The False "Jesus" of Part 3 of the History Channel Miniseries, "the bible"

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March 19, 2013

Chris Rosebrough of Fighting for the Faith (http://www.fightingforthefaith) analyses part 3 of the History Channel miniseries "the bible" and exposes the theological and historical errors, including the false 'jesus' and false gospel of the series

Historical, Theological Errors & Blatant Omissions of "The Bible" Miniseries - Part 4

00:12: It's time for another edition of Fighting for the
00:18: Faith, Monday, March 18th, 2013. Man, Part 3 of the
00:30: Babel was the worst yet. Man, was that bad.
00:40: Details here in just a minute. Thank you for tuning in.
00:55: You're listening to Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. And this is the program that dishes up a daily dose of biblical discernment.
01:02: The goal of which, help you to think biblically, help you to think critically, help you compare what people are saying in the name of God to the
01:09: Word of God. There's no shortage of crazy, absolutely bizarre things being said about God.
01:17: And the Bible in, well, the History Channel miniseries, the Babel, that's what we refer to it here.
01:23: That ain't the Bible. Wow, it's really bad. Anyway, so what we're going to be doing today, in fact,
01:31: I don't know if this is going to end up being a singular subject episode of Fighting for the Faith, or if I'm going to have time for a sermon review.
01:38: So this is one of those ones where this could go one way or another. It just depends on how long
01:44: I'm going to take going through it. But last night in Part 3 of the miniseries, the
01:51: Babel, it starts literally with the children of Israel in Judah, on the verge of being sent into captivity in Babylon.
02:06: So it picks up with Jeremiah the prophet, King Zedekiah, and then
02:11: Nebuchadnezzar is on the way. And obviously we know how that goes, Nebuchadnezzar wins, and so then the children of Israel are taken into captivity.
02:20: They're exiled, those who survive are exiled in Babylon. And then we got the story of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
02:30: And, oh man, it just makes you wonder. Okay, listen, let me put it this way.
02:38: If you were to attend a college course given by Professor Chris Roseborough, on maybe say
02:46: New Testament. Let's pretend I was teaching a New Testament class on the college level.
02:52: And so we were getting ready for our midterm or our final.
02:58: And I said, you know, out of the kindness of my heart, although I wouldn't do this, I got to say this.
03:04: Out of the kindness of my heart, I have decided that the final for the course is going to be open book.
03:10: It's going to be an open book test. That means you can bring your
03:16: Bible with you, and I'll allow you to have an open Bible for the final in New Testament.
03:23: Okay, now the students would think, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so glad it's open book.
03:29: You know, that kind of thing. And so, but here's the deal. Okay, if a student of mine, and this is just a hypothetical case, if a student of mine were to take an open book final, this would be the
03:43: Bible, an open Bible final on a New Testament course that I was teaching, and then they proceeded to fail said test,
03:52: I would have no mercy on them, none whatsoever. Now, I want you to think of the
03:58: History Channel miniseries, The Bobble, as well, one of those things in which there is, well, they don't have an excuse, like none whatsoever, because at any time they were writing the screenplay for this thing, they could have opened their
04:19: Bible. It's, you know, and they apparently didn't. Or worse, they opened up the
04:26: Bible, read what the passage says, and what the history was, and go, yeah, no, no, we don't like that.
04:32: Yeah, it would be so much more exciting if we, hang on a second, let's get out the white, you know, the white out, and we'll white out this part of the
04:39: Bible here. And, you know, this story would just be so much better for television if we just, and then just change the history altogether.
04:47: So that's what happened last night in the, it was so bad.
04:54: It was so bad. I mean, I got to admit, I'm kind of chuckling about it now, but it's not funny.
04:59: When I was watching it last night, I was furious. I was, I went to bed angry last night. I was, you know,
05:05: I was afterwards. I mean, my daughter, she, you know, she would, she had homework last night, so she would pop her head in and take a look, you know, at what
05:15: I was watching and sit with me for a minute and then go back upstairs and do her homework and then come back downstairs.
05:21: And the worst, the absolute worst, worst, worst part of the, of part three of the miniseries,
05:29: The Bible, was when adult Jesus shows up on the scene. And that was like the last, you know, maybe 10 minutes of part three of the installments last night.
05:43: And I, I've changed him. Well, I refer to him now as Vidal Sassoon Jesus.
05:49: Yeah. Despite the fact that everybody else is kind of grungy, grody, and has greasy, grimy hair, not
05:56: Vidal Sassoon Jesus. Not only can this guy walk on water, but he's got perfect hair.
06:02: And so it's clear to me that not only was he shampooing, but he was rinsing with conditioner. So Vidal Sassoon Jesus, who, by the way, is not the real
06:11: Jesus. In fact, far from it. In fact, if you were following me on Facebook and Twitter last night while I was live tweeting my complaints about The Bible, then you are aware of the fact that my final shot of the night last night was something to the effect of that Vidal Sassoon Jesus, and I put
06:30: Jesus in air quotes, is one of the false Christs that Jesus warned us about in Matthew chapter 24.
06:37: And I'm sticking to my guns on that. This, this is a false Jesus with a false gospel and a false message.
06:43: And it's, it's even a false history that's being passed off as biblical history.
06:49: And unfortunately, there's going to be a lot of folk out there who are going to have their first exposure to what supposedly the
06:57: Bible is all about being this movie. And as a result of it, like right out of the bat, they're going to be taught a false theology and a false doctrine with from a false
07:09: Jesus. That's Vidal Sassoon Jesus. And so it's, it's really a mess.
07:15: It's absolutely a mess. And then you, of course, they totally rewrote the story of the beheading of John the
07:21: Baptist to where it's like not even remotely recognizable. They rewrote the story of Jesus's encounter with, with Peter from the gospel of Luke chapter five.
07:35: And, and I mean, they completely rewrote, you know, Nebuchadnezzar.
07:41: You know, they basically show Nebuchadnezzar after the fiery furnace incidents.
07:47: They show him as having lost his mind. And the, basically the inferences is that Nebuchadnezzar died as a, you know, a crazy old, you know, coot who was animal -like and drooling on himself.
08:03: But that's not what the text says. It's like, this is the equivalent of failing an open
08:09: Bible final in a New Testament class. This is ridiculous, which then basically gets my gears going and saying, you can't do this bad unless you purposely set out to do this bad.
08:24: And there's other bad theological stuff going on here. In fact, you know, it's hard to interpret silence, but there was a portion of last night's installments that made me go, oh,
08:36: I bet that was at the request of T .D. Jakes, the guy who denies the doctrine of the
08:41: Trinity. Yeah, the Trinity was missing. The Trinity was missing last night. So we got a lot of ground to cover, a ton of ground to cover.
08:51: So let me tell you what the intention is. What we're going to do is we're going to start our analysis.
08:58: I'm going to give biblical commentary. I'm going to walk you through the theology from last night's installment of the
09:03: Bible. And I'm going to work through large portions of Scripture. And the idea is this, is that if for some reason
09:10: I'm able to do this quickly, we will end today's episode with a sermon review. But I don't think it's going to end up that way.
09:18: That's my personal opinion. But I have a sermon queued up just in case.
09:25: But I think where this is going to go is this, that this is going to be another kind of like special edition of Fighting for the
09:31: Faith, where it's a singular topic. Because what I really want to do is demonstrate to you that the actual biblical stories, they're far more interesting and far more comforting for sinners like me and like you than what
09:48: Roma Downey and Mark Burnett have concocted. Whoever wrote this screenplay, let's just put it this way, he's got some explaining to do.
09:56: And it ain't to me, and it's not to you. He has some explaining to do to none other than Jesus himself.
10:02: And whoever is responsible for this theology, man, I don't want to be that person on the
10:09: Day of Judgment. Let's just put it that way. We're dealing with a full -blown, for real, false
10:14: Jesus, false gospel, false everything from a false rewritten theology and a false rewritten biblical history that's just absolutely reprehensible.
10:25: It's beyond the pale. And so this is one of those times where – do you remember from the book of Numbers, Korah's rebellion?
10:36: Korah's rebellion. Korah basically rebelled against Moses and basically was – listen,
10:42: God talks to everybody and he basically confronted Moses. Moses' response to Korah and the gang was that Moses fell on his face before God.
10:54: It's like, ah, this is not good. You guys need to repent. You do not want to be doing this. God's going to – yeah.
11:00: Anyway, so this reminds me of kind of the Korah's rebellion version of the
11:05: Bible rewritten into what we now lovingly refer to as the Bible. So we got a lot of ground to cover, a ton of ground to cover tonight.
11:15: And since we're doing another installment on the Bible, well, we've got to play our Bible update music.
11:20: Here we go. I can change the world.
11:28: Be the sunlight in your universe. You would think my love was really something good.
11:36: Baby, if I could change the world.
11:45: Yeah, that's right. That's the message of Vidal Sassoon Jesus from the Bible changed the world, which you're going to hear in spades tonight.
11:54: So we got a lot of ground to cover. That's all I got to say. We got a ton of ground to cover here. And what
11:59: I'm going to do right now is, again, remember, it's all about the theology.
12:06: It's all about the theology. It doesn't matter how good your special effects are. If you're going to be teaching something about the
12:13: Bible, the important thing is the theology. So let's take a look at some of the statements that were made.
12:21: This is from the intro. This is the narrator basically introducing part three of the
12:27: Bible. And listen to this theology. He was fit to father a nation.
12:35: So they're summarizing where they've been. Abraham proved that he was fit to father a nation.
12:45: Man, that's some bad theology. Listen to that again. Abraham proved he was fit to father a nation.
12:56: Moses earned his people's freedom from slavery. Moses earned his people's freedom from slavery.
13:03: That's weird because, you know, I teach in a church, and we're actually teaching through Exodus right now.
13:11: And it's very clear to me in my reading of Exodus as I've been teaching my class that it was
13:17: God who said he was going to free Israel from slavery. So, hmm, weird stuff.
13:26: Let's listen a little bit more. David delivered the city of Jerusalem.
13:40: Israel! But then the
13:48: Israelites' faith wavered. God is with me! I am with him,
13:53: Lord. Prophet, I am your king.
14:00: Kings became tyrants. Corruption grew. The connection between God and his people is at breaking point.
14:13: You worship foreign idols! Now that's Jeremiah upbraiding the people of Israel because they're worshiping foreign idols.
14:22: First hint that there's any idolatry going on in Israel. First hint. Defile your God! Everything the
14:28: Israelites have fought for is under threat. Jerusalem's survival depends on a weak new leader.
14:39: Jerusalem's survival depends upon a weak new leader.
14:45: Now, one of the things I've been making the point about regarding this series from the beginning is that what we're seeing here are the
14:52: Bible being recast, especially the Old Testament, as a series of leadership fables.
15:01: Okay, this is all about leadership. This is no longer redemptive history that we're dealing with here because this isn't about redemption.
15:09: This is about, well, vision -casting leaders, whether strong or weak, those who have good leadership skills and those who don't, and everything kind of centers around being saved by a leader.
15:25: Now, this is going to fully develop into, guess what? Jesus is going to be portrayed as, or prophesied about, as a leader, okay?
15:37: Not the Savior, but a leader. We continue. The city is doomed if King Zedekiah doesn't return to God.
15:58: Jerusalem's 21st king, Zedekiah, is caught between the region's superpowers.
16:05: He is conspiring with Egypt, but owes allegiance to Babylon. News of his betrayal has reached the
16:14: Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. All right, so that's the setup for part three that aired last night.
16:22: And so, yeah, the weak leader, weak leader, Zedekiah, and this, just so you know, they set this up last week, that apparently this is the time of kings and prophets, so there's kind of a split leadership role, whereas the prophet receives the direct vision from God, the king is supposed to rule, and together they kind of make up a leadership team.
16:45: And so who is Zedekiah paired up with? Well, the prophet, Jeremiah, that's who he's apparently paired up with, and what a miserable pair they make.
16:55: They fail, that's basically what it comes down to. They fail. So Nebuchadnezzar arrives on the scene with his army, and they lay siege to Jerusalem.
17:04: Takes them 18 months. People inside are resorting to cannibalism because they have no food. Finally, Nebuchadnezzar's forces break through the walls of Jerusalem, and they start slaughtering people wholesale, and the temple makes its kind of like first appearance, for real appearance, and it's a first hint that maybe the temple has something to do with Israel.
17:31: Aside from the fact that in part two, King David was kind of playing with a model of the temple that he wanted to build.
17:37: They don't show the temple being built. They don't show Solomon building the temple, the presence of God coming down on the temple.
17:44: The tabernacle is never shown. It's just weird. I mean, like I said, they've de -Judaized this thing, but here's them talking about how the temple is on fire now.
17:55: So the first time you actually see the temple itself that's portrayed in this, it's on fire, but listen to this.
18:12: Everything we fought for is lost. Since the time of Abraham, the
18:19: Jewish people have struggled for this promised land. Weird, as they've struggled for this promised land.
18:27: Now the hopes and dreams of generations are destroyed.
18:43: All right. So the hopes and dreams of generations are destroyed because Nebuchadnezzar sacked
18:48: Jerusalem and then took a whole bunch of people off into captivity, which then kind of where they go from there is we pick up with the exiles in Babylon, on their way to Babylon, and we start to get our first narration of Daniel.
19:08: So listen to these little bits of narration that kind of set up the character of Daniel and what's so important about him.
19:16: Well, listen. The Jewish people are forced into exile. A 500 -mile journey east to Babylon.
19:27: Okay, so the 500 -mile journey east to Babylon, next narration of Daniel.
19:34: Jeremiah is one of the few to escape. He heads to Egypt, never to return.
19:44: The people have lost their prophet, their city, and their king. So the people of Israel, they've lost their prophet, their city, and their king.
19:57: So they're leader -less. The Jewish nation needs a different kind of leader to survive in Babylon.
20:17: They need a different kind of... So now we've got a new change in the leadership model.
20:26: That's what this is. Daniel has visionary powers and is forced to work in Nebuchadnezzar's court.
21:01: All right, so Israel has a new kind of... So the leadership model for Israel has changed and Daniel has visionary powers.
21:13: Like I said, this is a purpose -driven leadership rewrite of the
21:18: Bible. Now, I'm going to fast -forward. They do kind of an okay job of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.
21:28: They did okay. I mean, nothing to quibble about. And they did an okay job of Daniel in the lion's den.
21:36: But what's really... There's a couple of weird things here, and that is that they leave...
21:42: I can't even play the audio for you because they show Nebuchadnezzar as having lost his mind, and then the way they leave him off, it's pretty much the poor guy.
21:53: They make it sound like he died crazy. Well, listen. In fact, let me play. This is kind of the narration of the death of Nebuchadnezzar and the soon -to -be king
22:04: Cyrus on the scene. Within a few years of Nebuchadnezzar's death, a massive army approaches
22:12: Babylon, led by Cyrus, king of Persia. Yeah, so that was pretty much it.
22:18: The last you saw of Nebuchadnezzar, he's crazy, lost his mind, and then they say a few years later, he dies.
22:25: No explanation as to what goes on there. We're going to actually spend some time in the biblical text taking a look at that story, but I just want to walk you through kind of the weird things that are happening here.
22:34: And then one of the weirder things, boy, Daniel, he must have aged really well.
22:40: That's all I got to say, is because if you know your Bible, you know that the children of Israel spent 70 years in exile.
22:49: 70 years. But what they do is they literally make it appear like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were kind of like middle -aged dudes when the children of Israel get the okay to head back home.
23:07: I mean, so apparently, I mean, something in the food that they were eating, that Daniel plan that, you know, that Rick Warren is all so excited about, that turned out really well for them so much so those guys didn't even age, but they end up staying in Babylon while the rest of the children of Israel head out.
23:22: In fact, listen to this. This is where they start to make the transition from the exile to the
23:30: New Testament. Now, that's Daniel telling his friend
23:35: Azariah to look at the children of Israel. They're leaving. Our people are heading home after decades in exile.
23:46: They were supposed to spend 70 years in exile. So apparently, boy, Daniel, he lived to see them leaving.
23:54: Who knew? I thought he was dead. I mean... They're moving as one with hope and purpose.
24:02: They're moving as one with hope and purpose?
24:10: Hang on, I gotta hear that line again. This is so Daniel. They're moving as one with hope and purpose.
24:20: They've waited so long for this. But I fear for their future.
24:30: Now, this is Daniel's prophecy of the future of the children of Israel. Listen to this, because this will set up, theologically, what the role
24:39: Jesus is supposed to take. I had a dream. I saw a great beast, dreadful and terrible and unimaginably strong.
24:53: It had great iron teeth and it devoured the whole world.
25:04: And enough. I saw a great new leader. In my dream, there before me was one like a son of man.
25:14: A great new leader. Jesus, the great new leader.
25:22: Coming with the clouds of heaven, he was given authority, glory and sovereign power.
25:31: Nations and men of every language worshipped him. This isn't the end,
25:37: Azariah. It's the beginning. The Jewish people will need help to survive what is coming.
25:51: Over the next 500 years, their tiny nation is attacked again and again.
25:59: Then they succumb to the might of Rome. Roman greed.
26:12: Roman punishment. Israel suffers like never before.
26:22: Yeah, that's somebody being crucified. Every day, the people pray for a new King David to lead them to salvation.
26:32: Let me play that line again. So Daniel prophesied of a great new leader that would show up to save them.
26:40: And then the narrator gives us the setup theologically for what we should expect regarding Vidal Sassoon Jesus when he shows up in our number two of part three of the
26:53: Bible. Listen again. Every day, the people pray for a new King David to lead them to salvation.
27:03: A new King David to lead them to salvation. Man, this is just a complete and utter mess.
27:19: And so what I'm going to do right now, I could continue with this narration a little bit, but what
27:24: I want to do is I want to take a quick break, pay some bills, and we come back. We'll take a quick look at some of the sound bites, maybe one or two from the
27:34: New Testament portion of last night's installment of the
27:41: Bible. But then what I want to do is I want to circle back and I want to take a look at the biblical story of Nebuchadnezzar being humbled by God and how that really resolves because the biblical story is far better and more comforting.
27:58: And again, it's just how do these people miss that? I have no clue. They purposely
28:03: X that out because that would be a story of repentance, forgiveness, and things like that.
28:10: But they've rewritten the Bible, and the Bible is a rewrite, purpose -driven leadership fable rewrite of all of these things.
28:19: And now we got a new leader coming, a leader who's going to be like David, who's going to lead them to salvation.
28:28: And that is a way different thing. But then what we'll do is we'll also take a look at Jesus' encounter with Peter, at least their rewrite of Luke 5, as well as their rewrite of the beheading of John the
28:40: Baptist. It's absolutely fascinating. But when we come back, we'll start off with the missing piece from the baptism of Jesus, which is not insignificant.
28:51: In fact, it's, well, hugely significant. So we got a lot of ground still to cover.
28:58: If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the Faith, you can do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com,
29:06: or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com forward slash piratechristian, or follow me on Twitter, my name there, at piratechristian.
29:14: Quick break, pay some bills. We'll be right back as we continue our analysis of part three of the
29:21: History Channel miniseries, The Bobble. Unless your righteousness surpasses that of Rick Warren, you cannot be saved.
29:34: You're listening to Fighting for the Faith. You're listening to Pirate Christian Radio.
29:47: We'll be taking your false doctrine now. It's...
30:10: Monty Python's Flying Circus Church. Welcome to Build -A -God, how can
30:26: I help you? Hello, I received a Build -A -God certificate for my birthday, so I'm here to build my own deity.
30:32: Oh, this has got to be so exciting for you. Oh, it really is. Okay, let's get started.
30:38: The first thing we have to do is determine whether your god is male, female, or unisex.
30:44: Men are pigs anyway. She has to be female. Great choice. Now we have to select some of the attributes of your goddess.
30:52: What do you provide? Do you want her to be kind, loving, compassionate, just, angry, righteous, wrathful?
31:01: The goddess I believe in would only be loving and kind. Perfect. Now, is there any kind of sin that needs tending to by your goddess?
31:10: Sin? You know, things like lying, cheating, stealing, murder, homosexuality.
31:16: Well, I definitely want my goddess to be gay -affirming, and sin itself just feels so negative.
31:22: I'm a good person, and I think my goddess will think everyone else is too. Oh, wonderful. Your goddess is coming along beautifully.
31:29: Now we have to get to the difficult questions. Does your goddess offer an afterlife?
31:36: Yes, my goddess would let everyone go to heaven, except for Hitler, Genghis Khan, my good -for -nothing ex -boyfriend.
31:43: Oh, excellent, excellent. Now for the final step. You have to name your goddess.
31:50: Hmm. I think I'm going to name her
31:55: Jesus. Oh, wonderful. That's what everyone names their god.
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32:32: Branson. Speakers this year will include Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. We'll also have speaking with us for the first time his son -in -law,
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34:23: Thank you for your support. Warning, if you think the theology in the
34:51: History Channel miniseries called The Bible is actually what the Bible teaches, you've got another thing coming.
34:57: That ain't the Bible. They've completely bobbled it and messed it up. Just a reminder, fighting for the faith, this is listener -supported radio.
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36:11: Okay, now we're going to continue with our little bit of a survey of the stuff that was taking place in the
36:17: History Channel miniseries, The Bauble. And I'm not going to take issue with the nativity,
36:23: Jesus' birth. I mean, it was, I wasn't all that fond of it, but it's nothing theologically super alarming to point out.
36:32: In fact, the way it unfolded with the birth of Jesus and stuff like that, there was some historical inaccuracies to say the least.
36:42: But it really, the way they played it, it looked to me kind of like, well, a mega church living nativity pageant kind of thing.
36:52: I mean, that was about the production value of it. Of course, they have Herod trying to kill
36:59: Jesus literally like the moment he's born, which is like ridiculous. That's not how that went down.
37:06: So those of you moms out there, be advised that the Virgin Mary, after giving birth to Jesus, did not have to, while she had just finished giving birth, she didn't have to be swept up and then leave for Egypt.
37:19: She was in Bethlehem for probably two years before Herod did anything.
37:25: So the slaughter of the innocents didn't happen on Christmas night. So just that was one of those ones that you're just going to go.
37:33: Anyway, the more important thing here, though, the more important thing is what they did with Jesus' baptism.
37:43: There's something, well, seriously missing, like super missing.
37:50: And I'm going to play for you the soundbite. And it's hard to interpret silence, but the silence is deafening here.
37:58: So this is going to be, you're going to hear John saying, John the Baptist who had dreadlocks, which is weird.
38:06: John the Baptist, the dreadlocked John the Baptist, he sees Jesus on the shore and he says,
38:11: Lord, and then we'll listen to him being baptized. And I'll point out the fact that there's something missing.
38:19: Yeah, listen in. Surely I need you to baptize me.
38:57: Now that's the sound of Jesus waiting out to John the Baptist to be baptized by him.
39:02: By doing his right. So Jesus is baptized, full immersion.
39:34: And listen carefully and see if you can spot what's missing. He comes out of the water.
39:49: They show him all wet and then they pan away and show the clouds. Now I'm going to just keep playing this.
40:01: Okay, I'm not going to cut away. I'll keep talking though because this is just music and this doesn't make for good radio.
40:07: But I just want to prove a point. There's something, well, really important missing here.
40:15: After his baptism, Jesus enters the wilderness. Yeah, there you go.
40:20: So that's the end of the baptism. After the baptism, Jesus enters the wilderness. Did you notice what was missing?
40:27: Yeah, there was no voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
40:32: And there was no spirit descending like a dove and coming to rest on Jesus.
40:39: At all. The Trinity was missing from the baptism of Jesus.
40:45: Completely gone. All who were there were John the Baptist and Jesus. But the
40:52: Father's voice was missing. And, well, the spirit was missing.
40:57: It makes me wonder if that was T .D. Jakes' contribution theologically to this miniseries,
41:06: The Bible. Because remember, he was one of the important theological advisors for this.
41:11: And it makes me wonder if T .D. Jakes was able to convince Roma Downing and Mark Burnett that they need to get rid of the
41:17: Trinity since he doesn't believe in it. Well, one thing's for sure, whether he did or not, the
41:22: Trinity did not appear in The Bible. But the
41:28: Trinity did appear in the written Bible. So I found that to be, well, rather significant.
41:36: Don't you think that's kind of a significant omission? I do. Now, I'm not going to talk about the fact that, well, the devil looks like Barack Obama, which
41:44: I thought was hilarious. There's a lot of folks out there making hay with that little feature.
41:50: But I'm not going to discuss it. I just think it's a rather interesting coincidence and rather funny one at that.
41:57: So we're not going to be talking about that. But instead, what we're going to do now, okay, I'm not going to go into the
42:03: Luke 5 section or the demise of John the Baptist. I'm not going to do that at this point.
42:09: Instead, what we're going to do is we're going to go back, and we're going to look in our Bibles and just do some comparative work.
42:14: We're going to spend some comparative work on the story of Nebuchadnezzar being humbled by God from Daniel 4.
42:20: Then we will take a look at what the Bible does with Luke 5 and read our
42:25: Bibles on Luke 5 and also take a look at the beheading of John the Baptist. All of that will,
42:31: I think, make the point that there's something seriously amiss, something way, way wrong with this miniseries.
42:40: It's aggravatingly inaccurate, inaccurate historically, aggravatingly inaccurate theologically.
42:48: This is not a safe movie. This is something that's really, really dangerous. So if you have your
42:54: Bible, go ahead and flip on back to the Old Testament, to the book of Daniel 4, the book of Daniel 4.
43:03: And what we're going to be looking at here is the story of Nebuchadnezzar. Now this is after the fiery furnace incident.
43:10: And in this here, we have a letter written by Nebuchadnezzar.
43:16: In other words, let me put it to you this way. King Nebuchadnezzar is actually one of the biblical authors.
43:23: Now this little fact doesn't often dawn on people, at least directly.
43:29: But he wrote this letter. It's recorded in the book of Daniel. And all scripture is God -breathed.
43:35: So here we have a literal letter written by King Nebuchadnezzar that tells us the story of, well,
43:42: God humbling him and the end result of it, which, by the way, is a far better story, if we were looking at redemptive history, than what happened in the
43:51: History Channel miniseries last night. Daniel 4, verse 1.
43:57: King Nebuchadnezzar writes, he says, King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you.
44:08: It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.
44:15: How great are His signs! How mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion endures from generation to generation.
44:26: I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and prospering in my palace.
44:33: I saw a dream that made me afraid. As I lay in bed, the fancies and the visions of my head alarmed me.
44:39: So I made a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream.
44:47: Then the magicians and the enchanters and the Chaldeans and the astronomers came in, and I told them the dream, but they could not make known to me its interpretation.
44:56: At last, Daniel came before me, he who was named Belshazzar, after the name of my
45:02: God and whom is the spirit of the holy gods, and I told him the dream, saying, O Belshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you, tell me the vision of my dream that I saw and their interpretation.
45:20: The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these. I saw and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great.
45:29: The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.
45:35: Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all, and the beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.
45:47: I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed and behold a watcher. A holy one came down from heaven, and he proclaimed aloud and said thus,
45:58: Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.
46:03: Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze amid the tender grass of the field.
46:15: Let him be wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth.
46:22: Let his mind be changed from a man's, and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him.
46:31: The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that all the living may know that the
46:40: Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.
46:49: This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw, and you, O Belshazzar, tell me the interpretation, because all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known to me the interpretation, but you are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in you.
47:04: So then Daniel, whose name was Belshazzar, he was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him.
47:13: And the king answered and said, Belshazzar, let not the dream of the interpretation alarm you.
47:18: And Belshazzar answered and said, My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies.
47:26: The tree that you saw which grew and became strong so that its top reached to heaven and it was visible to the end of the whole earth, whose leaves were beautiful in its fruit abundance and in which was food for all, under which beasts of the field found shade and in whose branches the birds of the heavens lived, it is you,
47:45: O king, who have grown and become strong. Your greatness has grown and reached to heaven and your dominion to the ends of the earth.
47:54: And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump and its roots in the earth bound with a band of iron and bronze and the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven and let his portion be with the beasts of the field till seven periods of time pass over him, this is the interpretation,
48:18: O king. It is a decree of the Most High which has come upon my lord, the king, that you shall be driven from among men and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field.
48:30: You shall be made to eat grass like an ox and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven and seven periods of time shall pass over you till you know that the
48:40: Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. And as it was commanded to leave the stump and its roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that heaven rules.
48:55: Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you. Break off your sins by practicing righteousness and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed that there may be perhaps a lengthening of your prosperity.
49:10: Now all of this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months, he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon and the king answered and said,
49:23: Is not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence for the glory of my majesty?
49:32: Now while the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven,
49:37: O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken the kingdom has departed from you and you shall be driven from among men and your dwelling shall be with beasts of the field and you shall be made to eat grass like an ox and seven periods of time shall pass over you until you know that the
49:55: Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar.
50:04: He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagle's feathers and his nails were like bird claws.
50:17: At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the
50:26: Most High and I praised and honored him who lives forever for his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
50:37: All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing and he does according to his will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done?
50:52: At the same time my reason returned to me and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and my splendor returned to me.
51:00: My counselors and my lords sought me and I was established in my kingdom and still more greatness was added to me.
51:08: Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven for all his works are right and his ways are just and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
51:25: That is an amazing story. Here at the end of this story you have
51:31: King Nebuchadnezzar praising and honoring Yahweh, the one true
51:39: God. God humbled him and he praised and extolled and honors the king of heaven and says that all of his ways are right and good.
51:50: Nebuchadnezzar is one of the authors, one of the Theonoustos, God -breathed, inspired authors of scripture.
51:59: Granted, it's just one chapter. It's just one chapter but so is Jude. So is
52:06: Jude. And here rather than him dying a crazy loony person which is what the movie
52:12: The Babel portrayed him as doing, dying out of his mind, instead here we see that his mind is restored to him.
52:23: God humbles him and he praises and believes and trusts in the one true
52:29: God. But because the miniseries The Babel isn't giving us redemption history, a story of redemption like this, of God humbling somebody who's proud, him being brought to penitence and confessing
52:46: God to be the one true God. See, The Babel is not interested in redemptive history.
52:53: Instead, they're rewriting history in such a way to tell us about leadership and things like that.
53:00: And that's, well, a redemptive story where Nebuchadnezzar repents after being humbled by God and confesses
53:11: God to be the only true God. Well, that doesn't fit in the agenda of the miniseries
53:17: The Babel. And I think that's one of the reasons why they rewrote it and omitted the story although he was a key figure in last night's installment of the miniseries.
53:27: Now, let's switch gears here and let's take a look at some of the other things that they got wrong last night that I think are actually quite significant.
53:38: And I don't think it'll take us too long to get through these. But first, let me do this.
53:44: Let me give you their definition of a Messiah. Last night in installment three, they gave us a definition of a
53:51: Messiah. And the definition is these are the words of Herod Antipas.
53:58: In fact, listen, this is him having a conversation with Pontius Pilate and Pontius Pilate wants to know what a
54:03: Messiah is. Here's their definition. A redeemer of the
54:09: Jews anointed by God to set them free.
54:19: Well, when you combine that with all of the other, you know, a great leader is coming, a leader who's going to be this, and a leader who's going to do that, it makes you wonder what the theology is there.
54:29: Now, what we're going to do is we're going to fast forward. We just heard about Jesus' baptism.
54:35: And we're going to fast forward to Jesus has been baptized. He's been tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
54:43: And now he is at the Sea of Galilee and he's scoped out Peter and Peter and his fishing boat.
54:50: And what he's going to do is basically introduce himself to Peter, get into Peter's boat, and, well, here, listen in.
55:02: I think the narrator is going to set this up for us. Here we go. Far from the authorities in Jerusalem, Jesus returns to his home region of Galilee and heads to the shore of the inland sea.
55:31: Okay, so Jesus is now at the Sea of Galilee and he introduces himself to Peter who's having trouble with his boat.
55:43: Do you need help? I'm not looking for any help. And besides, there's nothing to help with.
55:54: And the reason why there's nothing to help with is because he'd been fishing all night and he didn't get anything. So Jesus wades out to the boat and Peter asks him what he's doing.
56:07: Hey, what are you doing? You can't just climb into my boat. Yeah, you're right.
56:14: You should be helping him. Okay, so Peter helps Vidal Sassoon Jesus into his boat and still is wanting to know what on earth
56:25: Jesus is up to. What do you think you're doing? We're going fishing.
56:32: There are no fish out there at this time of day. In fact, there are no fish out here at any time of day. Peter, just give me an hour and I will give you a whole new life.
56:46: Who says I want one? Well, who said that's what the biblical... Give me an hour and I'll give you a whole new life?
56:54: So Vidal Sassoon Jesus is basically saying, listen, give me an hour and I'll change your life.
56:59: I tell you, there's no fish out there.
57:12: And so there's no fish out there, he says. And well, they end up going fishing.
57:17: So they show Peter and Jesus heading out at Jesus's request. And well, what ends up happening is he brings in a huge haul of fish and Peter's marveling at what has happened.
57:32: And well, here's how that went down. How did this happen?
57:46: What did you do? I'm giving you the chance to change your life. So Peter wants to know how this miracle took place.
57:55: Jesus's answer, I'm giving you the chance to change your life.
58:06: Peter, come with me. Give up catching fish and I will make you a fisher of men.
58:15: Give up catching fish and I'll make you a fisher of men. What are we going to do?
58:26: Change the world. Okay, so give up being a fisherman and I'll make you a fisher of men.
58:35: What are we going to do? We're going to change the world.
58:41: Now, this is based loosely, and I think the important word here is loosely, on the
58:51: Gospel of Luke chapter 5. And all of the important stuff, the important theology, well, it's missing in their rewrite of this particular account.
59:02: If you have your Bible and want to follow along, I'm in the Gospel of Luke chapter 5. I'm going to read verses 1 through 11.
59:08: Here's what it says. Luke writes, he says, On one occasion while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, that would be
59:16: Jesus, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
59:26: So getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and he taught the people from the boat.
59:39: Okay? So this is the setup for this particular miracle. So put this all in your head.
59:46: This doesn't take place in a short amount of time, but this is a long account here. Well, it's a short account of a long event.
59:54: So there's Jesus sitting in Peter's boat.
01:00:00: Who has the job of keeping the boat from heading out to the deeper part of the lake? Well, that would be
01:00:05: Peter. So Peter, while all this is going on, he's obviously at the oars, keeping the boat steady, keeping it where it's at, keeping it from heading out, whatever, so that Jesus can teach from the boat.
01:00:18: So that's what's going on. So it's Jesus and Peter together in the boat, and Jesus is preaching to the crowd the word of God.
01:00:26: Who's hearing the word of God? Peter is hearing it. Also the crowd is hearing it.
01:00:32: So when Jesus has finished teaching, when he is finished with his sermon, when he's done teaching everybody about the kingdom of God, the word of God, and all that kind of stuff, verse 4, and when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
01:00:52: Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.
01:01:00: All right. But at your word, I will let down the nets. All right. So who's the fisherman here?
01:01:05: Peter is. Whose boat is Jesus in? Peter's boat. He had just spent all night fishing and was skunked, and now
01:01:14: Jesus is saying, go put out and go let down your nets. Now, Peter, he's doing this as a courtesy.
01:01:21: You can tell by what he just said, where he says, but all right. But at your word,
01:01:26: I will let down the nets. So when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking.
01:01:38: So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
01:01:43: Now, this is actually an important piece of this here. They don't whistle. They don't draw attention.
01:01:49: They don't shout out, hey, we need help. No, no, he's signaling. Why? This little detail actually lends historical credibility to the very story itself for this very reason.
01:02:00: These fishermen are very competitive. They're making a living at this, and they don't want to attract the attention of competing boats, competing fishermen.
01:02:09: So they signal to their buddies online, hey, we're struggling here. The nets are breaking. They signal, not shout out.
01:02:16: And so their partners and they came and they filled the boats so that they began to sink.
01:02:21: Now, keep this in mind. Okay. Peter is a fisherman for a living.
01:02:29: Jesus is not. Peter thought that he knows better about fishing than Jesus does.
01:02:35: And Jesus has just displayed that he has the ability to miraculously cause huge hauls of fish that have never been seen before to be put into people's nets.
01:02:47: In other words, Jesus could be the wealthiest man on the planet. Okay. Peter knows this.
01:02:57: Okay. Who has the ability to do something to this effect? Right. So they signal to their partners in the boat, and they came and helped them, and they came and filled both boats that they began to sink.
01:03:09: But when Simon Peter saw it, this is what he realizes what's going on here.
01:03:15: He fell down at Jesus's knees saying, depart from me.
01:03:23: I am a sinful man, oh Lord. This miracle convicts
01:03:29: Peter. This miracle shows Peter his own sin.
01:03:35: This shows, this is a crucial moment for Peter.
01:03:41: He's brought to repentance of his own sins as a result of this amazing miracle. Let me read that again.
01:03:47: But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees saying, depart from me.
01:03:53: I am a sinful man. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.
01:04:03: And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
01:04:09: And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men.
01:04:18: And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed
01:04:25: Jesus. What we have in the Gospel of Luke is a completely different account than what was told by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett.
01:04:35: In fact, this whole idea that you stop being a fisherman and I'm going to change your life and we're going to change the world, that's not what
01:04:44: Jesus's message is, nor was it Jesus's mission. What we're dealing with, with Vidal Sassoon Jesus from the
01:04:52: Bible, is what the Apostle Paul warned us about. Another Jesus.
01:04:58: This is a false Jesus. This is what Jesus himself warned us about in Matthew 24. False Christ, false prophet.
01:05:05: This false Christ comes to us in the form of, well, a Jesus who has been pitched to us by the producers of this movie and the theologians behind it as an accurate depiction of Jesus and the
01:05:19: Bible and all that kind of stuff. But the reality is, is nothing could be further from the truth.
01:05:25: This is way, way different. Now, another part of the rewrite, the other part of the rewrite that they did here is they completely changed what happened with John the
01:05:39: Baptist. And what they show with John the Baptist being beheaded, they completely leave out
01:05:46: Herodias. They leave out Herodias' daughter. They leave out the party.
01:05:53: And what they basically turn John the Baptist is as somebody who's, well, politically threatening to the empire because in a previous conversation that we played a little snippet where Pontius Pilate asked what's a
01:06:05: Messiah? Well, Antipas answers what a Messiah is, but Pontius Pilate is telling
01:06:10: Antipas, listen, you got to take care of this Messiah because politically this isn't going to fly with Caesar. That's the gist of it.
01:06:17: So what we find then is what they do with John the Baptist is they have Herod Antipas in the cell with John the
01:06:26: Baptist having a conversation with him that ends up with John the Baptist losing his head. Here's the details of that little encounter.
01:06:34: Here we go. What am I going to do with you? That's Antipas asking
01:06:40: John the Baptist, what am I going to do with you? He's in the cell with him. You and your dangerous mouth.
01:06:50: To a seditious fool? I don't think so. To God's message.
01:06:57: The kingdom of heaven is near. So you do claim to be the
01:07:02: Messiah. No. But you think he's coming.
01:07:10: He's already here.
01:07:25: He's here. So John the Baptist is basically saying
01:07:31: I'm not the Messiah. He's saying this to Herod Antipas and basically saying the Messiah is already here. Of death.
01:07:38: Speaking God's truth. Alright, so that's that particular one.
01:07:50: Now let's fast forward to the last bit where John the Baptist, who has dreadlocks, loses his head and all of the story is completely changed.
01:08:01: It's as if the Bible, you could just edit it any old time you want and make it say and do whatever you want to make it say and do.
01:08:07: This is the epitome of treating the Bible as like a wax nose. But listen carefully to what
01:08:12: John the Baptist says as he's about to lose his head. Keep in mind, Herod Antipas is in the cell with him as John the
01:08:21: Baptist is about to lose his head. He will bring a new age of righteousness and justice.
01:08:26: His power will draw all men to a new world. Okay, it happened quick.
01:08:32: Let me back it up. Listen again. This is John the Baptist yelling as he's about to have his head cut off.
01:08:38: He will bring a new age of righteousness and justice. He will bring a new age of righteousness and justice.
01:08:46: His power will draw all men to a new world. His power will draw all men to a new world.
01:08:57: What is this? He says all people and then he loses his head.
01:09:07: Now let's compare this with the Gospel of Mark. Gospel of Mark chapter 6. I'll start at verse 14.
01:09:13: Now John the Baptist had been arrested but listen to this. Mark chapter 6 verse 14. King Herod, this will be
01:09:19: Herod Antipas, heard of it, heard of Jesus' miracles, heard of it for Jesus' name had become known.
01:09:26: Some said John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.
01:09:33: But others said he is Elijah and others said he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. But when
01:09:38: Herod heard of it, he said, John whom I beheaded has been raised. Which tells you that Herod here is dealing with a guilty conscience.
01:09:47: Because even though he was a king there, he does not have authority to act in and of himself.
01:09:55: He is under the emperor of Rome. So there is certain authority that he has and no king has the authority to just kill somebody the way he did
01:10:07: John the Baptist. So Herod here is worried. He thinks that Jesus is
01:10:13: John the Baptist whom he beheaded, whom he has raised. For it was Herod who had sent and seized
01:10:19: John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her.
01:10:26: Now this is important because the way the History Channel miniseries recast John the Baptist, he is in prison, well, because he is a political threat.
01:10:37: But according to the biblical text, John the Baptist is in prison because his wife,
01:10:42: Herodias, is nursing a grudge against him because, well, she's an adulteress. She used to be married to Antipas' brother
01:10:50: Philip, but through whatever the schlocky means came about, he was able to take his brother's wife to be his own.
01:11:02: And John the Baptist, being a prophet of God, said you can't do that, and that's why he ends up in prison.
01:11:07: He doesn't end up in prison because Pontius Pilate thinks that he's a threat that needs to be dealt with, and that we're dealing with a political problem here.
01:11:15: No, we're dealing with basically a moral issue. John the Baptist had the audacity to say that Herodias was an adulteress and that Herod was an adulterer.
01:11:26: For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother
01:11:31: Philip's wife, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
01:11:39: And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death, but she could not.
01:11:46: For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.
01:11:52: When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.
01:11:58: So, I mean, what the History Channel did, I mean, this is even close to what really went down, but we continue.
01:12:05: But an opportunity came when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.
01:12:13: For when Herodias' daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.
01:12:20: And the king said to the girl, ask me for whatever you wish and I will give it to you.
01:12:26: And he vowed to her, whatever you ask, I will give you up to half of my kingdom. Stop here for a second.
01:12:32: He doesn't have the authority to do this. Herod here is basically showing off.
01:12:41: He's showing off with power and authority that he doesn't have. He's not a true king in the sense of the word.
01:12:47: He is, well, he's a puppet monarch established by the
01:12:53: Roman Empire. So, if Herodias' daughter had asked, okay,
01:12:59: I'll take half the kingdom, Herod wouldn't have been able to legally give her half the kingdom.
01:13:05: He doesn't have that authority. So what he's doing is he's pretending that he's like one of the kings of old, that he has real power and authority.
01:13:15: And he has nothing of the sort. He's basically showing off. Okay, he's exalting himself in a way that he has no power and authority to exalt himself as.
01:13:26: So, I mean, what's going on here? You have to kind of historically understand a little bit of the back story so you can see what's going on.
01:13:34: Okay, so there's a grudge held by Herodias because John the Baptist had the audacity to say that she was an adulteress and a sinner.
01:13:43: And isn't it interesting in Scripture that murder and adultery oftentimes go together?
01:13:49: And that's even in our own case. Oftentimes murder and adultery, they're twins. They go together many, many times.
01:13:58: But we continue. So then Herodias' daughter comes in and she dances in such a way that, well, she delights
01:14:07: Herod, Antipas, so much so that he feels it necessary to show off to his guests and offer her something that he really can't give her.
01:14:20: Boy, that must have been some dance, don't you think? But so what does she do?
01:14:26: So verse 24, so she went out and said to her mother, for what should
01:14:32: I ask? And she said, the head of John the Baptist. And so she came in immediately with haste.
01:14:41: She came in immediately with haste. This shows you the evil wickedness of this girl.
01:14:48: Okay, she's excited by what's going on here. She comes running in. She comes running in back into the party where all the guys are.
01:14:59: And she's excited by this whole proposition rather than going, oh, that's disgusting, mother.
01:15:06: You want me to do? Oh, yeah, no, no, no. She's thoroughly trained up in evil, from dirty dancing to taking delight in the murder of somebody.
01:15:16: This tells you about the wickedness that is really going on here. So she came with haste to the king and asked, saying,
01:15:22: I want you to give to me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
01:15:29: By the way, the language here in the Greek, and this is really tough to pull out into the
01:15:35: English. But the language here that's being used is the language of contracts. Okay, so what happens is the first part, this is formal contract language.
01:15:45: She comes in and uses the middle voice. And basically at this point, she's counter -offering.
01:15:51: This is a negotiation going on. This is contract stuff going on. This is what I want. And the king was exceedingly sorry.
01:16:02: See, he'd been showing off. He was the one who was trying to protect John the Baptist.
01:16:08: And he was protecting John the Baptist against the express wishes of his, well, his wife, who he should not be having as his wife.
01:16:19: So he was, you know, and she saw that him acting foolishly and offering to her daughter something he really doesn't even have the power to give in the first place, turns right around and exploits the weakness.
01:16:36: It goes for the kill. She is nursing a grudge against John. How dare that man say
01:16:41: I'm a sinner. This has nothing to do with politics of Rome. This has everything to do with sin. And being called to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
01:16:50: What was John the Baptist's baptism all about? It was for the forgiveness of sins. So we continue reading here.
01:16:57: And the king was exceedingly sorry. But because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word.
01:17:06: So now he's stuck. And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring
01:17:14: John's head. He went and beheaded him in prison and brought his head on a platter, gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.
01:17:27: And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. John the
01:17:35: Baptist was a prophet. He was a holy man of God. And he was brutally murdered.
01:17:43: Brutally murdered by a woman who held a grudge against him for him daring to say that she was a sinner.
01:17:52: And that she needed to repent. That's what was really going on here.
01:17:58: The History Channel rewrite of the Bible, Old and New Testament now, has completely expunged the major theme and the major story and plot line and purpose of the
01:18:13: Scriptures themselves. For the Scriptures are written so that we may believe that Jesus is the
01:18:19: Christ, the Son of God, and by believing, have life in His name. The purpose of the
01:18:25: Old Testament stories and following this particular family line through their history is to point us to the one who was promised in the
01:18:33: Garden of Eden. Who would crush the head of the serpent and have his heel bruised for our salvation.
01:18:42: They've turned this story into basically a political drama, if you would.
01:18:47: A political drama about the people of Israel trying to live in the promised land and have freedom, but they have weak leaders.
01:18:58: They have weak, weak, weak. Their leaders are weak. And now the ultimate leader, the ultimate leader has shown up on the scene.
01:19:05: And this ultimate leader, his, well, his job, his mission apparently is to make people's lives better and change the world.
01:19:19: And nothing could tip this off more than the fact that they rewrote the execution of John the
01:19:27: Baptist and expunged all of the sin, adultery, and repentance portion of it.
01:19:34: And turned it into, well, he was beheaded because he's a political threat.
01:19:42: Because a Messiah, and they thought he thought he was the Messiah. A Messiah is somebody who's supposed to come and bring freedom to the
01:19:52: Jewish nation, which obviously would be a threat politically to Rome. That's not why
01:19:58: John the Baptist died. Not at all. What we're getting in the
01:20:03: History Channel rewrite of the Bible isn't the Bible. This isn't redemptive history.
01:20:11: This isn't, in fact, Vidal Sassoon Jesus is not the biblical Jesus. His mission is not even close to the same mission that the real
01:20:21: Jesus came to earth for. He came to seek and save sinners. Sinners like me and like you.
01:20:29: What they're doing to the Bible and what they've done to it is expunge sin, repentance, the forgiveness of sins, true redemption.
01:20:40: And the saving work of the Messiah for the world. Instead, we've got, well, him basically coming to set the ultimate example of what it means to be a leader.
01:20:57: And that's not what Jesus came to do. In fact, not even close.
01:21:05: I've decided what we're going to do today. I'm going to end it right there. We'll just keep this as a singular topic today for Fighting for the
01:21:11: Faith. And we'll save our sermon review for tomorrow. But if you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the
01:21:20: Faith, you can do so. My email address is TalkBackAtFightingfortheFaith .com Or you can subscribe on Facebook.
01:21:25: It's Facebook .com forward slash PirateChristian. Or you can follow me on Twitter. My name there, at PirateChristian.
01:21:30: Until tomorrow, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.