Laborers' Podcast- An Overview of Deuteronomy

Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. Tonight we are going to do an overview of Deuteronomy. Hope you'll stick with us. Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast which.

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Laborers for tonight's broadcast. How's it going everybody? Fantastic. Welcome to the Laborer's Conference. I am jumping ahead of myself. Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. We're always thankful for your support.

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Leave us a comment. We'd love to hear from you. I'm glad you guys are doing well. We've made it through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and now we're in Deuteronomy. And I know Tyler is excited about that, right brother?

Yes, I am. I love the book of Deuteronomy. Fantastic. Does anybody want to give us a quick overview, an introduction, small little introduction of what we're getting into now of Deuteronomy? Tyler, you want to start.

Deuteronomy as Moses' Farewell and the End of the Pentateuch

Us off with that one? I'd be glad to. So, Deuteronomy is the fifth book of what we call the Torah, the Pentateuch, whatever fancy term you want to use. It's the first five books of the Bible. It's the last book that we have attributed to Moses.

So, this is the end of Moses' time with the Israelites, and what we've seen so far is God has created the world. He has selected for himself out of that world a people, being Israel. They have been enslaved by Egypt, and he has delivered them out of Egypt with strong hand.

And because of their own sins, they have, instead of going into the land God had promised for them, they have wandered in the desert. And Moses has been with them all the way, that he has seen them at their highest and seen them at their worst.

And now the generation that rebelled and would not go in the promised land because of their sin has died. So, Moses is what's left of that generation, and now there is a new generation of Israelites, of young strapping bucks ready to enter the promised land.

And so, in a sense, you could say that Deuteronomy is Moses' commencement address to the next graduates of the school of Israel, that this is Moses' send-off, as he is reiterating the big things that they need to learn, they need to know.

This is what God has brought us out of. This is who God has continued to be to us, despite our failings, despite our infidelities, God has been faithful. This is how we've seen him faithful in the past.

This is the God that will continue to be faithful with us as we transition into this land, as you go to take this land that God is giving you, not this land that you've earned, but has been given to you.

So, remember these things. Remember this law that he gave us. Remember what he has commanded us to do, because God is.

Faithful. Amen. The first question actually came from Tyler, and I'm sure he's thought through this one a lot, has a great answer. How does Deuteronomy serve as a conclusion element in the Pentateuch?

How does Deuteronomy tie together the other four? One of the first thoughts that comes to my mind is promise fulfilled, talking about conclusion. Who wants to tackle that one? How does Deuteronomy serve as a conclusion, conclusive element in the.

Pentateuch? Well, anytime... you want that, John? No, sir, I was looking at you. Well, anytime you've got... I mean, just the way that question's phrased is very Tyler-esque. It's perfect. It just brings us to understand what we're talking about and thinking about.

So, the conclusive element is, in the term itself, the conclusion. It's a bringing together. It's a tying up of the loose ends. It's a full-on remembrance, like we were making fun of Valedictorian speeches, right?

Basically, this is the message, like Tyler said, to the graduating... or as we'll say in the country, the graduating class, right? Graduating. Them that learned how to, you know, how to cipher and read and write, but it's conclusive in that it brings it... it does.

It brings it all together and in the form of a looking back and a looking forward. What about.

Tying the... tying the other four... Helping it tie the other four together? You know, does it tie everything in a nice little bow? Well, we do have the.

Completion of the books of the law, which are then placed in the Ark of the Covenant, and there are some sectors of Judaism in history that have stopped counting divine revelation at Moses. We read about the Sadducees in the Gospels, and they stopped reading after Deuteronomy.

They only had the book of Moses, but the idea in Deuteronomy is he dies. He doesn't make it to the end of the book, and some of the last things we see here is his death, his burial, and placing the book of the law, Genesis, through this thing we call Deuteronomy, binding it together and putting it in the Ark of the Covenant, and this is finished.

I.

Think, too, one thing that's neat about the book of Deuteronomy is it summarizes all the rest of the laws, and there's actually a few new ones, but there's the summaration of the whole law in there, and it really speaks of the justice of Israel, how justice even tithing laws and, you know, giving a tenth, and then every three years, an additional tenth to the poor, and so it ties in civil laws, function laws, it's preparing them going into the promised land to where they're headed.

So one reason I think that it's a good summation book, it's a summarizing of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. It's a summarization of that, but it's also preparation for going into pagan land, and the civil law and the practice of that, but then it's not only a segue from that, it's really the beautiful segue into the foreshadowing of the New Testament, you know, and I'm sure we'll get into that later, but, you know, going on to the New Testament in Deuteronomy 36, you know, that Moses is saying, you know, hey, if you choose God, then you'll be blessed, and if you reject God and rebel, there's going to be famine and those kind of things, and Moses gives them that choose life, you know, he pleads with them, but then what's funny, after he pleads with them, he goes, but I already know you.

I already know your heart, and I already know you're going to rebel, and the good news is, you know, the foreshadowing of the gospel, he says, but one day God will circumcise your heart, that there's a heart problem, which one day God will circumcise your heart, and because of what God does in the circumcision of a heart, you will love God and live, and so Deuteronomy is a beautiful book that ties the history of that ancient Israel, where they were at the foot of the mountain for a year while this is all being developed, too.

That's one thing that this just didn't, even though Moses come off the mountain with those tablets, this is a process. This is a journey that they're going through in the history, too, in a year, summarization, and then there's a succession of Joshua, and Yeshua, and the foreshadowing that goes along with all of that.

So Deuteronomy really is a cool, pivotal book. I think that's one of the reasons that it's such a good transitional book, a final book to the law, because it's going from now a written law, Deuteronomy helps it become a practiced law.

It gives really clear instruction that now when you go into this promised land, this is how you're to live, and God's saying this is how my people will be set apart from the rest of culture. So that's my opinion of why it's such a good ending summation book there.

I think it also ties in a little bit like my favorite, and this might be a little cheesy, but like my favorite verse out of the entire, maybe a couple verses, out of the entire book is in 7. So you get to 7, and 7, the Lord devoted, the Lord was devoted to you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your fathers.

He brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you by the place of slavery and the power of Pharaoh the king. Know that Yahweh, your God, is God. Be faithful, God, I say, the faithful God who keeps his gracious covenant.

Loyalty for a thousand generations to those who love and keep his commandments. And it goes on to talk about those who don't, but the point I'm getting at is it's like, and maybe it's because we're on this side of it that we know Joshua's coming, and we see almost like the people getting ready for a different leadership, like God's preparing them not to essentially worship Moses, but rather to understand that God is God and Moses is being used by God, but God's gonna raise somebody else up.

And just remember where you came from, you know, this is, you didn't get here because of your own merit, you got here because I loved you, and that's it.

Amen. Yeah. This conversation makes me think of some of the questions that we get from opposition, where if God is so good, why would he do this? And they always point back to the Old Testament. Why would he do this?

Why would he do that? And they point out all the taking of lives of nations. They point those things out, but going over what you guys were just talking about, I mean, I'm looking at all the good that God does.

Keeping his promises, keeping his promises to an unfaithful people, and then he continues to do that, continues to do that, and then he saves, you know, Christ comes and he saves his enemies. Wow. I mean, when you get down to it, you think about it, and you understand the text, you understand who God is, he's justified in what he did because of who he is, because how holy he is.

Exactly. But then just above and beyond that, we read and we meditate on all his goodness and how good he was and merciful he was to his people then and to his people now. Oh, so wonderful, so wonderful.

And I want to say something, too. I know you guys probably would care that I did not do this, but I wanted to praise the Lord for you guys. I mean, we've gone down to two. Now we've gone down to one viewer.

We were up to eight viewers a few minutes ago, and I thank everybody for watching and listening later whenever you get to watch or view it. But we were up to eight viewers at one time, and if we would have did last week's podcast live, it maybe would have brought more viewers because there's tension, we have passion and zeal about the position that we hold on certain doctrinal stances.

But here we're going over books of the Bible, and I want to praise the Lord for the heart of you guys and your friendship and your brotherhood that you guys come back because of your commitment to God's Word, and you want to see people hear and know God's Word, to love him, to love the Lord, and I just I praise the Lord for you guys and what you mean to me and this ministry.

We love you, Rob. Your love for the Lord. To God be the glory. Amen. Let's hop on down to question number two. This is one that I added recently. Moses is giving the law a second time, which is, I don't know if I'm understanding the word Deuteronomy correctly.

Deuteronomy means second law, so does that mean... I know it doesn't mean it's a second law, a different law. He's... It's a repeated law. It's a repeated law. Right, okay. So he's given the law a second time.

He's repeating it to a new generation due to the first rejecting God and them not.

Being able to enter the promised land. And Moses is smashing those stones. Mm-hmm.

Right. Do you see parallels with Jesus condemning the Jews and the leaders of his day and then speaking to those who are entering the kingdom? Do you see parallels between what's going on here and what happened there?

Rebellion, Hard Hearts, and the Call to Listen

Well, I mean, I.

Think... I think on the surface you'd have to say, of course, because God doesn't change, right? And whatever... whatever attributes God has in Deuteronomy, he also has in Matthew. So I think that one of the...

Well, I've heard it put this way. All sin is bad, but whenever there's a sin that hardens your heart, it's grievously bad. Whenever there's a sin that calluses your heart. When you're talking about people who live in a land of idolatry and wickedness and they cry out for salvation, and salvation is granted.

And then the moment that they're free, one of the first things they ask for in their freedom is for more slavery and to go back to the land that they came from. Yeah. Then the moment that the man that God has given them to lead them out leaves for just a minute, it's like, hey, he's gone.

We don't even know what happened to him. Let's take all the riches that God gave us when he left, and we got to bear in mind where they got all their gold from, and let's worship it. It's just stupid.

Yeah. And I can see the frustration in Jesus when he says, how long will I have to suffer this unjust and unfaithful generation, right? And you see God's like, I'm gonna raise a whole new people up, you know, for you to lead, Moses.

Honestly, I don't know what God thinks, but I can imagine that the frustration we see Jesus explaining in the New Testament has to be something of the frustration he had here. Did I answer the question, Brother Robert?

Sure, sure. Yeah, and you.

Know, kind of what you're talking about, Jesus expresses to those people, you know, oh, how I wish I could have, you know, brought you in like a hen brings her chicks under her wings, you know, and then I think about Moses when he comes down on the mountain and they're, you know, worshiping an idol when he's just been.

Talking to the living God. Yeah. You've done messed up, A .A. Ron. Oh my gosh, Tyler. That was awesome. Oh my goodness. Strike one, Tyler. Oh, that was awesome.

Oh, and we talked about Deuteronomy being conclusive, you know, a concluding book, and then you also have a conclusion of the Old Covenant. You have a conclusion of the temple, the sacrifices, you have that conclusion, and then you have a new generation entering into this kingdom, kind of like you have this new generation entering to the promised land.

Those are some of the kind of some of the things that I saw as parallels. Anybody else on parallels?

Well, if we go, if we look at the garden, we had a rule in the garden, do not eat, and when they do eat, and God speaks to Adam, his exact words are, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and that's not a just some kind of.

But it's that he heeded the wrong voice, and in Hebrew, the idea of listening is a little more nuanced than in English, and that listening implies obedience. We go to Exodus, and when Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go, Pharaoh's response in chapter 5 is, who is Yahweh that I should listen to his voice?

We get to Deuteronomy, and the recurring phrase among many is, listen Israel. Yeah. So in the garden, they eat and do not listen, but what I love about Deuteronomy 8 .3 is that it says, he humbled you by letting you go hungry.

Ouch. He humbled us by letting you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Amen. So they don't eat, so they may listen. And you see where Jesus quotes.

That later on, and after, I mean, his wilderness temptation, right? That's what that's the scripture that he quotes whenever he's told to turn the stones.

Into bread. And you know, Tyler, this obedience thing takes the correct perspective as well, because the opposition would say, he wants us to... I'm thinking about the debate back when Ray Comfort and Kurt Cameron debated some atheist, and she called God a...

I can't even say the word. Mellow, maniacal... Oh, megalomaniacal maniac. That's right. That's a mouthful. And you want us to obey him, so who, you know, who is, like, Pharaoh said, who is he? But the perspective from the Christian perspective of the believer is, or especially the perspective from God, I believe, is, I want you to obey me because it's for your good.

I mean, you go back to the garden, and here's this command, don't eat of this fruit. Sure, if you disobey, you're disobeying the eternally holy God, but if you obey, it's for your good. And the same thing is true when we get to Deuteronomy.

This obeying is not to be, you know, maniac or megalomaniac. It's for their good if you obey God. Yeah, you're... One of these days, we're.

Going to do one of these, and we're going to discuss the differences of opinion on how you see this from a Calvinistic standpoint versus where I see some of this from mine. That's not today, okay? No, we can't do that last week.

We can't do that. My nerves can't handle it. One of the things that, if we want to mirror obedience from the garden and obedience in the wilderness, right? So let's take it from garden to wilderness to the New Testament, to today, whatever.

So Tyler, well-versed as you are, what are the two commandments that we're to keep? Love God, love neighbor. All right, so this does what to all the law and the prophets? Summarizes. It keeps. It summarizes, yes, it keeps.

It's disobedience in these two areas sums up all ten commandments and what it appears to be the generic application of God's teachings throughout all the scripture. Love God more than you love anything else, period.

You can't love God enough. That's just all there is to it, and you can't be good enough to your neighbor. There's no law against how much you love somebody. There's only so many things. There's laws that don't exist for, right?

Against such, there is no law. Where's that at? Is that in Romans? For it is all possible to live peacefully with all men. For against such, there is no law. Something to that effect. Rob, you're talking about how this law is for their good.

It begs the question, is God egocentric to command worship of himself, or is that the best thing for his people is to worship him? Amen, that's right. It's the best thing. It's the best thing. It's not like we have a God who was jealous.

He said, I want you to worship me because I don't want you worshiping some figment of your imagination. No, it's the best thing for you to put God in the center of everything you think, love, and do, because starters, he has nothing but love for you in return.

There'll be people that you love in your life, and they genuinely love you as much as they can, and they will fail you from time to time. God never will. And if you don't put this at the.

Center, if you don't worship me with all you say, think, and do, where that devolves into is exploitation, is not loving neighbor, is we start doing the things that other nations are doing. That is always where it goes, is when they worship Baal, they exploit the poor and vulnerable.

They do X, Y, and Z. It seems to come as a package deal. If they don't love God, they don't love neighbor.

That's what I heard one commentator say. If we ever think that the law was harsh or stringent, then we should compare it to the culture of the time, their systems of law. You go to the Moabites or whoever, you know what I mean?

They had their laws as well, and this one commentator said it doesn't take long if you begin to compare ancient culture law to the law of God. No wonder the law of God is holy. It illustrates the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the righteousness of God, most importantly, the justice of God, the justice for all people.

The poor, the broken, the widows, the destitute, the orphans, those civil laws are very explicitly explained in Deuteronomy. In other cultures, those that are destitute was normally genocide or enslaved, not taken care of, not loved, not shepherded, not sheltered.

They were either killed or enslaved. So the law of God is good. The law of God demonstrates the love of God for people. In general, not just the people of Israel, but it's how the people of Israel were to treat all people.

That's right. Remember that you were a slave one time, too, so you don't treat your people this way. That's right. There's a humbling, a continual humbling that I find comes with the law. Not that I say that we, and I'll make sure we don't, you know, we don't try to keep the Old Testament law as a form of righteousness, but rather that Old Testament law continually breaks us down because we won't keep it.

We're not able to keep it, right? I think it was, I think it was Spurgeon. I might be wrong. I'm not as read up on Spurgeon as you fellas are. So the law of God can take us to the cross, and after that it can do nothing else, or it can do no more, something to that effect.

Was it him or somebody else? I don't know, but that's a good statement. So I read it.

Somewhere. I didn't write it. So in any case, the point is, you know, that law continually pushes me towards a Savior who kept it, towards a Savior who loves me, because it is forever highlighting my wickedness.

It's forever showing me that I really don't love God as much as I should. Amen. You know, and I know that we're not supposed to ever say stuff like that as Christians, but I mean, I'm a born-again Christian who at times would rather sleep in than get up and pray and hold to a certain time of day that I need to get up and be disciplined for certain things, you know, whatever.

So I'm curious, though, just go.

Back to what you said earlier. How would that differ from what... What do you talk about. The difference between the Calvinist view and what.

You're... Oh, okay, okay. I see what you're saying. Because now you've just piqued my.

Interest. I'm just curious now, because I don't see... I don't hear any.

Difference between us. Well, so whenever we talk about surrender, right, Brother Robert said something last week when we were talking in private. If you're okay with me mentioning this, Brother Robert, when I said something about willful surrender.

Sure, we'll go with it. You said, I don't think we can willfully surrender, right, or something to that effect. Let me speak for you here. Go ahead, yeah, go ahead. Am I right? I'm not misquoting you, am I?

I think, yeah. Okay, I want to make sure that I'm fair, and somehow or another, and how this looks, I can't tell you, right, but I can't... I can't see the Christian being freed of the obligation of obedience and surrender to God.

And I'm afraid that the way, at least the way I understand Calvinism, that somehow or another, that is taken off the table in some form where there is no actual choice. You can't help but love God. Now, an argument can be made that anybody in their right mind wouldn't help but love God.

I'll give you that, but Jesus says what, Robert, in going into Jerusalem? How I long to gather you under my wings, but you wouldn't have me. You wouldn't let me. I see a Savior who is desiring to see the world saved, but because of willful disobedience, they're not being saved.

And then you see, in the same exact book, Gentiles say, I know your God. All you have to do is say, heal my servant, and he's healed, because I understand authority. And I mean, to me, I've heard it said that who's stronger, God's will or my will, and I would say that God's unparalleled.

He's unmatched in strength in any place whatsoever, but I can't see negating personal responsibility to surrender and to be obedient to God, at least as much.

So as God's given you to do. Well, before we go on to the next question, I'll just simply state it like this. God's sovereignty and man's responsibility run parallel to each other, so they're not at odds.

Not at all. Not at all. I agree. I.

Think it's like answering a question with a question. Like Yoda? There is absolutely no doubt man is responsible. That's right. And there is no doubt it is required repentance and required faith and required call upon the name of the Lord and believe in your heart.

Romans 10, you know, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. I think the question is why does any man do that? And I think that's what happens between a Romans 3 person that no man seeks God, no man is good, no man seeks God, all like sheep go astray, all agree, all are short of the glory of God.

What happens to us that are those people that changes us into a Romans 10 person that we're calling on the name of the Lord and we're believing our heart, we're confessing, what happened to that guy? And I think that's where the sovereignty of God is inserted.

So we would never negate the, I don't mind saying the will of man. I have a hard time saying free will depending on the definition of it. I think it's one of those terms that it's a loaded term because to me, free will would be absence of the influence of God that by my own free will, by my own ideology, by my own power, I've decided that I'm going to choose God.

Not even John Wesley would say that. Where John Wesley, we'd all quote John 6, 44, no man comes unless what? The father of God. Right. So there is this work that God does to take us from a non-seeking to a calling upon.

And that's where the sovereignty of God comes. And it's not militant. It's not manipulative. It is going back to even the book of Deuteronomy where we're talking about it. It's love. It's the circumcision of the heart that God has to do because if God doesn't do that circumcision, then no man ever would.

That's Romans 3. No man could

I'm not arguing any of that. Like I said, I don't know how you rectify it together. Maybe you don't either. I don't know. But to me, it seems very apparent that it's the desire of the Lord to save the whole world.

But he also knows that's not going to happen. And then I know that he also gives eternal life by way of invitation. Like you said, nobody comes to the father unless he's invited. Right? Because to me, I suppose that's where it hammers out, John.

Yeah. And I like to quote another Deuteronomy passage, the mysteries belong to God. Amen. You know, that there's things in this that we will not understand. All I'm saying is at the end of the day, I think for most new reformed guys, and I guess I can't speak for all reformed guys, but for most new reformed guys, it really boils down to the question, even here in the book of Deuteronomy, it boils down to the question, who's in charge, us or God?

Yeah. Well, God's in charge. That's right. And then outside of that, there's things that we flat out don't know. And then who does salvation belong to? Who's going to take the credit for salvation? Am I going to say, well, I saved myself?

No, no. No, no. And I wasn't insinuating that.

I know you're not saying that. Or by the grace of God, I've been saved. And that's where we unite wholeheartedly. So I know there's more far outs in the spectrum, but I don't think any Calvinistic point of view would say that it's, at least in our groups, because what you're talking about is fatalism.

Fatalism is a removal of the will and responsibility of man. Nobody believes that. We're just answering the question of, if a man does call on God to be saved, why? And the reason he does is because God's done a work.

That's right. And that's it. And so I can't answer the question. Really, it's not answered the question in Scripture, for those that aren't saved, why they're not.

Well, the Bible says they're without excuse because they have general revelation.

They're without excuse. But why they don't come, the Bible doesn't specifically answer that. The closest we get is Romans 9, is the potter and the clay. The closest we get is that. But I don't, personally, I'm not a double predestinationist, is what people call it.

I'm not one that believes in God's destiny to hell, because the Bible doesn't say that. But it does answer the question of why men are saved. If any man is saved, how did he come to salvation? It does answer that.

It's something like Passover, when there were some that were just passed over, and we don't really have a thought-out explanation for that. It just, it is.

Well, they were passed over because they were being obedient to do what Moses told them to do. At the same exact time, this law that we see in Deuteronomy, anybody could keep the law with the Jews and become an Israelite.

This was not an exclusive group in the way that you weren't ever allowed in. You could become a Jew as long as you adhered to their teaching, right?

I love Isaiah 56, because it's all about that. It's about the eunuchs being grafted into the house of God for honoring his Sabbaths and keeping in accordance with the law, that they will be brought in and given a new name.

I always like to think that when Philip is speaking with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 7, well, we're not told that. We are told he's reading Isaiah 53, but I honestly just like to picture that he also went down a couple paragraphs and went to Isaiah 56.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. About the eunuchs being brought into the house of the Lord.

So we need some water. We need some water. Put him under. Not sprinkled. Not sprinkled.

That's right. Put him under. I mean, hold him until they gurgle.

Just throw it out there, though, guys. I think this is, this would be, it's what we mentioned the other week. I think it'd be great to have a conversation sometime in the future of key words and topics that are bad misunderstandings from an Armenian perspective and from a Calvinist perspective.

Like, people hear the word Calvinist and they make immediate assumptions about a number of things, and I think it would be really cool at some point in time. I think it would, I think it would really bridge a lot of unity to just unpack semantics in the languages of Zion, if you will.

Because in one camp, a word means one thing. In another camp, a word means another thing. And then the enemy uses that first to throw rocks at each other. And the fact of the matter is, after we get down to the nitty-gritty of it, it's like, you know what?

We believe a lot of exactly the.

Same things. And a lot of those misconceptions come from the pulpits.

It does. Because they don't know the definitions themselves, many of the folks who are standing in pulpits. Well, I think sometimes there's a lot of.

Posturing behind pulpits to rally the troops, so to speak. I don't agree with it, but you can see that on, well, just pull up YouTube right now and pull up.

Some preaching. And you'll find... You think that's why so many contemporary churches have ditched the pulpit altogether and don't have anything up there? It really gets in.

The way of running. If you're gonna start running across the pulpit, or across the stage, I mean, that's an obstacle, right? We've got people that aren't.

Exegeting Scripture, so therefore they're just giving talks and speeches, and so therefore they don't need a pulpit. I require notes in front of me, especially if I'm exegeting Scripture, because I am not fluent in Greek.

I'm not fluent in Hebrew. I need to be able to read prepared notes and texts, especially for getting into those things. You don't see that in a lot of modern-day things, and so that's where a lot of bad misunderstanding is, because people are preaching agendas rather than the whole counsel of the Word of God.

I'll give you that. I'll give you that one. Then if we were really preaching the whole counsel of the Word of God, a lot of the semantics that divide us would actually begin to unify us. You're right.

Nobody on either side of the aisle would ever hate the ideology of the sovereignty of God. If there's a real understanding of grace, no one would be confused or bow up when you preach Ephesians chapter 1, that you're predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ.

No one would bow up and attach that to an ideological position. It would be the Scripture is creating a joy and a security among the believer. So anyways, but even in Deuteronomy we could do that. You could find those semantics and those ideologies that where people will pick and choose a topic or a word and then put their own meaning to it, and then throw rocks at everybody else that doesn't line up.

If we just let the Word of God stand for the Word of God, then the rest of us...

Where's that thing at? That's right. That's the truth, though. That's right. Tyler, you're.

Talking about the pulpit. I want to hang on to that and bring it back in just a second because I've been mulling over a question that's not on the list listening to you guys talk, but before we jump out of the conversation that we were in, John, you were quoting a passage that I quoted, and when you were quoting what I quoted and listening to you quote it and you're asking about Calvinism, Jesus wished that he could draw them under his wings like a hen does her chicks, but they wouldn't, and I'm thinking, it's interesting how we view passages differently, and when you were quoting that verse, I was thinking to myself, man, that's such a powerful Calvinistic passage because that answers the question right there.

They can't. That's why we need a sovereign God. No one can. No one will. That's why we need a.

Sovereign God. Well, I mean, at the same time, there were some that were, right? He prays in the garden, not one of them you give me I've lost. That's right. The son of perdition. So there were some that were with him.