prophet Jeremiah Part 21

The Prophet Jeremiah Part 21

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All right, we're going to pray and we're going to get started as we continue our walk through the book of Jeremiah.
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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we again open up your word and consider the implications of what you have revealed from the prophet
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Jeremiah, who seems to be prophesying to us today of the very apostasy that we find ourselves in, we ask that through your
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Holy Spirit that you would help us, that you would comfort us, that through the spirit of truth you may help us to embrace the truth so that we can see the lies that we believe and confess them to you as sin and be forgiven through Christ.
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We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so we are going to continue on with chapter 24 of the book of Jeremiah.
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And you're going to note that last week's bit was a bit on the blunt side by Jeremiah going after the false prophets.
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The theme will continue. It says, After Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had taken it into exile from Jerusalem, Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen and the metal workers, had brought them to Babylon, Yahweh showed me this vision.
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Now, let me comment at this point. At chapter 24, we hear of the first of what's going to be three separate attacks by Nebuchadnezzar's forces.
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Nebuchadnezzar has kind of spearheaded the first two. And if I'm remembering my history correctly, it was the third one that he didn't participate in.
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But by saying at this point, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had taken into exile from Jerusalem, Jeconiah, this proved definitively that there were false prophets in Judea at the time, because the false prophets were saying that Nebuchadnezzar is not going to come.
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Nobody's going into exile. Don't listen to Jeremiah. He's a hater.
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He's, you know, and all this kind of stuff. This is how they were talking. That's the Roseboro paraphrase, by the way, highly influenced by today's 21st century culture.
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But all that being said, this little fact that, well,
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Nebuchadnezzar, guess what? He came. He saw. He conquered. He took people into exile, including the king.
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All right. You guys remember Stratego? You know, if not Stratego, do you remember? Luis is all, yes,
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I remember Stratego. Right. OK. Remember? And then, of course, chess. How do you win chess? You conquer.
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You put the king in checkmate. Right. That's how you win. I would say that at this point,
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Nebuchadnezzar could do an end zone dance. He could basically say this is and Jeremiah can sit there and go,
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I told you. Right. Because, you know, it's going to make the news.
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I mean, the Jerusalem Times cover story is going to be King Jeconiah taken into exile.
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Everyone's going to know about this. Nebuchadnezzar has conquered. And all the false prophets, kind of like today's false prophets, they are not bending the knee or relenting or even admitting that they have said false words.
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And rather than do an end zone dance, God's going to continue to push hard, calling them to repent.
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But at this point, we can say definitively Jeremiah called it.
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You guys didn't. The exact opposite of what you said was going to happen happened. And it's kind of like the
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Trump prophets. Right. You guys remember a couple of years ago, all those prophets running around claiming, oh, the Lord has told me, thus saith the
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Lord, I've had a vision that Trump is going to be reelected. And, you know, all this kind of stuff. And that didn't work out.
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Nope. OK. So Jeconiah, king, gone.
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The officials of Judah, gone. Craftsmen and the metal workers, gone. All right.
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So the economy has taken a hit. They are headless as far as they're, you know, and they're now a puppet state of Babylon.
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OK. And they had brought them to Babylon. Yahweh showed me this vision. Behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of Yahweh.
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One basket had very good figs, like first -ripe figs. But the other basket had very bad figs so that they could not be eaten.
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And Yahweh said to me, what do you see, Jeremiah? I said, figs, the good figs, very good.
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The bad figs, very bad. So bad they cannot be eaten. Then the word of Yahweh came to me.
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Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah.
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And at this point, the false prophets begin prophesying. The Lord has showed me that the exiles will return very shortly.
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You know, thus saith the Lord. Right. And send in your thousand shekel seed offering right now and make it payable.
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You know, this is how they're talking. OK. But God here is speaking very contradictory words.
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Those who are in exile, they are the blessed ones. Why? Because they listened.
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All right. So the ones who've gone into exile have done exactly what the Lord has willed. God wills for them to go to exile.
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They wills for them to trust them. Right. Trust him. So whom I have sent away from this place. A note.
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God is making it clear. The guys who are gone, I sent them. The prophets who are saying that they're coming back and God is sending them back.
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God, no, no, no. I sent them there. They're going to stay there. And they're going to stay there for 70 years.
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Some of them will come back. Most will not. I have sent them away from this place to the land of the
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Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good. I will bring them back to this land.
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I will build them up and I will not tear them down. I will plant them and not pluck them up.
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I will give them a heart to know that I am Yahweh and they shall be my people and I will be their
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God. For they shall return to me with their whole heart. So those who are sent into exile,
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God is promising them that they will experience, how shall we put it? Repentance.
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And revival. And this is important stuff. And of course the prophet
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Ezra who wrote, he was a priest, the scribe, the priest Ezra. He notes in the beginning of Ezra chapter 1 that God fulfilled the exact same things that he said.
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He fulfilled the words of Jeremiah. So thus says the Lord, thus says Yahweh, Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will
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I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.
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So those who escaped Nebuchadnezzar's, his attack, right?
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These are going to be like your refugees. So when Russia went into Ukraine, you have a whole bunch of people fleeing the country, right?
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Same thing happened. And God had already spoken through Jeremiah. He willed for them to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar.
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That was his will. They didn't surrender, but to save their bacon, they went off to Egypt as refugees and lived there until the time of the danger had passed.
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But God is making it clear to anybody who stayed and anybody who went to Egypt to save their bacon, well, he considers them like these bad, uneatable figs.
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He says, I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, a curse.
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And in all the places where I shall drive them, and I will send sword, famine, pestilence upon them until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.
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Common sense says that when an army invades, you run away. If you're a civilian and you're not going to fight against them, you get out of town, you skedaddle, and you can save your bacon.
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God's saying here, that common sense isn't going to save you. I'm going to send sword and pestilence.
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I'm going to chase you down in judgment because God sent Nebuchadnezzar in judgment.
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So the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, which
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Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. For 23 years, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, the king of Judah, to this day, the word of Yahweh has come to me.
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I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. So 23 years of ministry, and by today's seeker -driven megachurch standards,
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Jeremiah is a complete washout. He's a complete and utter failure. The truth, the way you can tell somebody's ministry is really blessed of God is you get a lot of people listening to you.
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That's not true. Jeremiah has been prophesying the actual words that Yahweh has given him for 23 years, and just like God told
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Jeremiah at the beginning of his ministry, yeah, they're not going to listen to you. God's word was true, and it says,
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I have spoken to you persistently, you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although Yahweh persistently sent to you all his servants, the prophets, saying,
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Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and his evil deeds. Dwell upon the land that Yahweh has given to you and your fathers from of old forever.
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Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them or to provoke me to anger with the work of your hands.
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Then I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to me, declares Yahweh, that you might provoke me to anger with all the work of your hands to your own harm.
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The fact that God didn't wipe out the Judeans in one fell swoop is a mercy.
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It's basically God saying, all right, you don't think Nebuchadnezzar's going to come? Come on,
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Nebi, let's go. Calls him, and a portion of them go into exile. Some of them are allowed to stay, some are allowed to flee, but God has made it clear,
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I told you this was coming. Now it's, here's the first installment. And he's shown that he is persistent because he does not will to harm them.
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His desire is the repentance. His desire is that they be forgiven.
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And here's where we must come to grips with this. Sin and idolatry and following the ways of your own heart that are contrary to the commands of God are harming you.
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They are not doing you good. Sin isn't your friend, and false gods are not your buddies.
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These are demonic temptations that their end is your complete destruction.
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The God who made you, who formed you, who is going to send his son to die for you, I have to say that in the future tense here in Jeremiah, he wills that you be saved.
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And so he wants them to turn, and like a good fatherly parent, have you ever had one of your children misbehave?
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And you've had to escalate your punishments with that child to help them get it through their head.
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Oh wait, you were serious? Yeah. That's the point here.
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So therefore, thus says Yahweh of armies, because you've not obeyed my words, behold,
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I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares Yahweh, for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations.
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I will devote them to destruction, make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.
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Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness, the voice of bridegroom, the voice of bride, the grinding of the millstone, the light of the lamp.
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This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the kings of Babylon for 70 years.
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Now if you think about it, when the Israelites first came into Canaan after the Exodus, so they had come out of slavery in Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and then we had the conquest of Canaan.
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God specifically ordered that they devote to destruction the idolaters that were living in Canaan at the time.
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And what's really sad here is that God executed judgment through Israel against these
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Canaanites for their idolatry, the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the
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Amorites, the Uptites, and the Balletites, right? You have to throw in those little known tribes.
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But God executed judgment against them and called for they be fully devoted to destruction for their idolatry, for their rank sin, and their evil.
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And then the Israelites learned that evil from their survivors, and they were just as guilty as the tribes who were initially kicked out when they came into the land of Israel.
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So God shows no partiality. He shows no favoritism. Despite the fact that they were genetically descendants of Abraham, did not give them an inside track because they had rejected
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God. And so God has spoken, I'm sending for Nebuchadnezzar, and the exiles who go into exile, the ones who listen to me, they're going to be there for 70 years.
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And I will punish then the king of Babylon and the nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares
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Yahweh. And that absolutely happens. If you were to think through Daniel chapter 11, an amazing chapter when you think about it.
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It prophesies in Daniel chapter 11 the fall of the Chaldean Empire, the fall of the
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Medes and the Persians, and the ascendancy of what will become the empire created by Alexander the
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Great. And so, yeah, God's going to fulfill every one of these words.
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I will bring upon that land all the words that I've uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied, and against all the nations.
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For many nations and great kings shall make slaves, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds and the works of their hands.
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So thus Yahweh, the God of Israel, said to me, take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath.
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And that's one of the pictures. So when you have Jesus praying in the garden, Lord, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me.
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But not my will, but your will be done. What cup is he talking about?
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Answer, it's the cup of the wine of the wrath of God. Jesus was made to drink of the cup of the wine of the wrath of God for me and for you so that we can be forgiven of all of our sins.
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So take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath. Make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.
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They shall drink and stagger, be crazed because of the sword that I am sending upon them.
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So I took the cup from Yahweh's hands and made all the nations to whom Yahweh sent me to drink it,
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Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, a hissing and a curse as at this day,
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Pharaoh the king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, and all of his people, and all the mixed tribes among them, all the kings of the land of Uz and all the kings of the land of the
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Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Akron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, Moab, and the sons of Ammon, and all the kings of Tyre and the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands across the sea, and all who cut the corners of their hair, all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert, all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and the kings of Media, and all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth, and after them the king of Babylon shall drink.
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Then you shall say to them, Thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, Drink and be drunk, and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you.
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And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them,
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Thus says Yahweh of hosts, you must drink. For behold, I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name, and shall you go unpunished?
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You shall not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares
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Yahweh of hosts. So don't let this part of the prophecy really go too fast through your brain, because the imagery here is stark.
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God is causing them to drink the cup of his wrath for their sins, while Christ drinks the cup of God's wrath for your sins, so that you would not stagger and be judged and die at the hand of God.
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It's a stark imagery. So the connections to Christ are amazing as it relates to the gospel, because Christ drinks the cup that each and every one of us deserve, and he drinks it for us so that we don't have to.
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Instead, the cup of blessing, which is what we drink in the Lord's Supper, the cup of blessing that we bless, it is for our forgiveness, our peace, and shalom.
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Marilyn, I thought I saw your hand up. Oh, there's no such thing as a stupid question.
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Okay, so cutting the corners of their hair, talking about particular hairstyles of particular people back then.
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So the Israelites were forbidden to cut the corners of their hair the way that the pagans did.
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So the men of Israel were required to keep a beard. That's important to note. And there were certain shaving practices that they were not permitted to engage in.
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And I would note that shaving and cutting the corners of your hair, that was totally a thing back then.
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They just didn't have the utensils that we have for that. They had their own versions of very sharp knives for the purpose of cutting and shaving.
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But yes, that's a thing. And so it was referring to particular hairstyles, and oftentimes people would cut and shave their heads specifically in honor of the dead.
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There was a whole dead ancestor worship thing going on in the ancient world, and oftentimes those particular hairstyles went along with it.
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So that I do not know.
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I legitimately don't know the answer to that. So I'm not familiar with that practice.
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I would note that Orthodox Judaism is the direct theological descendant of the Pharisees, and so they have a whole lot of practices that are not found anywhere in the
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Scripture that come through their so -called oral tradition or the tradition of the elders. That's the reason why they wear the beanie on their heads and things like that.
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So I'm not familiar enough with Jewish practices as to why they would shave the head of their young boys.
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Couldn't tell you. So I'm sure I could do some research and figure it out. I have a pretty good library when it comes to Orthodox Judaism.
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I just haven't read that part. Was the haircut a part of God's law?
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Was the haircut a part of God's law? Yes, in one very specific way. So if you were to take the oath of a
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Nazirite, all right, so you take the oath of the Nazirite, and then for a period of time you do not shave or cut your hair, and you can't drink alcohol at that time either.
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And then at the time when you break your Nazirite vow, there's particular ceremonies that you must go through to end your vow, which will include shaving and cutting off all of your hair, and then it also involves certain sacrifices and money offerings.
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It's expensive to break your Nazirite vow. But if I'm not mistaken,
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I think that's the only prescribed shaving when it comes to Mosaic Covenant.
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It is noted that normatively men kept their hair short, women kept their hair long.
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You can read that in the New Testament. That's a normative practice. So if you see depictions of David running around with long, flowing hair, that was not a common practice.
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Notable among them, though, who had long hair would be Samson. And his hair was basically kind of a prototype of the sacraments.
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But he was a Nazirite from birth, even from before birth. His mother wasn't allowed to have wine.
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But yeah. Now let me check questions before I go too far.
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Hold on a second here. Okay. So Terry just got back from Germany, from Oberammergau.
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I was going to go see the Passion Play a couple years ago and then COVID. Bummer. All right, let's see.
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Pastor Marlene had a question. Should we tell children about the upcoming increasing suffering in the world, and if so, how?
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So I would put it this way. We must always prepare our children realistically for the difficulties that they are to experience as Christians.
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But I would always anchor it not in speculation, but anchor it in the words that Christ has given us.
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So as you're teaching the Bible to your children and you come across a passage where Christ says to expect suffering and persecution, you can then have a conversation based upon the words of Christ.
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Because in that context, you're meditating on, thinking about, and considering the implication.
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What is Jesus telling us here? So center your discussion around a biblical passage.
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Don't talk about suffering in the abstract. That leads to speculation and all kinds of anxiety.
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And then when you bring it up in the context of Christ is the one who told us these things, you can say, isn't it so great that Jesus told us what to expect so that when it shows up, we can know that we're okay.
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Everything's going exactly the way Jesus had planned it. So that gives you the ability to anchor it back into Christ's words and the comfort and the reasons why he gave it.
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So in today's gospel text, Jesus said, I told you these things so that you would not fall away.
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And so you don't do anybody a favor by not properly preparing them for what's coming up.
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And Christ properly prepares us for the suffering and difficulties that we experience in this life and the persecution that we go through.
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Could you imagine if I said to my wife, hey, honey, let's go out to dinner.
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And she'd go, all right, well, where are we going? And I'd say, well, I'm not going to tell you. Well, what should I wear? Just go as you are.
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And so she's spent the day cleaning the house and hasn't really put on any nice clothes. And then I'd take her to the Ritz, to the
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Ritz -Carlton. She'd look at me like, why didn't you tell me we were going to the Ritz? I would have changed my clothes.
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I'd be in a lot of trouble. Not that I've ever done this. This is totally a hypothetical situation.
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Totally hypothetical. It really never happened. But the point is that Christ does prepare us.
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He prepares us very well. So anchor our discussions in the reading of his word, in the words of Christ, and then have discussions centered around those words.
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That's the best way to do it. So Daniel says, did Jeremiah say that we have a double -minded heart?
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Proverbs says we should rely on God with our own heart. We should not rely. So Proverbs 3 .5.
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Okay, let's take a look at that real quick. So double -mindedness and a double -minded heart is noting then our heart has something to do with how we think.
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And this is an important thing. In the ancient world, you have your head on one side, reason and rationale on one side of the spectrum.
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And on the other side of the spectrum, you have your guts, your splognizami, your innards.
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And that's where all of your out -of -control passions come from. So when somebody goes into a towering rage, that's down in their guts.
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And in the Jewish way of thinking then, the thing that moderates, runs interference between the two extremes is your heart.
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And so when it talks about having a double -minded heart in Scripture, it's talking about how you can't make a decision between your head and your guts.
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And so you're double -minded. And rather than letting yourself be properly reasoned by God's words and the truth, you instead let your passions get the best of you.
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And so rather than governing yourself properly, you instead are kind of out of control.
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And that's the idea behind double -mindedness. And then in Proverbs chapter... It's a proverb, by the way.
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Yeah, a proverb is a verb that's lost its amateur status. Just want to let you know that. Here's what it says in Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5.
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Trust in Yahweh with all of your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
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Him. He will make your path straight. Who's going to make my path straight? God. So be not wise in your own eyes.
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Fear Yahweh. Turn away from evil. It will be healing for your flesh and refreshment for your bones.
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So take that whole section as a really good, tight, compact whole.
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So trust in Yahweh with all your heart. I cannot tell you how annoying it is for me when
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I hear theologians debating their own ideas and their own speculations.
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It is as annoying as annoying gets. One of the groups
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I've criticized on my YouTube channel is the Remnant Radio guys. I was recently listening to Remnant Radio's interview with Mike Bickle of IHOP.
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And it was an hour and ten -minute grind of listening to these guys get,
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Well, I think this, and I think that, and I think this, and I think that. And you know what was missing in the whole conversation?
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An actual biblical text. And there was Mike Bickle waxing eloquent about all of his so -called experiences that he had with the so -called prophet
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Bob Jones and all this other kind of stuff. And what was missing was an open Bible and them actually working through any biblical text.
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So what ends up happening, you talk to somebody like the Remnant Radio guys and you say, Listen, God's Word says these things.
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And they go, Well, you know, there's some traditions that say this and other traditions that say that. And that theologian over there, who
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I really like and respect, he agrees with you in part. And then all this kind of says, Just put it all away.
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All right, put it all away. You know, and people say, Well, you know, that the book of Genesis, you know, those first 11 chapters, that's probably just mythology.
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That's just some kind of a legend. It's not really history. And so we can talk then about what really took place and how we really got here.
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And what are you doing? You're leaning completely on your own understanding. All right. Trust in the
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Lord with some of your heart. No, all of it. Don't lean on your own understanding.
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So I can tell you this. I wasn't here when the earth was formed. But I know a guy who was.
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And he happened to rise from the grave on the third day after he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. So I don't care how smart a scientist is today who sits there and says,
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Evolution is the thing that really is true. Well, it's not observable. It's not repeatable. You know, and it just sounds like a bunch of human reason.
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I don't lean on my own understanding. I'm just a stupid guy who believes Jesus because Jesus says in Matthew 19 that God created human beings in the beginning, male and female.
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He created them. Full stop. Well, that being the case, I'm just going to not lean on my own understanding and not even worry about the evolutionists and all their stuff.
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So in all your ways, acknowledge God. He will make your path straight. And then listen to these words. Don't be wise in your own eyes.
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That is arrogance. I just am not that smart.
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Neither are you. Fear Yahweh. And then watch this. Turn away from evil. And so here, you know, give you an example of people following their own speculations and stuff.
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Well, we live in a day where don't you think it's just more reasonable to believe that love is love, right?
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And, you know, love the one you're with and all this kind of stuff. And you sit there and go, but Scripture says that that love that you're defending is sinful.
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Well, you know, that's just old -fashioned. That's just, you know, we live in the 21st century. We have the
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Internet. So how dare you say that that thing is sinful and we're going to cancel you and all this. But what does
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Scripture say? Turn away from evil. It will be healing for your flesh. How many stories are there out there of people who, just pagans, as soon as they graduate high school, they go off to university.
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They spend four years in ranked debauchery, you know, working their way, making
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C grades through college. They graduate from college. They find somebody. They get married.
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And then all of a sudden they realize that the whole lifestyle that they were living in college at the university was really damaging them.
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And so they no longer do those things because it was hurting them.
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And the Christian sits there and goes, no kidding. You can't pursue sin and expect good to come from it.
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And even the pagans, once they hit their late 20s and 30s, their lives have completely changed from the debaucherous people that they were at the university to semi -reasonable, you know, law -abiding citizens for the most part.
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But they're not doing this because they have love for God. They're doing this because sin is damaging.
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Skip that other part and recognize that God says that trusting in him and turning from evil is an actual healing for your flesh.
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It's refreshment to your bones. Sin is always that thing that we're ashamed of that we don't want somebody to bring up, you know.
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The last thing you want are photographs of you at the university when you were 20, right, popping up when you were at that party, right.
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You know, those of you in the Navy, you didn't have that same problem. So, you know, different issue, different issue.
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Some of the people in the Navy definitely threw some pretty crazy parties. Yeah, right.
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All right. So, yeah, so the question then is, so how do we connect these two supposed opposite statements?
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I think we connected it by understanding how the heart is considered in the Jewish way of thinking as the regulator between the brain and your guts, okay.
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And so, you know, and the idea here, you'll note that God makes appeals to our hearts, all right, for the purpose.
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Christianity is neither the exclusive realm of reason aside from feeling nor is it just rank out of control passions apart from thought.
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God has made us with a mind and with guts and the heart is the regulator between the two.
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The heart is the regulator between the two, okay. So, Jen says the heart, 790 verses from Genesis all the way to Revelation.
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Right, exactly. You'll note that the Bible constantly makes appeals to our hearts and the idea then is that our heart is that regulator, okay.
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Always hear people say speak from the heart but then we know that Jeremiah says but then look at Ezekiel 36.
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Right. Ezekiel 36, God has to replace our heart of stone with the heart of flesh. And note then in the
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Jewish way of thinking, if the heart is the regulator between the mind and the guts, somebody who's dead and trespasses and sins, their heart is a heart of stone.
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They don't have any way of regulating at all. And they're going to just follow their own passions or their own thoughts without any ability whatsoever whereas God gives us a heart of flesh and that heart of flesh is a beating heart and it regulates between the two.
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Aislinn asks, what is Stratego? A cheap chess knockoff is the best way
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I can describe it. Pawned off on kids in the 70s, especially as we got closer to Christmas, you would get the commercials along with Scooby -Doo and other things telling you to play
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Stratego. Stratego. And I would recommend just go to YouTube, type in commercial
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Stratego, and you can see the kids' commercials for it. I do that every now and then.
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I have these feelings of nostalgia. And I'll go and I'll watch some of the old commercials. And then
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I watch them and I think, I'm really old, really old. You know, that's right. Remember the old
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Life commercials? Hey, Mikey. He won't eat it. He'll eat anything, right?
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Let's see. Billy says, Jesus is almost always portrayed with long hair. I wonder why. It could be the hippie artwork.
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It's the holdover from the 60s drug culture. I'm not sure. I don't know.
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I don't know. So Eric says, what is the interpretation of it is a shame for a man to have long hair?
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So in 1 Corinthians 11, we're a little off topic, but I did open that door, didn't
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I? Let's take a look at it real quick. And we are looking at 1 Cor 11.
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Great passage, by the way. So this is the passage talking about head coverings.
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And you're going to note that women having long hair is considered part of this concept.
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Now, regarding head coverings, Paul says, now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I deliver them to you.
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But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband.
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The head of Christ is God. So you're going to note here, boy, this is going to really rankle some feathers.
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The word we're looking at here is patriarchy. That's what's being described.
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And to kind of make it clear where we're going with this, let me make a statement that might seem a little out of place but is absolutely defensible.
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Today's blatant attacks against patriarchy are grounded in Marxist ideology.
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And the reason for it is simple. It's that Marxism found that the greatest enemy against Marxism was not capitalism.
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It was the nuclear family. And so Marxist ideology always attacks the nuclear family.
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So the attack against patriarchy today is an ideological attack designed to weaken families because families are the great enemy of communism.
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So when you hear some blue -haired woman screeching about the evils of patriarchy, you're dealing with a communist ideologue.
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I know that sounds just over the top, but that's absolutely defensibly true. Whether or not they believe in communism or not, they may be just a stooge of the ideology.
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And you'll note that if you know your history as it relates to communism and fascism and the
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Frankfurt School, the Frankfurt School was overt in their saying that the family must be overthrown.
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So God has created human beings with an actual patriarchal hierarchy.
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Now, in true Christian patriarchy, the patriarchy runs opposite of the direction that people think of in today's power dynamics.
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Christ is the head of the church, and he is the one who sacrificially gave himself up for his bride.
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So Christ doesn't rule and reign with tyranny. He rules and reigns by mercifully laying down his life, and he rules and reigns through love sacrificially.
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And so because we are under the dominion of darkness, and we all kind of think like the devil because of this, when we think of hierarchy in patriarchy, we think of power and oppression, not of love and sacrifice and mercy.
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So you have to flip the patriarchy in order to understand this. And so when it says that Christ is the head of the wife, or understand that the head of every man is
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Christ, the head of the wife is her husband, you have to flip it according to the way we think.
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God's up is the world's down. God's down is the world's up.
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The directions have to be flipped in the biblical worldview. The head of Christ is God.
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Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.
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And so what Paul is basically saying here is that in the patriarchal way of looking at the universe, men have short hair and women have long hair or a head covering, and the head covering is the sign of her having authority over her.
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So watch how he says this, okay? The head of a wife is her husband. The head of Christ is
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God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.
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For if a wife will not cover her head, she should cut her hair short. So note here, hair counts.
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But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.
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For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and the glory of God. But a woman is the glory of man.
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Boy, this is going to send the feminists into a complete tailspin, alright? Listen to the sentence again.
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Man not ought to cover his head, he is the image and the glory of God.
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The woman is the glory of man. So God made man directly.
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God formed woman from man. That creation reality informs us as to how we're made.
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And to buck against this is to buck against how we were made and how we were made to function.
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Man is not made from woman. Woman was made from man. Neither was man created for woman.
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Woman was created for man. Now, again, don't think power over women.
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Christ lays down His life for His church. We are to love our wives as Christ has loved the church.
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So that is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority. So long hair or a head covering, these are symbols of authority.
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It is a symbol that she is in submission to her husband as God has designed it.
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She should have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Now, angels here, everyone reads this in English and they sit there and go,
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Oh, are you saying that we should have a symbol of authority so we don't offend Michael and Gabriel and things like this? No, okay?
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This is a letter written to a congregation in Corinth and angels is referring to the pastors.
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Think Book of Revelation. Jesus is writing, has John write letters to the angel of the church of Thyatira.
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Right. To the angel of the church of Ephesus. Right. To the angel of the church of Smyrna. Right. Why would you write a letter to a disembodied spirit?
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You don't, okay? So here angels, angelos, is a reference to the pastors of the congregation because the idea here is that there is your pastor, right?
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And there were women at this time and they were led by, if I am not mistaken,
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I'm trying to think through my history here. They were led in rebellion by one of the wives of the emperor of Rome.
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She did not want, she bucked against the patriarchy and there was a bunch of women at this time.
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It was kind of like the ancient world's version of burning your bra. They were out there in protest against how the patriarchy was working in the
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Roman Empire and some of the women in the church were buying into that. That's kind of the cultural context at the time of what was going on.
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And so you have these women coming into church who are, at this point, they're cutting their hair short, like super short or doing things in such a way culturally as to basically show that they were in protest to the male patriarchy thing and they were causing the pastors to struggle and to stumble and to have issues.
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And the other thing, this is the other bit, and this is the part we need to talk about here, and this is an ancient practice.
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Wearing a head covering in the ancient world was a sign that you were married as a woman.
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So in our day and age, we wear these. I've got my wedding ring on.
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So anybody can look at my left hand at a glance and go, oh, he's married. Bummer, he's taken.
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I know, it happens all the time, right? But that being the case, this is pretty new in human history.
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And in many parts of the world that have older cultures, women in public who are not married wear a head covering.
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Now Islam has taken this to the extreme with the burqa and things like this, but that was the other bit of it.
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So part of the problem that was going on in the ancient world at this time, because again, I think this was one of the wives of the
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Caesars who was leading this rebellion culturally, is that you had married women showing up to church without a head covering and basically signaling to everybody,
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I'm single. And now that creates scandal.
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Now here's the thing. This idea, nowhere in Scripture am I required to wear a wedding ring.
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And let's be blunt. The Scripture also in Paul will make this clear that women are not required to wear a head covering in order to show that they are married.
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That's not an actual requirement. But you'll note that these were cultural practices that were almost universally accepted.
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And to break those cultural practices cannot be done without it causing scandal, without it causing a problem.
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Do you guys remember when the movie G .I. Jane came out? It was a big scandal.
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Why? Because Demi Moore, she completely shaved her head for the role.
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And the idea was, the basic plot of the movie was that men and women are completely interchangeable when it comes to combat and stuff like this.
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And they're really not. I'll be blunt. They just really are not. None of us are really made for war.
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We were created in the image of God. And women are, the anxieties they suffer post -battle are sometimes even worse and more lasting than what happens to men.
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I'll just be blunt about that. But the idea then here is that when there is a cultural practice, so for instance, if I were to show up at Kongsvinger next week, and then the week after, and the week after, just conducting an experiment that every time
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I came to church, I took my wedding rings off, how long do you think it would be before somebody would notice?
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And how long would it be before somebody has a conversation with me? I think the first week they might go, maybe he is cleaning them?
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The second week they'd say something is wrong. Third week, I'm getting a talk too. What are you doing,
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Roseboro? Are you trying to hide the fact that you're married? What is this that's going on here? And that would be a legitimate conversation.
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If I were to say, well, there's no biblical requirement that I wear a wedding ring, I think you just need to mind your own business.
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They might accuse me of engaging in obfuscation, trying to hide something. Then out come the conspiracies.
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He's got a side chick or something, right? He's pulling a brown. What? He's pulling a brown.
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So you get the idea. So the idea then is that a wife not having a symbol of authority, and by the way, single women didn't have that, this could cause a scandal with the pastors.
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Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor a man of woman.
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So no, in the Lord, we're not independent of each other. We are not interchangeable.
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We complement each other. For as a woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. Note how the cycle works.
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And all things are from God. So judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered?
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Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is to her glory?
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For her hair is given to her for a covering. So long hair counts as a covering for women.
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So if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice nor do the churches of God. And so he's talking about a cultural thing here.
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And at the end of the day, this is up to your consciences. Now I would note something here, that through the history of the church, up until super recently, and think sexual revolution, women have always worn head coverings in church.
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And I mean always. I tell the story that a few years ago before COVID and we could travel,
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I was in London and I was doing some travel and I had like one day where I could do whatever
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I wanted. And I wanted to see the Churchill bunkers. And so if you haven't been to London and seen the
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Churchill bunkers, it's worth the line, it's worth the money. It's a great, great thing.
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What are you saying, Don? I want to see the transition between head coverings.
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Okay. Okay, so even
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Don Matson. So here at Kungsvinger, we have a wall with photographs because this is a historical church.
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And there are two photographs, one showing the women wearing head coverings and the younger women not.
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And then there's another photo with all the women having head coverings. And it's very fascinating stuff. But when
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I was at the Churchill bunkers, there's a section of the museum that's there now that they show kind of a looping video of the funeral service for Winston Churchill.
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And it took place in St. Paul's. And what was fascinating was they make a point of pointing out that the
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Queen showed up because it was a big deal that the Queen actually showed up for the funeral of a citizen who wasn't royalty.
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She was there, and every single woman in St. Paul's all wore a head covering, including the
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Queen. And I thought, that's interesting. I remember my grandmother. My grandmother, 4 '9",
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Dorothy Majewski. This woman was a battle axe of a woman, and she loved going to the
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Roman Catholic Latin Mass. I could never figure out what was going on at the Latin Mass because I could just look at other people.
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If they stood up, I stood up. If they sat down, I sat down. If they kneeled, I kneeled. And I never made eye contact with my grandma because then she would box my ears.
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And if you don't know what that is, you don't want to know. But every time we'd be outside of a
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Roman Catholic parish, just as we're about to go in, she pulls into her purse, pulls out a handkerchief, puts it over her head.
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She would never enter a Roman Catholic church without a head covering, ever. And Don noted here at Kongsvinger, that was a thing.
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Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Radium, they have in the congregation people who remember when the transition took place.
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And one of the women in the church, she was one of the people who was a holdout. She was one of the last women wearing a head covering, and she stopped because none of the other women were doing it.
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And she just felt it was foolish. What was the point of fighting on? And when I brought this topic up and read this passage out with them on one
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Sunday, she had a lot to say. She had a lot to say. Yeah.
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Yeah, that is a great point. Okay. Yep. The importance of the catechesis behind it.
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So Marilyn Massen brought up the point that how many women, they ended up wearing head coverings and not even knowing why.
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And this brings up an interesting cultural thing. I remember not too long ago, for some reason
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YouTube thinks I want to watch nerdy things. And so it always suggests nerdy things. I don't know how it knows this about me.
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But there was a YouTube channel that caught my eye because it was talking about a particular experiment, a behavioral experiment that was done with monkeys, with chimpanzees.
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And here's how the experiment worked. They had five chimpanzees in an enclosure, and they had put in the middle of the enclosure a ladder, one of those ladders that goes up in a
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V shape. And at the top of the ladder they put a bunch of bananas. And then what they did is any time one of the chimpanzees tried to ascend the ladder to get the bananas, they would take a very powerful hose and hose the chimpanzee to punish them for doing it.
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And so the way the experiment begins is that these chimpanzees, any of them that tried to do it, not only would that one get hosed, the other ones would get punished as well.
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So all of the chimpanzees would get hosed, so it got to the point where if any of them tried to ascend the ladder to get the bananas, they would all pull that other monkey down and, no, don't do this.
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But then what they started doing is they started switching out chimpanzees. And it got to the point where there were no longer any of the original five, but at that point, any chimpanzee that climbed the ladder would get punished.
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None of them knew the stimuli. It was kind of like the behavioral science experiment that says the reason why we do things around here is because that's how we've always done things around here.
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It's fascinating that you can reproduce that. But in the
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Christian church, because we are told to be in the Word of God, that pastors must teach the full counsel of the
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Word of God, at no point in the church should we ever say the reason why we do this is because we've always done this.
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Every generation must be given the catechesis and the explanation so that they themselves can embrace and hold fast and believe and practice what the
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Word of God says. If we ever get to the point where we're just saying, well, the reason why we do this is because that's the way we've always done this, that just becomes tyranny.
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At that point, you're just walking through the motions and there's no meaning in it for you at all.
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But we have to instruct ourselves and our kids and our grandkids as to why we do the things we do, why we believe the things we believe, and saying, well, that's what we've always believed and that's what we always do, that is not a sufficient answer.
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That's just lazy. Real quick here,
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I'm going to run through here. Okay, let's see here.
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Aislinn, kind words. I spend a lot of time teaching more Bible than she's used to.
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That's kind of the idea. Let's see here. I'm going to have to end here.
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This is where I've got to end. Alright, good to see you all. Normal church next week, normal church.