WWUTT 2265 Q&A Pleading Guilty, Obeying Traffic Laws, The Chosen's John the Baptist

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If you are guilty of a crime, should you admit that you're guilty or make the state have to prove it?

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Does a Christian have to drive the speed limit? And what's with that scene between Jesus and John the

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Baptist in The Chosen? The answers to these questions when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com and don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me again this week.

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But this time, it's my fault. Last week, she wasn't on with me because she was just tired, weary, couldn't do it.

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I was even having to drag her out of bed to do the show if she was going to do the show. So I said, don't worry about it.

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I got it this week. This time around, though, I had taken her microphone over to the church and was doing something with it there and never brought it back home.

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So there's not even a way for her to be on the program with me because the way that the room is set up, she can't even fit behind the desk where I'm sitting.

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It's a one -person fit. So it was going to be a really tight fit for us to do that for an hour and then go back and forth between the microphone, and we just knew it wasn't going to work.

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So this is my fault this time around that Becky is not on with me this week.

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But we appreciate your prayers and your encouragement. We read emails together. So whatever email

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I'm going to read this week, she has seen it herself. We've listened to your voicemail messages.

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This being the Friday edition of the broadcast, you can submit a question to us. We answer your questions here on the

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Friday episode. The best way to get questions to us is via email when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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Or you can send us a voicemail by going to www .utt .com,

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click on that voicemail tab in the top right corner of the page, and you can record it from your computer, from your phone.

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It's supposed to just give you like 90 seconds, a minute and a half. That's how long you have to ask your question or give us a word of encouragement.

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We'll take that too. Though we have had questions come from a few people that were like two and two and a half minutes.

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So it is possible to get beyond that length, but I think it's supposed to cut you off at a minute and a half.

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Well before we get to the questions, let's come back to our study at Proverbs, Proverbs chapter five.

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In fact, is where we are. I'm going to pick up where we left off last week. So Proverbs five, seven, hear the word of the

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Lord. And now, oh, sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

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Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house. Lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless.

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Less strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner.

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And at the end of your life, you groan when your flesh and body are consumed and you say how

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I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof. I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.

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I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation. Now, to remind you once again of the context of what we're reading here, the warning that the king is giving to his son is to stay far away from the adulterous woman.

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The lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil.

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It may be that what she says and the way she bats her eyes, all of that is very sweet.

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But the reality is that she is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two -edged sword.

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If you go after her, you go the way of Sheol. Now, what is directly being addressed here, of course, is a warning against adultery.

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It's a warning against sexual immorality. But you can also apply this to any sort of temptation of the flesh.

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Beware of going after your carnal desires. And is there anything that more greatly exemplifies carnal desires than sexual immorality?

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So of course, that one is going to be the one that is presented. But as you get here, as you get further down in verse 7, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

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Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honors to others and your years to the merciless.

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This can very well be applied as any kind of warning against falling into some kind of grievous sin.

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That statement there in verse 8, keep your way far from her. Do not go near the door of your house.

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Keep your distance. Put some distance between you and her. Don't even go the way where you could put yourself in a position to even potentially be tempted.

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Stay far away from those temptations. Now, sometimes when it comes to applying that, staying far away from those temptations, things can get a little legalistic.

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Like say, for example, there are certain movies that we shouldn't watch. There are things in films we should never put before our eyes.

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But a person might decide, well, in order to keep those things from my eyes, I'm just not going to watch movies altogether. And I'm going to tell other people they can't watch movies either.

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If anybody is watching films, then they are sinning. I remember my dad talking about some of the fundamentalism that existed in the

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South when I was growing up. It wasn't part of my family, but there were there was some of that independent

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Baptist fundamentalism which was telling people that you can't go to the theater at all. You can't watch movies at all because Hollywood is just all bad.

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So even if you're watching a film that has some good entertainment value to it, like it might seem fairly benign, neutral, nothing about it seems overtly sinful, yet it's coming from a bunch of wicked, wicked people and all the awful stuff that they're doing in Hollywood.

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And you would be funding that if you go to that movie and pay for it and so on and so forth. We call this putting a hedge about the law where the hedge then becomes the law.

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You're doing something to keep your distance from potential sin. Keep yourself away from that temptation.

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What you end up doing is applying something legalistic to everybody that scripture doesn't say. It doesn't say stay away from all forms of entertainment, but that's what a person begins to do when they start applying these these rules that would help you stay away from any of those potential pitfalls.

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So here the father gives the warning to his children, keep far away from her.

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Do not go near the door of her house. Don't even put yourself in a position where you could be tempted.

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Now, when it comes to the adulterous woman, certainly, but somebody could take that and start adding to it and then creating laws upon laws that God did not create.

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And then you have the rebuke that Jesus gives to the Pharisees in Mark chapter seven. You leave the commandment of God for the traditions of men.

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So beware of adding to the law that would be legalistic. Nonetheless, we do need to take precautions to keep ourselves far from any of those temptations that we would not fall into sin and thus into ruin.

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Lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, it says in verse nine.

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And this is just very simply to give up yourself to somebody else. You have a good name.

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You have a good reputation. If you get known as somebody who is going around with adulterers, adulteresses, you become an adulterer yourself and you have given up your honor.

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You no longer have it. You gave your honor away. That person doesn't get your honor like they don't become honorable now.

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You're both just wallowing in your sin and you give your years to the merciless good years of your life, opportunities that you have to learn and grow and experience life.

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And you have aspirations and you can really make something of yourself, especially as a youth, when you have a lot of strength and energy and vigor and ambition and you give away those years and then it's lost.

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I did some of this when I was in my twenties, gave away some good years of my life that I could have been ambitious and focused upon dreams that I had or goals that I had in mind.

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And no, I was going around with girls, gave away my honor to others, my years to the merciless.

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Thankfully, the Lord kept me from doing anything really bad that I could still be facing the consequences of even to this day.

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But nonetheless, I wasted my time. I went after the passions of my flesh. I fell into sin and lost some good opportunities as a result of that as well.

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Especially, you know, one thing that I definitely missed out on in those years, and I've I've talked about this before and shared this with other groups of young people that I've had the opportunity to teach.

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I should have been praying and reading my Bible more in those years. And I was not. In fact, I was a little arrogant about it because I had been raised on it.

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And so I kind of had this attitude of like, man, I know most of it. I know it better than all my friends do.

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So why do I need to keep studying? And again, instead of being in the word, committed to God, drawing near to Christ, I was going after the passions of my flesh.

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Could have been a lot worse than it was, but it was enough to make me regret those years and repent before God for the way that I wasted that time and went after myself instead of the

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Lord. Let strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner

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And at the end of your life, you groan when your flesh and your body are consumed.

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Have to wonder if that's a reference to facing some of the consequences of your actions. They're sexually transmitted diseases or something to that effect.

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And verse 12, and you say how I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof.

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I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.

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I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation. Now I am thankful for godly men who came alongside me in those years and convicted me of my sin and said to turn away from that and come back to the path of righteousness.

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And we need to be doing that for one another, that we may build each other up in love as talked about in Ephesians chapter four, growing into the head who is

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Christ. You're not meant to do that just by yourself. But we do that together as the body of Christ, protecting one another from sin, encouraging one another, building each other up in love.

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Let's continue to do that as the church of our Lord. So let's get to some questions here.

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And once again, the email address is when we understand the text at gmail .com. This one is from Matt.

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Hey, Gabe and Becky, I thank you for all that you guys do. I'm a regular Q &A listener.

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And I had a question pop into my head this morning and thought I'd toss it to you guys. If a

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Christian commits a crime, are they allowed to plead not guilty and force the state to make their case?

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Or do they need to plead guilty and accept whatever punishment is due? I only asked this out of curiosity.

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I promise. Yeah, sure. Matt. Sure. Sure. Also, please keep praying for East Tennessee and Western North Carolina.

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We're about 20 miles west of the damage here in Knoxville. So we were fine. But so many others are struggling mightily without food, power, et cetera.

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One of the Theo cast guys is in Asheville, I believe. Love you guys. Matt. Well, I appreciate your question,

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Matt. Yes, we are definitely praying for those folks that have been affected by these storms. I'm all the way out in Arizona.

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I'm far southwest United States. That's kind of my home turf.

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I don't want to call it my home turf. This is my home. And I live more years in Kansas than I did in the southeast.

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But I was born there. I was born in South Carolina. And so seeing a lot of the devastation there really was heartbreaking.

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My parents live in Georgia. They're just south of Atlanta. When I asked my dad how he was affected by the storm, he said, oh, we lost a tree.

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So apparently it didn't hit them as bad in that part of Georgia. But yeah, up there in North Georgia and in the

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Carolinas and in East Tennessee, it has been heartbreaking watching the devastation. I just saw something the other day.

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I don't have this figure up in front of me. But the number of suicides has doubled already in Western North Carolina.

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And that is, again, just heart wrenching to hear about those things. People who are, they've lost everything.

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And they don't have any communication with the outside world. There's no power. They're lacking food and water.

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And so some are, and they've even lost family members. So some are taking that way out.

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And they are choosing to commit suicide. Lord God, please convict the hearts of that people.

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Bring the gospel to them, especially, that some of the people that come and will provide aid and assistance in those regions will also come with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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I've heard stories from people who are out there, like I've talked with folks who have been there in the disaster relief, and they have said that the government, at least in the places where they have been, the government comes in and they create more of a problem.

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They're not helping. They're exacerbating the issue. And some of the volunteers are like, we'd just rather not see the government come in.

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We don't want to see them here because it makes our job harder. So something else to be praying about, that there would be godly people, godly advisors around these leaders, so that they're making the best decisions for the people.

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Not sticking with their rules and regulations and trying to do things by some sort of code, whatever it is that they're following.

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But what do we need to do to get assistance to the people? And pray that all of those efforts come through.

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I know Samaritan's Purse is still doing an immense amount of work. I heard on the Daily Wire the other day, them give great congratulations to Samaritan's Purse for the work that they are doing.

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And then also the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief group. This is kind of their specialty.

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It's what they do, and they're extremely good at it. There's a couple of things that you can support. One of the things that I mentioned,

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I think I said this last week, could have been the week before, but look for local churches in those areas.

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Just do a Google search of some kind. Maybe not churches that are in the areas affected by the storm, because they're going to still need supplies, but other churches around North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee that are going into those regions and look for where they have collecting money or collecting goods or food or something like that, and then get it to those churches, which will get it to those needed regions.

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That's another way that you can help out with some of the disaster relief. Of course, Hurricane Milton just crossed the peninsula of Florida, and so we've just started seeing reports of devastation there.

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I'm recording this on a Thursday, so I've still been watching video of the devastation that's been there in Florida.

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My brother lives in Southern Florida. I have two friends of mine, my mentor,

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Dave, his wife, Vicki, that live in the Tampa Bay area. His kids, his grandkids talked to him a few days ago before the storm hit, and he said they're staying, that they were going to ride it out.

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You probably saw the video footage of people trying to leave the area and not being able to get out. It was just crammed traffic.

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You couldn't go anywhere, and then I think there was gas shortages for 100 miles or something to that effect.

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That would have been even worse, to get stuck out on the interstate and not be able to go anywhere, and then that storm hits, and that's where you are.

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So I understand the people who just made the decision, well, we're just going to stay at home and ride it out.

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So praying for all those who have been affected by these storms, look for ways that you can help if you can, and of course, be praying for those folks as they are assessing the damage, trying to pick up, clean up their lives, again, praying that the gospel shines forth.

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We read in Psalm 107 that God will cause storms to draw people to him.

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In Psalm 107, verse 28, they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

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He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad when the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven.

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Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man.

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Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

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Things like this happen in our world because of sin, because Adam sinned against God, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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He subjected this world to a curse. It is subjected to futility, as said in Romans 8, and we see evidence of that through these storms.

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This is part of the judgment that has come upon creation because of man's sin against God.

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So when we face trials like this in this life, may it cause us to draw near to God and turn to him and call out to him, and he will deliver us.

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But of course, we need to bring that good news of the gospel into these regions and share with them that the saving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is for those who have faith in him.

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You will be forgiven your sins and you will have everlasting life with God. And though this whole world will be destroyed, we will have everlasting life forever with God in glory where all of these things will be no more.

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Well, back to Matt's question here, where he said, if a Christian commits a crime, are they allowed to plead guilty or sorry, allowed to plead not guilty and force the state to make their case, or do they need to plead guilty and accept whatever punishment is due?

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Well, what does the scripture say? James 5, 16, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

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The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain.

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And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit.

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My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

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The scriptures tell us to confess our sins. And so if you are guilty and you know you are guilty, then you need to plead guilty.

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Yes, your honor, I did that. This is what I am guilty of. And so I am going to confess it before you and throw yourself at the mercy of the court.

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I once got a ticket for speeding and it was the first ticket. I take it back.

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It was not the first ticket I ever got for speeding. It was the first ticket I ever got.

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That was a legitimate ticket. There was there were other times I got ticketed for speeding that were not legitimate.

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Long stories. I know you're all going. Yeah, right. Sure. Gay, whatever. Okay. So this was my first legitimate ticket for speeding and I showed up on the court date and the judge asked me, do you plead guilty or not guilty?

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And I said, well, I'm guilty. And the judge was kind of like, OK, well, then why are you here?

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And I said, well, I can't pay the ticket. I was in college at the time. I'm struggling to pay this ticket. So I'm asking, is there mercy that the court can give me?

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I mean, can you can you change this to a warning? You know, it was kind of what I was asking. Well, he actually ended up canceling the ticket and just made me pay the court costs.

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And that ended up working out OK. But yeah, when the judge came to asking me about the ticket, that's the first thing he asked me.

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I didn't, you know, get the chance to make an excuse. First, it was it was just the judge saying, are you guilty or not guilty?

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No, I'm guilty. I was speeding. That's why I'm here. So you do need to confess your sins even before the court, even before the court of law.

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But who is more important to confess your sins before is God himself. 1

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John 1, 9. If we ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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And Psalm 66, 18 tells us, if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the

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Lord would not have listened to my prayer. So when we don't confess our sins, when we hide that, we kind of keep it within ourselves.

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And even we kind of like the sin, I don't really want to confess it. I don't want to repent of it. I want to be able to come back to it again.

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Or I'm going to wait until I'm going to see if somebody else can discover it first. Well, then we don't really fear

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God. We fear man, something that I talked about yesterday when we were going through Hosea, chapter 12.

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If there are sins that you're just worried about somebody else finding out about and not

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God, you're not concerned if God knows it or not. You're just concerned if other people are going to find out, well, then your fear is of man and not of God.

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If you're guilty, confess, confess that you are guilty, especially before God, that you may be forgiven your sins before the court, accept your consequences and just do what needs to be done,

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Matt, for whatever it is you're guilty of just teasing a man. But I appreciate you sending this question in.

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This next question comes from Gerald in Nebraska. This is kind of right along the same lines.

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Hello, Becky. That's a good one. I'm going to pass that on to her. I heard this question asked on another podcast, and I don't think

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I was satisfied with the answer. Is a Christian allowed to speed and is speeding a sin?

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There's nothing in the Bible that says we are not allowed to speed, but the Bible does say that we are to obey the governing authorities.

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So is that where we would come to our understanding that Christians must obey all traffic laws?

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This maybe doesn't need a long answer. Perhaps you can do a short video about it. You're in the car with me every day.

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So when you answer this question, it's going to feel like Gabe and Becky are my passengers watching my speedometer.

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God bless. That's a little intimidating. I don't know that. I mean, how good a driver are you,

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Gerald? But yeah, when it comes to obeying the laws of man, even if it's not in God's word, we still need to be submitting to the governing authorities that is in God's word.

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So Romans 13 one, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Every person.

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There's no caveat. There's no loophole here. Everyone must be subject to governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God.

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Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

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Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is

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God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain, or in this case, the pad and pen to write you a ticket for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out

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God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore. Now, this is this is important. Verse five, Romans 13 five.

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This one, this verse doesn't get referenced as often whenever we talk about this from Romans 13.

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Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.

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Tell me if you're ever out there speeding when you get beyond the speed limit. Don't you start having a guilty conscience?

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You're hitting 80 and a 65 and you're thinking to yourself, man,

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I sure hope there's not a cop around because I'm going to get in trouble. But you still like going fast.

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You still want to get there quicker or you just like the speed, whatever it is. But if your conscience is guilty, you're sinning.

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James 14, seven. Sorry, I'm adding way more chapters to James. James 4, 17.

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So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.

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Now, we were talking about legalism just a moment ago. There are ways that we can get legalistic about traffic laws.

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Like if I didn't come to a full stop before the white line at an intersection and I just rolled over it a little bit, have

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I now sinned? I don't think you necessarily need to take it that far, but you need to have a heart that desires to keep the law, obey the traffic laws so that your conscience will not be guilty and then you fall into sin or even incur those fines.

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What kind of reputation are you going to have around other people if you're somebody that is constantly disobeying traffic laws and getting ticketed for that?

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How is that going to affect your witness in the gospel when people are going to look at you going, you just do whatever it is that you want to do.

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So you're telling me I'm a sinner and I need a savior and you just go out and do whatever you want to do.

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You also have to consider your witness in those circumstances as well. So may we be subject to these governing authorities.

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If you have any other thoughts about that, maybe that I haven't thought through here, I would appreciate hearing from you.

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My email address is whenweunderstandatextatgmail .com. And don't forget, you can go to www .utt

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.com and click on the voicemail tab there on the top right corner of the page.

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That is the end of this first segment. For those who are listening on the radio, thank you for tuning in.

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For those listening to the podcast, hang on. We've got another half hour. You can hear the full podcast by going to www .utt

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.com. God bless. Using glitter and fog machines,

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Bethel Church and Jesus Culture make these glory clouds during their worship services, which they claim is the

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Holy Spirit. I've wondered if it's okay for us to run to a corner of a room and stand and watch and take pictures.

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I think he rather enjoys it. Someone might say, well, do you know for certain they're using a fog machine?

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What's your proof that these are man -made tricks? And the answer is the Bible. If the glory of God was appearing in their church, no one would be cheering and pointing.

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They would be dead. When God spoke to the people of Israel from Mount Sinai, they were terrified. When the glory of God passed in front of Moses, God put him in the cleft of a rock and covered him because had he seen

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God in all his glory, it would have killed him. After Moses had been in God's presence, even in this way, his face was so bright, people were too afraid to come near him.

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Hebrews 1 says, There was a time when God spoke to us in many ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his

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Son. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. Paul said that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ.

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We know God's glory when the word of Christ is spoken, not by manufacturing his presence with cheap tricks.

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God said, This is to whom I will look, he who is repentant and who trembles at my word. The Holy Spirit is to Bethel Church in Jesus' culture what

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Jesus Christ is to the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. They believe in a Holy Spirit of their own making, not the

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Holy Spirit of God whom we see and hear from in the pages of scripture when we understand the text.

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All right, back to the questions here. This one comes from Alex, who says, Hey, Gabe, I have two questions.

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The first is about what? And the second question is a little personal. So if you don't want to answer it,

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I understand. I like the sermon clips that you have been posting. The shorts are a great addition to the what

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YouTube channel. But when are you going to get back to doing the usual what videos?

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Great question, Alex. I'm actually going to answer your second question first. So here's the here's the second one. My second question has to do with something

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I noticed in the preaching clips. You appear to have a mark on your face, and I'm not sure that I'd ever noticed it before.

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So I looked back at some older videos of you preaching, and it appears to change size and shape.

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I hope you don't mind me saying so, but it has me concerned. Is it something serious?

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And if so, are you able to have it removed? Sorry for prying. I appreciate the ministry.

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It has meant a lot to me. Thank you for your commitment to the word. Well, Alex, you're not prying. In fact, you're not the only person who has asked me this question.

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I get this question maybe once or twice a month. And I'll post clips of myself preaching or something like that on one of my channels.

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I'll have like critics will say something to what is that on your face? And they'll make fun of me and whatever it is that I have on my face.

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I have seen a dermatologist over it. She told me what it was. I don't remember now. It's not cancer.

29:58

I did have it frozen off at one point, but they didn't get all of it. And some of it is grown back in.

30:04

And so that's the situation that I got going on right now. I'm waiting for the house in Texas to sell.

30:11

I got some news about the house. I'll let you know at the end of this segment.

30:16

I'm waiting until the house sells. We've got some dental things that need to be taken care of with the kids and Becky. And then if this is just kind of a

30:25

I don't know. Is it a vanity thing? It's not entirely vanity because I shouldn't leave it, but I'm waiting until all of our other things are taken care of.

30:35

My son, who's three years old, our youngest needs a surgery. It's actually a very sensitive kind of a surgery.

30:41

And I'm not going to tell you where it is that he needs this surgery. We got to get that done first. So all of those things that need to be taken care of first, and then

30:50

I'll get those things on me that need to be taken care of. I'm the dad. I'm the head of the household.

30:56

I'm going to make sure everybody else is taken care of first. But I do appreciate your concern and your prayers and support from you folks have has always been absolutely wonderful.

31:06

Let's get to a little more relevant, a theological question here.

31:12

Well, going back to Alex's first question, I guess. So he likes the sermon clips and he wants to see more of the what videos.

31:20

When am I going to do more of those? Well, this month here in the month of October, I'm trying to do all five solos.

31:25

So five what videos on the five solos? Sola Scriptura in Scripture alone.

31:32

Sola Fide by faith alone. Sola Gratia by grace alone. Solus Christus in Christ alone.

31:40

And Soli Deo Gloria to the glory of God alone. Those five solos that we generally consider to be those basic doctrines of the

31:47

Protestant Reformation. I mean, they're foundational doctrines to the Christian faith. So I'm going to do videos on those five since we're here in the month of October and we're coming up on the day that's generally considered to be the anniversary of the

32:02

Protestant Reformation, October the 31st, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Saxony, which is today

32:12

Germany. So that's what I'm going to do this month. I'm hoping to be able to have five videos done this month on the five solos.

32:18

I'm currently preaching a series through all five solos. And the first message in that series,

32:25

I did this past Sunday. You'll hear it on the podcast this coming Sunday. Here's another question from, let's see, that was from Alex.

32:34

Let me go to this one from Gary. Pastor Gabe, I appreciate some of the feedback that you've given on the chosen.

32:41

You mentioned this past week in Luke 1 that maybe Mary and Elizabeth were not all that close as relatives before they were both pregnant.

32:51

OK, this was this would have been a couple of weeks ago that I had mentioned that and that John the Baptist and Jesus did not know each other growing up either.

32:59

So I was curious as to how you came to that conclusion. Maybe you said so, but I don't remember. Also, did you ever do a critique of the scene in the chosen where John the

33:10

Baptist speaks to Jesus very disrespectfully? I understand that it upset a lot of people, even fans of the show.

33:18

Curious to know your thoughts and thank you for your time. I did watch that scene because it's in season two and I was watching through season two to do a critique of it.

33:30

That would be on my blog, but I never finished the blog. I did watch the season, but I didn't finish the review.

33:36

I'll just have to go back to that and find those notes and get the blog written. I think that's all

33:42

I got to do is just edit my notes and get it published. But yeah, I remember this scene and it is it is so terrible.

33:48

I I hated everything about the way that they did John the Baptist in this show and also come to find that the actor who played him is an atheist.

33:58

He didn't even believe any of this stuff anyway. How in the world does Dallas Jenkins cast these guys?

34:04

That's just absurd anyway. So the guy that plays John the Baptist doesn't even believe the material that he's reading.

34:11

But yeah, there's this scene between John the Baptist and Jesus before John is about to go off and confront

34:16

Herod for his sin. He has taken his brother's wife. He's committed adultery.

34:21

It is against the law of God what Herod has done. And so just before he's about to go and do this thing, there's this conversation that he has with Jesus.

34:31

I've not been able to find the full conversation on YouTube. I didn't do a real deep search for it, but I did find this minute long clip.

34:40

So let me play this and we'll critique the conversation here between Jesus and John the

34:46

Baptist will be addressed. I'm not ready to get into the specifics. You appear to be not ready to get into the specifics of a lot of things.

34:53

For instance, stay on topic. The romantic lives of rulers and will be addressed. I'm not ready to get into the specifics.

34:59

You appear to be not ready to get into the specifics of a lot of things. Stay on topic. The romantic lives of rulers and kings has been and always will be of enormous fascination to people.

35:09

Okay, so that's Jesus talking. All right. The other voice is John the Baptist. So the first voice was

35:15

Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in the show. The other guy, I don't even remember his name now, but playing

35:21

John the Baptist. So they're having this back and forth. And that's astonishing thing for John the

35:27

Baptist to say. Let me go back here. You appear to be not ready to get into the specifics of a lot of things.

35:36

Whoa, back talking the son of God, whom John knows to be the son of God, the lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world, as John the

35:44

Baptist described him in John chapter one. So John knows who he is. This is, of course, post baptism.

35:51

You've had the heavens open up the dove that has descended upon Christ, the voice of the father saying, this is my beloved son in whom

36:00

I am well pleased. And John the Baptist was told by God. And I mentioned this just this past week.

36:06

He was told by God that the one whom you see the spirit come and rest upon, that is the one who baptizes with the

36:16

Holy Spirit. And John says, and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the son of God.

36:22

And so here's John the Baptist back talking to Jesus. That is, that is just, oh my goodness, that is crazy.

36:33

That is crazy that they wrote the scene that way. But, but it's, I mean, it also demonstrates just how disrespectfully the creators of this show consider the source material and how disrespectfully they consider the son of God.

36:48

I mean, they put Jesus in positions in the show to try to make him more like us.

36:57

And, and like, they'll even show him failing at things or not doing something successfully.

37:03

I won't get into all the ins and outs of that, but, but it's just that their efforts to try to put

37:09

Jesus in these positions that we would really see him less. And of course,

37:15

Jonathan Rumi is a, is a Catholic mystic anyway, the guy who's playing Jesus. So he has a pretty warped understanding of scripture as it is.

37:25

Anyway, let's come back to this, this exchange between these two, the

37:31

Catholic mystic and the atheist portraying Jesus and John the Baptist. Lord help us.

37:37

This is that point where Jesus says, stay on topic. I've kind of gone back a little bit. The romantic lives of rulers and Kings has been and always will be of enormous fascination to people.

37:48

It was covered that length in Torah. I don't see why you feel the need to focus on it now. Client King or whatever. He's one of us.

37:54

He's unlawful. So yeah. Okay. He said there that he is a client

38:02

King or Tetrarch or whatever. That's what John the Baptist said. He is one of us and he's unlawful.

38:11

Technically, Herod was not one of the Jews. Well, I mean, not even technically he wasn't.

38:17

Herod was not one of the Jews. Herod was of the Edomites who are kin to the

38:24

Jews, but they're not Jews. These are the descendants of Esau. So they're not even children of the promise.

38:31

Herod was not supposed to be on that throne at all. The Edomites had no claim to the throne over the

38:39

Jews, which was why the Jews were expecting that their Savior, when he comes, when the

38:44

Messiah comes in the line of David, he's going to overthrow the Romans. He's going to overthrow

38:50

Herod. He's going to sit on the throne of David and make Israel great again, for lack of a better expression.

38:58

And that's what they thought their Messiah was going to be. And so Herod was not one of us, as John the

39:05

Baptist says. Now he's unlawful. Yes. And that's what John the Baptist is going to confront him on.

39:11

You are disobeying the law of God. So anyway, this is what John is trying to convince

39:17

Jesus of that I need to go and tell Herod this. So continuing on. He's unlawful.

39:22

I am not afraid of him. He may not be as bad as his father, but he is still bad. I'm going to march straight into his court and I'm going to tell him to his face.

39:32

And no one would have said that about Herod. No one would have said, well, he's not as bad as his father, but he's still bad.

39:38

All of the Herods were bad. So it was very, very unlikely that Jews were walking around going, well, you know, he's a

39:45

Herod, but he's not as bad as his as his father was. He's still pretty bad. Herod Antipas is still really bad.

39:52

He was a murderer, too. He put Jesus to death after all, sent him back to Pilate to be crucified.

40:00

He put John the Baptist to death, even though he was amused by John the Baptist, didn't want to have him killed.

40:05

He had him beheaded so that he would please Herodias's daughter.

40:11

This was a horrible man. Yeah. So again, very weird to have that line in there.

40:17

Not as bad. He's not as bad as Herod the Great, but he's still bad. And I'm going to go tell him to his face.

40:23

My followers will love it. You do know how that's going to end? Oh, yeah, that's. Let me go back a little bit.

40:31

I'm going to tell him to his face. My followers will love it. Like what kind of John the

40:36

Baptist is this? I'm going to go tell Herod to his face that he's a lawbreaker and my followers are going to love it.

40:43

He's full of himself. He's not doing it for the glory of God.

40:50

He's not doing it as a matter of holiness. He's just doing it because his followers will think it's great.

40:58

They're going to love this. And the line that Jesus is saying here is, you do know how that's going to end, don't you?

41:04

This is a very American dialogue, by the way. You know how that's going to end, don't you? I get arrested all the time.

41:11

It's what radicals do. Oh, this is so bad.

41:20

This is just so terrible. I'll be fine.

41:26

Herod is afraid of me. The people hold me to be a prophet. Some say Elijah himself.

41:33

Maybe not the Elijah, but we both know of the Elijah -ness of your Lord. Yeah, okay.

41:41

No comment. Because I'm beginning to wonder why you're taking this so slow. Why you're always running away after performing miracles.

41:49

I mean, why do you always go off to these desolate places? Okay. Anyway, so that's the end of that.

41:55

That was just a minute clip. That's the end of the clip that I have. So yeah, I mean, John the Baptist, assassin

42:00

Jesus. I don't think you're taking this seriously. It's quite incredible. That is a remarkable line.

42:08

So yeah, you're right. It's very disrespectful, very disrespectful scene. But again, you have to consider the source.

42:15

These guys do not care for the source material. They don't. They are not being respectful to scripture.

42:21

They don't study it well. So Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the show, has this roundtable discussion that he will do with sort of his spiritual advisors on the show.

42:33

And they include a rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest, and a New Testament professor.

42:41

And so let me jump to that. This is a conversation that Dallas Jenkins is having with those three about how well that how well

42:51

John the Baptist and Jesus knew one another. Okay, so here's that conversation. I'm going to critique this as we go.

42:57

Some people were uncomfortable with John the Baptist speaking to him as what they perceived as disrespectful. I would say that it's more than likely that John and Yeshua Jesus knew each other growing up and had a relationship, had a connection.

43:16

Obviously, there's a connection between Mary and Elizabeth. Now, you could probably tell by the fact by the way that he refers to Jesus as Yeshua.

43:29

This is the rabbi talking. So this is Rabbi Jason Sobel. He is an author and obviously an advisor to the chosen.

43:38

And this is again, you've got this very ecumenical Jesus that they are presenting here. You have a rabbi who's a

43:45

Messianic Jew. So Jason does believe that Jesus is the Christ, but you're still creating a

43:52

Jesus that's going to be satisfying to a rabbi, to a Catholic priest, and to a

43:57

New Testament professor as they're having this conversation here about Jesus and John the

44:03

Baptist. They have this ecumenical Jesus. It's going to be satisfying to everybody, which is why he's not biblically accurate.

44:10

So continuing on, this is still Rabbi Jason. Right. I mean, clearly, there's a deep connection and understanding that their sons have these important roles to play in destiny and what

44:20

God is doing. And, you know, Zechariah was a priest. So you would imagine Jesus and his families in the gospel goes up to Jerusalem to celebrate the biblical holidays.

44:30

Zechariah would have been up there with his family. Celebrate. I mean, it's kind of almost unimaginable that they wouldn't have known each other and spent time together as family.

44:38

Now, I do think it's accurate that Jesus and John the Baptist had an awareness or a familiarity with each other prior to his baptism, because John the

44:48

Baptist knows who he is. When Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized and John initially refuses,

44:56

I need to be baptized by you, he says. And Jesus has permitted now to fulfill all righteousness.

45:03

And then, of course, Jesus is baptized. The spirit descends upon him. The father speaks from heaven.

45:09

So there is a familiarity that Jesus and John the Baptist appear to have with one another before this.

45:17

But but how much time would they have spent with each other growing up? Probably nothing outside the festivals or the holidays that they would have met each other at in Jerusalem.

45:30

Because remember, as we were going through this in Luke chapter one, Elizabeth and Zechariah live in the hill country of Judah, which is to the southwest of Jerusalem a little bit, whereas Jesus grows up in Nazareth, which is way up in Galilee.

45:45

It's up in the northern portion of Israel. They did not live near each other. And this isn't like you can just hop in the station wagon and head down there to the other part of Judah so that we can hang out with family and go on a

45:57

Sunday picnic for a little while. I mean, the distance separating them is like 100 miles or more. So it's it's not regular.

46:05

It's not common for them to see each other and get together and hang out. And even the relationship that Mary and Elizabeth had when we were looking at that in Luke chapter one,

46:15

I had said that there's a real possibility that this was the first time that that Mary and Elizabeth had even met one another because they were not from the same tribe.

46:27

Elizabeth was a descendant in the line of Aaron and Mary and Joseph are of the tribe of Judah.

46:35

So their kin, they're related to one another somehow because Gabriel says your relative

46:41

Elizabeth. So it was more than just another, you know, Israelite or Jewish acquaintance.

46:48

But there was a there was a closeness in their families, probably by marriage, so that they're referred to as relatives beyond just being, you know, fellow

47:00

Israelites. But again, there also the age disparity between the two of them.

47:06

So Elizabeth is an old woman. I mean, really should be a grandmother at her age. And God has blessed

47:13

Zechariah and Elizabeth in their old age with a child. And and Mary is a teenage girl.

47:20

So because of the age distance between them, they're not two people that would typically think of getting together and hanging out, except for Elizabeth being something of a mother figure to her.

47:34

And it's because of what Gabriel had said to Mary that caused Mary to go and seek

47:40

Elizabeth out. And then, of course, the meeting with the two of them and the rejoicing that they had, they may not have been entire strangers to one another.

47:48

They knew each other to some capacity, but it was not like there was this this close growing up bond that they had between these two women that were practically inseparable.

47:57

That's that's not the way that we understand the relationship between Elizabeth and Mary. And so therefore,

48:03

John the Baptist also is not really all that familiar with Jesus when they are growing up, in fact, probably spent little, if any time together growing up.

48:13

Now, the question that Gary had asked me was how I know that. Well, consider what we read right at the close of Luke chapter one after Zechariah's prophecy,

48:26

Luke 180. And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

48:39

So he's he's in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance. So Jesus is probably not traveling out there to the hill country of Judah to find

48:51

John the Baptist hanging out in the wilderness so the two of them can hang out with one another. That was not

48:57

John's mission. That wasn't even his preparation leading up to his mission. And so the two of them aren't hanging with one another and growing up together as sometimes depicted between Jesus and John the

49:09

Baptist and is being talked about here. Again, it's a very easy thing to research, but they're just telling their own story.

49:16

And Dallas Jenkins has said that before. This is the story that we're choosing to tell, and it's not the biblical one.

49:22

And in Luke chapter two, the story of Jesus, a 12 year old, I mean, Mary and Joseph weren't worried about him because they were at the big party of their relatives and they just assumed that Jesus was with one of them.

49:33

So this is Dr. Doug Huffman, who is of the Talbot School of Theology. I mean, he's a smart guy.

49:40

He is the professor of New Testament at Talbot of Biola University. So the idea, it's not at all unthinkable that Jesus and John the

49:49

Baptist would have known each other. And before John the Baptist was arrested, which is where we have this taking place, we know that they were actually baptizing near each other, right?

49:59

There was this moment when John's disciples came up and talked about Jesus is baptizing a bunch of people over here.

50:06

And then there was one guy who came up, I don't remember the, I know it's in the book of John, I don't remember the chapter, but where one guy starts to kind of,

50:14

I don't remember if he's complaining, but he's like. And it's in John chapter three. It's right after the exchange that Jesus has with Nicodemus.

50:23

John three 22. After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside and remained there with them and was baptizing.

50:31

Now, as said at the start of John chapter four, Jesus was not baptizing. His disciples were verse 23 here.

50:39

John was also baptizing at a non near Salim because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being baptized for John had not yet been put in prison.

50:48

Now, a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification.

50:54

And they came to John and said to him, rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness, look, he is baptizing and all are going to him.

51:05

And John answered a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

51:11

You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.

51:18

The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.

51:27

Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.

51:33

And by the way, that kind of character we never see from John the Baptist in the chosen.

51:38

He is a disrespectful brat. And of course, being depicted by an atheist.

51:44

So what does he care for the source material? He probably likes it. I get to back to ask Jesus, look at how, uh, look at how cool

51:51

I am. So anyway, that's the, uh, that's the exchange there in John chapter three. Yes, they were baptizing near one another, but as Jesus disciples are now baptizing more, then it's time for John the

52:03

Baptist to take a back seat. He's fulfilled his duty in the role that God had appointed for him to do.

52:11

So continuing on with this conversation, he's talking about what Jesus is doing and they're clearly in the same vicinity.

52:16

Yeah. A little competition in ministry there. Yeah. Yeah. I think an answer to your question. One of my

52:22

Bible professors said, now this is Bishop Robert Barron, and he's a very well known, very well known

52:29

Catholic priest. And this man's a heretic. I mean, you have a heretic sitting there giving his opinion, um, on things about the

52:38

Bible. And he's a heretic on even basic doctrines like denying justification by faith alone. He's a man who believes we are justified by faith and works.

52:48

And so here he's giving his opinion on the Bible that even he does not highly respect.

52:53

He denies the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. I mentioned a moment ago. The answer to 95 % of questions about the

53:00

Bible is, I don't know, you know, so, uh, did they know each other? Well, I mean, strictly speaking, we don't know, but I agree with what you said.

53:06

I think given the fact that through their mothers are certainly related, it's a very clannish sort of society.

53:12

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had a relationship and that was their deep shared interest in the history of Israel and in the mission of God and all that.

53:20

It doesn't strike me as unlikely. Right. So which brings me to the way that they talk to each other. So the reason that I have them bantering and even bickering a little bit is because from what

53:30

I've understood of, and even in my, in my research, and there was actually a pair of Messianic Jewish elders who watched this scene on YouTube and talked about how it was so accurately captured how

53:40

Jewish families talk to each other, that argument or bickering or, or this kind of intense bantering.

53:48

Yeah. Verbal sparring. Yeah. So, uh, you know, goes into what I had said before, how their back and forth sounds extremely

53:55

American. It did not sound Jewish at all. It certainly didn't sound like it fit the period and it doesn't fit the narrative of scripture.

54:05

So here, Dallas is saying, you know, I had two, uh, Jewish teachers that told me, yeah, they sound just like Jewish people fighting right.

54:14

American Jews in the 21st century arguing would have had no bearing on this conversation that Jesus and John the

54:24

Baptist had no bearing on it whatsoever. Judaism of the 21st century is not even a shadow of first century,

54:34

Judy, first century Judaism. So continuing on verbal sparring is actually an indication that your family, like it's very much like Jewish families are even more likely to be expressive and bickering quote unquote.

54:47

I don't want to use it in a negative term necessarily, but it's almost like a love language. So how did that strike you as, cause some people were uncomfortable with John the

54:54

Baptist speaking to him as what they perceived as disrespectful. Now I, I clarified that at the end of the scene when

55:00

John says, I was rude to you before, but it's only because we go back so far and I can tease a bit, but you know that my heart is yours.

55:13

My life is yours. The sole reason why I was miraculously conceived by two old people was to pave the way for you.

55:25

Okay. So yeah, Dallas is giving an excuse.

55:30

See, it's okay that I had John the Baptist be rude to Jesus as long as he admitted that he was being rude.

55:38

There's no dialogue between Jesus and John the Baptist that looks anything like what we have in the

55:46

Bible. And the only time that John the Baptist says something refusing of Jesus is when

55:53

Jesus is going to be baptized. But that really, if anything, that's theological, that's something

56:00

John doesn't understand. And out of respect for Jesus is why he doesn't want to baptize him, not to be belligerent, not to argue for the sake of arguing.

56:11

Dallas just admitted that he wrote the scene to have them arguing for the sake of arguing.

56:16

That was the only reason it was written that way. Not to be biblically accurate, not to even flesh out the characters in any way, just to have some kind of banter there.

56:30

Oh, this is so frustrating. Sorry, I have to rub my eyes every once in a while as I just, I really don't like this.

56:37

I've taken it upon myself to watch this stuff and give criticism of it so that people will be aware of how biblically inaccurate this is.

56:46

But it drives me crazy. I can't stand how disrespectfully they treat the source material. Not just the way that John the

56:52

Baptist spoke to Jesus, but this is the way that they treat the source material all the way through this.

56:58

So anyway, Dallas still explaining this whole thing. How did that strike you in terms of just the way they spoke to each other?

57:04

Did it strike you as disrespectful? No, no, it didn't strike me as being disrespectful. I mean, whatever. Look, I think when you're, when you're,

57:11

I mean, for Jews, right, this, uh, you know, we love to, to debate and to get into it.

57:17

And, you know, it's just, it is what it is. It's not disrespectful. It's not, you know, well, I grew up in a, actually, see,

57:23

I mean, it really sounds like Dallas is surrounding himself with a bunch of yes men, the Jewish area. I grew up in Deerfield, Illinois, which was like very heavily

57:30

Jewish on one part of the town and then heavily Gentile in the other. And whenever I went over to my home, to my friend's homes, my

57:36

Jewish friend's home, I was, I was like, all right, the volume level is about to go up when I went to my Jewish friend's home. It was just, you walk in and, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

57:44

And look, go ahead. They were talking like brothers to each other. And, but the deeper question that you're driving at is the fact that people were confused about Jesus, including someone like John who knew him quite well.

57:55

Like, what are you up to? This isn't making sense. And, you know, his winnowing fans in his hand and John has all these things to say about the

58:02

Messiah. Well, he's not quite doing what John thought he would. And then that gospel indication we have where, you know, is he the one who's to come or should we look for another?

58:12

That John himself had a doubt or confusion about it. So I'm not puzzled by that.

58:18

But at the very least, he would have been asking Jesus, no, help me to understand this. Why aren't you doing what I expect you to do?

58:24

So I just took it as, in a way, like a gospel commonplace that he would have had those questions. See, I think that it would have been better then to have written that scene where John the

58:34

Baptist is asking him, what are you doing here? Like, what is your intention?

58:40

What are we waiting for? That certainly would have looked better than the way that it was written.

58:46

It was not John the Baptist asking Jesus anything. It was John saying,

58:52

I know better than you. That's really the way that all of that comes across. And then how he boasts in himself.

58:59

I'm going to go tell Herod to his face and my followers are going to love it. And Jesus is even acting like he's trying to talk

59:07

John the Baptist out of that. Jesus never would have talked John the Baptist out of his confrontation with Herod.

59:14

This is what prophets did. So see, John the Baptist said, this is what radicals do. It's what prophets do.

59:21

Prophets speak the word of the Lord and they will even confront rulers, as we see the prophets do throughout the

59:27

Old Testament, as John the Baptist does. And he's not doing it for the sake of doing it.

59:32

That seems to be the way that Dallas writes his scenes. I'm just going to make

59:37

John the Baptist go and confront Herod for the sake of confronting Herod instead of having a holy and righteous motivation behind it.

59:46

So yeah, there's the scene. I had not done a critique of that. I just need to finish my review of season two.

59:52

I haven't finished that. Again, let me go find my notes whenever I've got time to do that, because presently

59:58

I don't have time. I've got a wedding tomorrow that I'm doing. Oh, by the way, there was something going on at Redeemer Bible Church.

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Let me see if I can bring this up here. So this is going to be at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona.

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If you're in the Phoenix area, Tucson. Tucson might be a little far. That's 80 miles, what, an hour and a half from Phoenix?

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At least, because I think it takes me over an hour to get to Tucson and it takes me about 30 minutes just to get to the outskirts of Phoenix.

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It takes me about an hour to get to Redeemer Bible Church. So that's where this is going to be. They've got a thing that they are doing on Saturday morning, 1030 a .m.

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Doors open at nine. It's called Winning the Fight Against Gender Ideology in the Church with speakers

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Michael Young, Chloe Cole and Maya Poet. And so $15 per person is what it says.

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I guess you can find out more details about it by going to Redeemer Bible Church. I'm not sure what their website address is.

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But anyway, Winning the Fight Against Gender Ideology in the Church at Redeemer Bible that's tomorrow.

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And again, I won't be able to make it because I've got a wedding tomorrow. Great to be involved in a wedding. This is the first wedding that I've done since I've been here in Arizona.

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So I'm excited for it. Appreciate your prayers and encouragement. And as always, you can find sermon clips and things like that for our church when you go to ProvidenceCasagrande .com.

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That's our church's website. Oh, I said I was going to mention something about the house. So as of Monday, the house in Texas that we've been waiting to sell is now under contract.

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So somebody has offered to buy it. We had a home inspection yesterday. I haven't heard the results of that yet.

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The close date is November 6th. That's fast. That's a quick turnaround. So if everything happens as it should, and we're praying that it will, we will finally have the house sold on November the 6th.

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So pray for that. Pray that all this goes through as it should go through, and it would be so wonderful to finally have this house off of our plate.

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That will be one year to the week since we moved here to Arizona.

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That first week there in November. A year that it's taken us to get rid of this house.

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A friend of mine in that area has said, hey, consider it a blessing. And I do consider it a blessing because nothing's moving around here.

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Once again, praying that this deal is good, it goes through,

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I finally have the house sold, and then I can move on with other things that I've needed to do and not been able to do just because I'm still dragging this house around with me, even though I'm here in Arizona.

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Thank you once again for all your support and what you have given to the ministry, especially your prayers and telling somebody else to listen to when we understand the text.

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Let me close here with prayer and we'll wrap things up for today. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us in your son,

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Jesus Christ, whom you gave to us, who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

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And I pray that we would have great reverence for the word of God that was given to us, the

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Bible, your scriptures, that we would study it, that we would know it, that these things would be upon our hearts, that we would live it out in our lives.

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Where we need to issue correction, we do so in love. We are pursuing holiness.

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We are growing all the more in Christ and looking for that day of his return when we will be united with him forever in glory in your perfect imperishable kingdom.

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Give us boldness in these days to go out with the message of the gospel, that others may hear the good news of Jesus Christ and be saved.