Have You Not Read S3:E10 - Question Smorgasbord (Round 2)

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

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

Thank you. I'm Chris Giesler and with me today is Michael Durham and we've got a series of Bible questions that we thought we would answer.

Those come in to us from our website and you can go there and ask questions and these were submitted by it looks like several people.

The first one we have is referencing 2nd Kings 5, tells the story of Naaman's leprosy being healed.

After he is healed, he declares that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. However, in verses 17 through 19,

Naaman asks that the Lord pardon him for his future act of entering into the temple of Ramon and bowing down there.

How should we understand this part of the story? Yeah, this is a great question. You know, the Lord did this mighty miracle for Naaman and he says some pretty amazing things, recognizing the power of the one true

God. So in verse 17, after 2nd Kings 5, after Elisha refuses to take any kind of remuneration, no, no, don't give me any of your silver, don't give me the changes of clothes, you know,

I'm not gonna take anything from you. And so he responds, Naaman responds to Elisha.

In verse 17 he says, then if not, please let your servant be given two mule loads of earth, for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods but to the

Lord. So why did he want two, you know, mule loads of earth?

Well, he has a concept in his head about a God being sacred over his own land.

You know, Naaman is very pagan in his mindset. He hasn't, you know, he recognizes, okay, there's this one

God, there's no God on all the earth except in Israel, but he's still thinking, I've got to have

Israel dirt in order to put an altar upon, to stand upon in order to worship

God. He's really aiming at trying to be holy, he's like aiming at trying to be faithful, and this is how he knows to do it.

It's an interesting request, but he does have this question in verse 18, yet in this thing, may the

Lord pardon your servant when my master goes into the temple of Ramon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Ramon.

When I bow down in the temple of Ramon, may the Lord please pardon your servant in this thing. So Naaman is not saying, he's not contradicting himself, right?

So he doesn't just say, well, I'm not gonna worship any other God except the one true God, the

God of Israel, but I'm also gonna worship Ramon. You know what he said? He said, I have a job, right?

I serve my king, and my king expects me to lead him to this temple, and my king's going to worship there, and I've got to bow down next to my king and do my duty, but please pardon me in this.

I'm not worshipping Ramon, I'm just doing my job. Right. Now in this, would this be a matter of life and death for him?

This being the king, having him bow down, if he were to say, I'm not gonna do that, would that be risking his life at that point?

I would imagine so. I would imagine he would definitely be in some big trouble, and big trouble in these days usually means execution, so I would say he's concerned about that for sure.

But he's just trying to check and see if this is okay. He recognizes that there's a conflict now. You can see how alert he is to the reality of there only being one

God. Okay, so what does that mean when I go into a pagan temple? I don't want to do the wrong thing here.

So you can see how it's not just his skin that has been changed, it's his heart that's been changed, and he's concerned about that.

And so if we were to think of a contemporary example, if per chance, if somebody was part of a security detail for somebody, and that person was a

Hindu and they had to go to their Hindu temples and do their thing, and the security detail has to come in and take off their shoes, you know, pardon me in this regard,

I don't, you know, this whole thing is not true. I am not worshipping here, but I'm expected to be here as part of my job.

Right. And so he's not trying to contradict himself or trying to find some sort of avenue to bring idolatry in in a creative way.

He's being forthright. He's being honest and trying to have integrity. This, of course, is greatly contrasted to Elisha's servant in the next passage,

Gehazi, who chases Naaman down and tells him a lie so that he could get all the spoils that Naaman had offered to Elisha, but Elisha had said no.

So the integrity of Naaman, the pagan lately come to understand the one true God, that his integrity is far better than that of Gehazi, the very servant of the

Prophet of God, and we see this contrast. So what what is the Israelite to think about this story?

Hmm. You know, just because I'm an Israelite, just because I have connections to holy people here, this doesn't mean that by these, you know, credentials that I'm just better.

Right. The Lord is looking for someone to worship him in spirit and in truth, is the way we would say from the

New Testament. And the contrast between Naaman's being healed from leprosy and then Gehazi ends up with the leprosy.

Right. Pretty stark contrast. Yeah. And even the fact that he voices this concern,

I think, kind of shows where his heart is. Right. He wants to please the And there's nothing specific in the text of him talking about joining in the worship, just that he has to bow down with his master.

Yeah. So I think he's trying to do the right thing there. Yeah. Very good. All right. Our next question, it reads, in the

Old Testament we see many stories where it seems God appears to people in a physical form. I think of examples such as the three visitors that come to Abraham, Genesis 18, and Jacob's wrestling with a man,

Genesis 32. How should we understand these passages? Right. So in one sense, there's perhaps not an immediate concern about God showing up in human form and directly addressing one of his servants, such as when the

Lord comes down with two angels in Genesis 18 to speak with Abraham and also to send the two angels to Sodom and Gomorrah in chapter 19 to go see whether or not there are ten righteous left there or not.

Yeah, the state of the town. Exactly. And the interesting thing about this story is that Abraham knows who it is.

He sees his Lord and he gets up and he runs around and says, you know, please let me prepare you a meal. And he goes to whatever length he can to show the hospitality.

And they spend time together. They talk together. And obviously Abraham is very respectful and honoring his

Lord. But when we listen to the balance of Scripture, we also hear things like God can't be seen.

For instance, in 1st Timothy 6 16, it says that God alone has immortality, dwells in unapproachable light.

He dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see.

Wow. How do you reconcile that with, you know, Moses who spoke with God face to face as with a friend?

Right. So there's plenty of stories where it's clear that it's not just any old angel.

You know, it's not it's not Gabriel or or Michael the Archangel or some angel out there that it's, you know, he's a run -of -the -mill angel or something.

Yeah. Those are scary enough. Men fall down like they're dead when the regular angels show up.

But then there's these other incidents when the Lord shows up. Sometimes he's called the angel of the Lord.

Right. With that definite article, the angel of the Lord. Correct. And he's showing up and it's understood this is

God himself. And angels will say, don't worship me, I'm just a creature. But when the servants of God fall down before the

Lord or the angel of the Lord and worship, there is a reception of that worship indicating to us this is

God showing up in a visible direct form. And so how do we understand that?

And I think that that's the question. With God being invisible and dwelling in an unapproachable light, no man can see him and live, he says.

Yeah. I think of Adam and Eve and it says that they walked with the Lord. And obviously that was pre -fall.

But then you have these examples. The one that you just mentioned, the angels coming. And then also

Abraham wrestling with a man that seems more than a man in Genesis 32.

So how do we understand this? Well, 1st Timothy 2 verse 5 says, there is one

God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And leading up to the incarnation, we have several instances where the

Lord shows up in bodily form. And these are all what we call, the theologians call it theophanies, the showing up of God.

Or Christophanies, the showing up of Christ before his incarnation. And to be clear, it's the second person of the

Trinity who is revealing himself to these believers, to these saints, because he's the mediator.

Right. And we have all of that anticipation in a variety of stories leading up unto the incarnation itself.

Right. I think we talk about Jesus and him coming in physical form as a baby. But you have these references that seem to be talking about another person in the

Old Testament. And you mentioned Christophanies. Christ, the word Christ, is a New Testament word.

And yet we gather through context of when this person shows up, that it's referencing, it's a shadow of Christ, of the person

Jesus in the New Testament. And Jesus himself will pick up on some of those things about how, you know, the things that Abraham and Moses were dealing with were really about him.

And it makes sense when the second person of the Trinity in bodily form shows up and has a meal with Abraham and speaks with him face -to -face and does the same thing with Moses.

And in fact, you go back to the burning bush, you have a bush that is aflame yet not consumed.

Well, where else do we see this? What about on the Mount of Transfiguration where Jesus's body is as frail as any bush?

Because it's mortal. He was about to go to the cross and die and perish. His body is as frail as any bush and yet on fire, the blazing fire of the glory of God, our

God is a consuming fire. But he's not consumed. And we see

God showing up in these ways. And it's always a mercy that he reveals himself. It's grace that he reveals himself in this way.

And how often do we hear in the stories that those who encounter him expect to die and then they don't die.

I think of Isaiah in the throne room, woe is me I am undone. And even Samson's parents.

Yeah, yeah. You know, they were beside themselves with this situation, you know.

There's a little bit of humor, I think, in the story with Samson's parents too. Yeah. One of the stories, and this is with Abraham in chapter 22 of Genesis, when he's going to sacrifice his son.

In chapter 22, and they go through, they go to the mountain, he's getting ready to sacrifice him. Verse 13,

Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up on a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, the

Lord will provide as it is said to this day on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. Verse 15, and the angel of the

Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself I have sworn declares the

Lord. And he goes on and reiterates, you know, your children and your descendants. But the angel of the

Lord there, I always found it interesting that Jesus was the sacrifice, and here he's showing up as a precursor in that same place saying, there's a better sacrifice coming.

And he's not mentioned as Jesus, he's not mentioned as Christ, but it's the angel of the Lord in this interaction about a father sacrificing, you know, the son.

Yeah, that incident on Mount Moriah holds a somewhat theological freight for the declaration of the gospel moving forward.

It's an amazing moment. Right. Another question that came in, why was it such a great sin for David to order the census in 1st

Chronicles 21? Yeah, so good to turn over there. 1st Chronicles 21, take a look at what is said.

And when we look at the very first verse, we hear that Satan stood up against Israel and moved

David to number Israel. So we can already tell right away, this is a bad idea. You know, if it's

Satan standing up against Israel and moving David to number Israel. Now what's interesting is that when you go and you read the very same account in 2nd

Samuel 24, we read in verse 1, again, the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel and he moved

David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah. So that's a classic question that you get in Bible college and seminary.

A test to see the reliability of the scriptures. Here's a clear contradiction between one passage and the other, or is it, and so forth.

So when we apply our theological lens to those two passages, we realize

God is sovereign over all, including Satan. Satan is an instrument that God uses for various purposes.

Satan is like a hammer. He does one thing and God will use evil persons and entities to bring about judgment on those with whom he is angry, with those whom he is upset.

We see this in other examples. The book of Habakkuk, or Habakkuk, if you're over the pond.

The question there is, God, why are you using the Babylonians to judge

Israel when the Babylonians are more wicked than Israel? Sure, we're bad.

We've not kept covenant with you like we should, but I mean, come on, the Babylonians are worse.

That's just one example. There's other examples where God will send a lying spirit to go afflict the prophets.

Right. It's to bring about judgment. So God is sovereign over evil. He never does evil.

He never commits evil. He is not evil, but he is sovereign over it and he will use it in the course of judgment.

And so what we find is that there is judgment pending for Israel, for the nation.

And so we read that God himself was aroused against Israel. Why? Because Israel had sinned, because Israel was in the wrong, because there was a need for judgment upon the nation according to the covenant standards that he had made with them.

And so God uses Satan as his instrument to do this. So that does not really answer the question.

Right. But anybody who studies this question and goes and reads for themselves, they're gonna come across that interesting apparent contradiction, but it's not a contradiction.

Right. So when we read that David tells Joab, who was no upstanding man in and of himself, to go number all of Israel, Joab is reluctant, as we read in the story.

He doesn't really want to do this and, in fact, tries to counsel the king against it. And when it came down to it, he didn't actually number everybody.

He left some people out because, again, he wasn't really in agreement with David about doing this.

So why was it such a sin to number the people of Israel? Well, we have to think about what

God had told Israel about numbering. So what did he say about numbering the people?

Well, in the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, we have all sorts of instructions given to us by Moses for Israel.

And one of those instructions was that when they numbered the people, there were sacrifices that had to be made all along the way.

And it was a sense of giving honor and glory to God for the gift of life to his people, as he had promised a nation as multiple as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

And numbering the people wasn't bad when God commanded it. And in the way that God commanded it. I mean, there's a book of the

Bible called the book of numbers. Right. You know, and it begins and it ends with counting the people of Israel.

And nobody died for the sin of counting them. Why? Because they actually did it in the way that God told them to, in terms of offering sacrifices to him and giving him honor and glory as they did it.

But it also comes in the context of the instructions about to Israel concerning the king of Israel.

Now, those instructions came back in Deuteronomy. You know, how long was that before there was actually a king?

400 years prior to Israel having a king, God was giving instructions to his people about how they should think about a king and what a king ought to be about, how he should function.

And so there were a few instructions that he gave to the potential king of Israel. You know, you are not going to be, you're gonna have a king like the other nations.

This is gonna work differently. Okay. Now, God acknowledged through Moses in Deuteronomy 17 that the desire for a king would come because they wanted to copy the other nations.

You know, this is so we're some having this form of government. We need to have a king just like the other nations do.

Everybody else is doing it. Yeah, exactly. God said that you need to have a king that whom the

Lord your God chooses and it must be somebody from among you. So he says that in verse 15 of Deuteronomy 17.

But then when we read further, we see that there is a difference. So verse 16,

And why is this? Because his confidence has to be in the

Lord. His confidence has to be in God, not in the amount of gold he has, not in the amount of chariots he has, not in the amount of soldiers he has, and so on and so forth.

When David tells Joab to go count the people of Israel, it's a census for the purpose of finding out the army.

So he wants to know what kind of fighting force do we have. Yeah, do we have what it takes? Look, counting noses.

Yes. And essentially saying, you know, I stand at the head of an army, tell me how big that army is.

When in fact, he should be saying, I stand at the head of an army, look how big our

God is. Right. And there was a completely different mindset. So you see how his mind is filled up with pride, and he's focusing on the number of the people rather than the greatness of God.

And I think when we look at the nature of the rebuke, we see that in the end,

David offers up a sacrifice to the Lord, as it should have been in the first place, giving glory to God the entire time of counting.

Right. Then he talks about him, you know, he brings pestilence upon them, and a lot of distress because of it.

Yeah, but that context from Deuteronomy, I think, adds a lot to that. Like you said, are we materialists, strictly?

Or, sure, we use materials, but where do those materials come from? They come from the Lord. Yes. And one of the things that God told the whole nation of Israel, and it's important to remember that the king, the way that God dealt with David, the way that God spoke about the king, he was dealing with that man as he would the whole nation.

The king stands in for the whole nation. And so that's why in Deuteronomy 17, there were instructions for the king to write a copy of the book for himself, a copy of God's law, because the fate of the nation hung upon the faithfulness of the king to the covenant.

Bad king, bad times for the nation. Good king, good times for the nation. How often do we see that in the cycle of Israel?

All the time. Exactly. It's so dependent upon that king. Why is it? Because God concentrated his covenant dealings and his covenant promises down to the one who stood in for the whole of the people.

So when we think about the way which God spoke to Israel in Deuteronomy 8, in Deuteronomy 8, he tells them to worship him faithfully and to not get distracted.

So in verses 13 and following of Deuteronomy 8, he says, and when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and your gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, right, when you get big, when you have a lot of stuff, then your heart is lifted up and you forget the

Lord your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. He says, what's the problem?

Well, verse 17, you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.

See, that's what's going on with David and God confronts him in that sin. Very good. The next question that came in to us is in reference to Numbers chapter 14.

It says, how should we understand this text of Scripture? Does God change his mind here during his conversation with Moses?

So this is Numbers 14, 11 through 25. So this is a great passage.

We see Moses in his intercessory role as the mediator between God and his people, and verse 11 he says, then the

Lord said to Moses, how long will these people reject me and how long will they not believe me with all the signs which

I have performed among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

So what is God saying here? He is saying, I am going to bring upon them the curses of the covenant that I have promised.

This is Numbers 14. We think of the curses that God speaks to Israel in Deuteronomy 28, but all those curses in one way or another was already given to the people in Leviticus.

So God is saying, I'm gonna be faithful to what I said about the covenant. When they break covenant with me, I'm gonna bring all these judgments upon them.

But I'm still going to keep my promises because I'm faithful and we're just gonna make a whole new nation through you,

Moses, which makes a lot of sense because Moses is a Levite and a nation of Levites makes sense.

So this is well within the faithfulness of God and it's also somewhat typological of the one to come,

Christ, who is the true mediator of the new covenant. Well, he says all this in verse 13, Moses said to the

Lord, then the Egyptians will hear it for by your might you brought these people up from among them and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land.

They have heard that you, Lord, are among these people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face and your cloud stands above them and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Now if you kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of your fame will speak, saying, because the

Lord was not able to bring this people to the land which he swore to give them, therefore he killed them in the wilderness. And now

I pray that the power of my Lord be great, just as you have spoken, saying, the Lord is long -suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation.

That's how it worked in the old covenant. Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.

So you see Moses appealing to God in two particular ways.

One, he says, well what about the nations? What about the nations? What do the nations have to do with God's dealings with Israel?

A whole lot. You know, he was dealing with Israel for the sake of the nations. What did he say to Abraham? That in you, in your seed, all the families of the earth, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

So God was very concerned with what the nations would see and how they would understand.

Even in the judgment of Israel later on, when they were taken away to Babylon, God said this is so that the nations will see and know that I am

God. So Moses is appealing to the glory of God, which is an excellent appeal to make, because God says, for my own sake, for my own sake,

I will do it, and how can my name be profaned? I will not give my glory to another, he says in Isaiah. So this is obviously a primary motivation of God.

So he appeals on that level, and he also appeals according to God's own character, not only his glory in all the world, but also his character and the way in which he had revealed himself to Israel as merciful, as long -suffering, and so forth.

So verse 20, how does God respond to the appeal of Moses? Then the Lord said,

I have pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the

Lord. Hey, that's good news. Yeah. Because all these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt in the wilderness, and have put me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which

I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it. So he said at this point, oh well they're still gonna die off, right?

They're not going to go in. This is a hardened, this is a wicked and perverse generation, as Jesus would say of his own generation later on.

And God says they're not coming in. But, he says in verse 24, my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully,

I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it. Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley.

Tomorrow turn and move out into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. So it was a test of Moses in a way.

You know, Moses are, how much do you really believe me? How much do you believe what I've said?

Because when he says to Moses, hey let's just restart everything and we'll do it all through you. You get to be a new Adam. You get to be a new

Noah. You get to be a new Abraham. You know, oh this is very appealing for Moses.

Right. But Moses says, no, no, no, what about what you said?

What about your plans? What about your glory? What about your name? And in this we see that Moses has a hard job to do in this ministry of the

Old Covenant. But he is faithful to it, because he is pointing to God's plans and saying, let's stick with your plans.

Let's stick with your character. And God says that he will. He will bring judgment against this wicked and perverse generation.

But he does not mix Caleb, and then we see another passage, he does not mix

Joshua in with that same crowd either. So it's not going to be, hey there's a new nation through Moses necessarily.

But that I think it was a test of Moses. Just like he told Abraham, sacrifice Isaac. And then he stopped him.

Why? It was a test. Yeah. So this is a similar situation. Right. Now the question comes, you know, does God change his mind?

Well, we read in the Scriptures that God is not a man that he should lie or change his mind.

But we also see God say things like he was sorry that he made man, or that he repented of what he had planned to do against.

And so how do we understand that? Well, these are man -shaped words to give us an understanding of how

God is operating. It's not a contradiction. When God looks upon the people who repent and turn away from their sin, and then he turns away from the judgment that he was going to bring upon them, that's him being consistent with his character.

That's not him being wishy -washy. That's his character. He's being consistent with it.

He does that. When people repent and turn away from their sins, he relents from the judgment that was coming upon them.

That's just how he is. So I think that's important to keep that in mind when you're trying to understand those expressions about how

God operates. You had mentioned the king standing in for the people. And here it seems like Moses is being a mediator.

Yes. Ultimately pointing to the the true king to come. Yes. I'm reminded of passages that talk about nation of priests, nation of priests and kings, a royal priesthood.

You talked about Moses being a Levite. Let's just start with you. Let's start over with you.

And in a sense, that's what happens with Christ. Very much so. And I think that that is prophesied of in Jeremiah 33 as an elaboration on the new covenant discussed in Jeremiah 31.

In Jeremiah 33, there's a whole host of expressions where God takes up all the promises he made to Noah, to Israel, to Abraham, to Israel and to David, mixes them all together in one beautiful tapestry.

And it's about the new covenant that's going to come about in Messiah. And the New Testament authors pick up on that and they use expressions like that.

And they talk about like in, you know, 1st Peter 2, a nation, a holy nation, people for God's own possession, a holy priesthood, so on and so forth.

Right, very good. Well, that's all the questions for today. What about recommendations, media or content?

Well, I think in the instance, in the example of trying to labor hard and do work and then all these great

Bible questions that we're looking at, there is a small little book called One -to -One Bible Reading by David Helm, One -to -One

Bible Reading. And what it offers is a very simple way of getting into Bible study with somebody else and trying to disciple them and to grow together in the

Word. It goes great with the idea that you have from Methi's media of vine growing, the idea that you should want to grow the vine, that you want

Christians to grow in Christ. And how do you do that other than by looking at the

Word and as 2nd Corinthians talks about being transformed from glory to glory as we behold the light of Christ in the text.

So it's a great little book. It offers the opportunity for some hard work.

It gives you, I think, it's eight different sets of questions and they're somewhat similar to each other, but they deal with different genres of biblical literature.

So the set of questions about historical literature, such as Genesis 1 and 2, would be different than questions for poetic literature, like the

Psalms, or different than apocryphal literature, like Revelation. So it's a similar set of questions, but the idea is you need to observe what's in the text and deal with it as best as you can, and then work your way towards understanding and then application.

So it's a great little book about Bible study. It is hard work, but it's something good to engage in.

Very good. I would recommend a book called Starlight and Time. This is by Dr.

Russell Humphreys. This came up while I was in college with the question of evolution, the age of the universe.

You've got starlight coming from billions of light years away, and so the argument is, well that light took billions of years to get here, so obviously the universe is billions of years old.

But this is a scientist that is a creationist. He believes in a young earth, and he has a very compelling argument for how that starlight got here, when it did.

It's a small read. The part that makes the argument is the first part, and then the appendices at the the back is just science.

And he's pretty famous for several discoveries. He predicted some things that we saw out in space, and we send out satellites, and it turns out, yeah, that's correct.

So he knows what he's talking about, but it's called Starlight and Time by Dr. Russell Humphreys. Pretty cool.

All right, let's move on to the segment what we're thankful for. Well, I am thankful for hard work and working out on a piece of land that my family owns.

We were out there all morning long and part of the afternoon, and it was just really enjoyable to be out in God's beautiful creation and working and cleaning things up.

You know, it's funny how the pagan conception of paradise is one in which man doesn't do anything, or man's absent, you know, and not doing anything to change the way that the trees grow, or the way that the land is formed, or anything like that.

And when we got out there, you know, from where we started working the land till now, it looks a lot better.

You know, why? Because we're involved, and we're cleaning up dead things, and moving away scraggly things, and you know, and doing things to make the land look more beautiful than it was before.

And that's always enjoyable kind of work. Great opportunity. It was just, it was a fun day, me and the kids, and then just rejoicing in the gift of work.

You know, to step back and say, wow, God, you gave me this strength. You gave me tools.

You gave me a desire and understanding to do this work. And then, wow, look at it. And then you give praise to the

Lord for it. Yeah, well, I'm gonna piggyback off of that. Today I took a break from work to do some of that type of work.

There were some things that I was wanting to get done, to take care of, you know, what God had given me. I just wanted to be outside.

I wanted to be out working, and the weather was great. I wanted to be with my family, you know, doing that work. And so it just seemed very fruitful and productive.

And there's something in that type of work that is satisfying. It seems less like toil than maybe other types of work is.

But it was very rewarding to see things change as you're putting your hand to it, and like you said, making it look better.

And we've got chickens, so I took a bunch of the vegetable garden that we're cleaning up for winter and give it to the chickens, and they're giving us eggs.

And it was just nice to to go out and do that with my family. So I was grateful for the opportunity to do that.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read.