The Prophet Jeremiah Part 14

Prayer for Understanding God’s Word

So we're gonna pray, we will get started. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask through your Holy Spirit, help us to rightly understand what you have revealed there. We do not have anything apart from you, and it's from your hand that you feed both our bodies and our souls.

And so as we study your word, we ask the Holy Spirit, help us rightly believe what you have revealed. Help us to confess and repent of our sins and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. And then through the power of the Holy Spirit, bear fruit in keeping with repentance and love towards others.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so if, I feel like I should give a little bit of an update. If you guys haven't been tracking, you know, we had the Babylon Bee, we had Kyle Mann of the Babylon Bee, a special speaker for our spring event, our fundraiser.

And now the Babylon Bee has been locked out of their Twitter account for daring to call Michael Levine a man. So, you know, I just, I do find that kind of fascinating. The world we live in, you shall not oppose the radical insanity of today's modern left.

Yeah, when we have no idea what a woman is, so. What was that? Putin can have his Twitter, but Kyle Mann can't. That's hilarious. Yeah, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, just the days we live in, it's gonna continue to be interesting.

There was a question about the rose-colored stole that I wore. So during penitential seasons, there are two penitential seasons during the church year. Advent is one of them, which is why at Kongsvinger we don't sing Christmas carols for a whole month.

I know that sounds, what, you don't do that? No, we save the Christmas carols for the time of Christmas. So you'll note that if you look at an Advent wreath, you know, you'll have like three blue candles, one pink candle, right?

And then the center candle is white. Don't let Nikki know that I said pink. I'm not allowed to say that word. But it's technically a rose-colored candle. So there's one Sunday during Advent, which is a penitential season, where the text lightens up a little bit because penitential texts and penitential seasons have a tendency to kind of grind.

And so the people who put it together thought it would be a good idea to have one Sunday in each of the penitential seasons where the texts were a little less intense. And so that's, we're keeping that.

And so my daughter-in-law, Nikki, she's, let's just say that she's liturgically on point. She's, and so she, a few years ago, you know, she wanted to go with a rose-colored stole for those two Sundays.

And of course I rolled my eyes. It's mandatory that you roll your eyes and stuff like that. You want me to wear a pink stole? No, it's not pink, it's rose. Okay, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know. So, you know, she went and she, out of her own funds, purchased that stole for me.

So, and I actually, now that I've worn it for a couple years, I think it's a good idea. It's, you know, so when you see the rose-colored stole, know that we're in a penitential season. That's the day things are gonna lighten up just a little bit, just a little bit.

The readings did that. So I think that's fun. So. People, male and female. I'm not a biologist, but I'm pretty sure there's women here today. Yeah. I saw a meme making the rounds yesterday that showed Stephen Furtick, and it basically said, do I know what the gospel is, question mark?

Well, I'm not a pastor, so. I thought that was pretty well said. Oh, well, all right, Jeremiah, we're gonna do a little overlap from last year. Jeremiah chapter 15, we're gonna start at verse 19, and then you're gonna see that we noted that Jeremiah has a tough gig.

He's the guy who's gonna be the prophet, a lot like Noah, where nobody's really listening to him, or very few are, and it's gonna be even worse, because here's the deal with Jeremiah. He's single, and God's not gonna permit him to put a profile together on the local Jerusalem dating app, in fact, he's off the market altogether.

You can see that's part of the cost of him preaching. So therefore, thus says Yahweh, if you return, I will restore you. You shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth.

You shall turn, they shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them. I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze. This is God talking to Jeremiah. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you.

For I am with you to save you and to deliver you, declares Yahweh. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless. Now, you'll note, this was a promise that God specifically gave to Jeremiah, and this is absolutely true for him.

He got out of a few scrapes. Other prophets prior to him didn't have those promises, and so you'll note that Christ talks about how Jerusalem kills the prophets. God sends them prophets and they kill them.

That was what the hope was of what they wanted to do with Jeremiah as he was preaching through his ministry, and God protected him from that. And you'll note that each and every Christian, even if we are to be martyred for the Christian faith, God does deliver us from the ruthless, even if the ruthless, for a time, for the moment, might prevail and do our physical bodies in.

Don't let this bother you. The reason being is because they can't kill the soul. They can't take what Christ has given you away from you, and as a result of it, the inheritance that you have in the new earth is certain and sure, so you do not need to fear people if they are upset with the words that you speak that are true today.

So the word of Yahweh came to me. This is chapter 16. You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons and daughters in this place. So Jeremiah was not permitted to get married during this time that was not going to be for him.

For thus says Yahweh, concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, concerning the mothers who bore them, the fathers who fathered them in this land, they shall die of deadly diseases.

So God is doing this out of mercy because his intent is to act in judgment because of their impenitence, and the impacts of sin, the consequences of sin are devastating. They affect every single one of us.

Remember, the wages of sin is death. The fact that children die shows that they also have a sinful nature. So they shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground.

They shall perish by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth. Thus says Yahweh, do not enter the house of mourning or go to lament or grieve for them.

I have taken away my peace from this people, and there's your Hebrew word, shalom. I've taken away my shalom, my peace from this people, my steadfast love and my mercy. So God's taken away his peace, his steadfast love, and his mercy.

Yikes, okay? So that's all gone. So there's, when God takes away his peace, his steadfast love, and his mercy, there is no grace. So, yeah, just a little shout out to him. So I'm gonna hear, all right.

So both great and small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried. No one shall lament them, for them are cut himself or make himself bald for them. So you'll note that this is a, these are Egyptian practices as it relates to lamenting the dead.

And they have found their way into the cultural practices of Jews, which makes no sense. And so what God is basically saying that, so these people are going to die in such mass quantities. There's gonna be nobody to bury them.

No one's gonna lament for them. And oh, and by the way, all those religious practices that you're practicing because of the Egyptians, cutting yourself for the dead and making yourself bald for them. Yeah, listen, if you can avoid baldness, do that at all costs, okay?

And I know some bald fellows and this has nothing to do with mourning for family members. So, okay, you shall not make yourself bald for them. No one shall break bread for the mourner to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother.

You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. For this is Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel. Behold, I will silence, I will silence in this place before your eyes.

And in your days, the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness, the voice of bridegroom, the voice of bride. Basically, all parties are off the table. No one's gonna have anybody to celebrate for. This is all gonna be brought to an end.

And so when you tell this people all these words and they say to you, why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us? This is judgment. This isn't evil. And you'll note that God's anticipating their poorly phrased question with its false assumptions.

What is our iniquity? Really? Okay. What is the sin that we've committed against Yahweh our God? Then you shall say to them, because your fathers have forsaken me, declares Yahweh. They've gone after other gods, have served and worshiped them, have forsaken me and have not kept my law.

Because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. Now, there's kind of the big core problem, all right? We live in a day where it is absolutely crazy talk for somebody to talk in terms of God has said, I can't do that.

So I am going to not allow myself that evil, especially when it comes to any kind of thing related to sex. So I've made this clear before and now I have to kind of make sure people understand this. I know Nadia Bowles Weber, we've talked.

In the first book that she wrote, she wrote an entire chapter about our friendship, if you can really call it that, and how we met in our first conversation and other things. Nadia Bowles Weber, her most recent book, she talks about sexual things.

And in this book, which is partly autobiographical, she confesses that she committed adultery on her husband with an old boyfriend of hers, and she says it was good for her soul. She says it was like exfoliation, removing the dead skin cells from your body.

And she's since left her husband, okay? Is she still a practicing priestess in the ELCA? Yes, it's unbelievable, all right? And she, in her most recent book, was commenting on Saint Augustine's work, The City of God.

If you haven't read that book, it's really a nice read because Augustine has been safely tucked away in his grave for more than a millennia and is untouched by today's weird SJW way of thinking, the weird woke liberal cult that's happening right now.

And in there, in his book, he talks about the struggles that he had and the way he thought before he was a Christian. He didn't forbid himself really anything, and he even fathered a child out of wedlock.

And he notes then, as part of his book, The City of God and also his confessions, he notes then the struggles he went through as a Christian because those same sinful appetites were present in him after his conversion to Christianity and how he had to put to death what was sinful in him and to not allow himself to eat according to the desires of his sinful appetites.

And Nadia Bowles Weber, in her book, she describes Augustine's discussion regarding those things and particularly him not allowing himself to continue to engage in illicit sex. She basically describes it as he laid a turd and then the earth encased it in gold as if something's wrong with his way of thinking.

And I want you to note this. Her most recent book is a New York Times bestseller, and she didn't pay a company for that to happen, unlike the megachurch pastors. The world we live in right now follows their stubborn, evil hearts, and they refuse to listen to God, and it's worse than that.

They're starting to censor and push back on those who are speaking the truth. And, well, didn't we catechize our kids on the Disney movies which all basically said to follow your heart as if your heart is the decider of what's good and what's evil?

Yesterday, on my social media, I posted a link to an article in the UK. There were trans rights activists protesting a feminist group getting together in the United Kingdom. And the lead photograph on the article had this woman holding up a sign saying that some women have penises.

And so, as part of my post, I said zero women have penises. And I have had people challenge this. Okay, now I'm not a biologist. And the world we live in, if you self-identify as a woman and you were born biologically male, you are a woman.

Okay? Biology apparently has nothing to do with gender. Who knew? Yeah, no, the inconsistency is radical. But here's the thing, we're dealing with a cult. That's what we're dealing with. This is a cult that has a cult.

It has established the human will, the human heart as supreme. And anybody who says no, humanity and opinions or beliefs or feelings do not determine what truth is, we are now considered to be the heretics.

We're the ones considered to be dangerous. We're the ones who need to be silenced. And so, you'll note that this is nothing new. There's nothing new under the sun. Jeremiah is experiencing the same thing we're experiencing.

This is a microcosm of the bigger global problem that we have in front of us. So, every one of you follows his stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore, I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

And then you get this. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when it shall no longer be said, as Yahweh lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as Yahweh lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of the countries where he had driven them.

So, you'll note in the midst of this really, really hard, in-your-face, unrelenting judgment of God, out of nowhere comes a gospel bit. Where is this coming from, right? And so, you'll note that God anticipates, what?

That people are reading this. He anticipates that somebody will read Jeremiah's prophecy and off in Babylon, off in the Susa, or the land of the Medes and the Persians, off in captivity, they would read these words that they would repent, cry out to God for mercy, and receive from God full pardon and restoration.

I would note, this is a good place to kind of plug this in. Jeremiah read, not Jeremiah, Daniel read Jeremiah. Daniel read it, and he believed it. So, you'll note, here we've got these gospel promises of restoration, but the missing part is reading and believing.

And so, let me throw a little Daniel into the mix here. Daniel chapter nine, hang on a second here, duplicate. Daniel nine. Daniel writes, in the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent, a Mede who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.

In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that according to the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah, the prophet must pass before the end of desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.

All right, so think of it this way. The Bible's a complete book now. It's been finished for almost two millennia. In the time of Daniel, who was writing this, he was writing a biblical book. The most newly completed biblical books were Jeremiah and Lamentations.

And Daniel is reading them as the word of God. He's recognizing that Jeremiah legitimately heard God's voice and that his prophecies were true, unlike the false prophets of Jeremiah's day. And he, reading this, perceived the promise of God that they would be restored after 70 years.

So then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleased for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. So you'll note that in response to what he heard, his response was a little personal lent, a time of prayer, fasting, ashes.

And here we have this amazing prayer from Daniel. I prayed to Yahweh my God, and I made confession, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.

We have sinned, we've done wrong, we've acted wickedly, we've rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and your rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all of Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you.

To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, our princes, our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord, our God, belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, our God, by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets.

All Israel has transgressed your law, turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. The curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us. He even recognizes what's going on in Deuteronomy 18, and that God's actions are him following through with the very curses he promised if they did not obey, because we have sinned against him.

He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole of heaven, there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.

As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of Yahweh, our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore, Yahweh has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us.

For Yahweh, our God, is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord, our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

Wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill. Because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us.

Now, therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy and for your own sake, O Lord. Make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations in the city that is called by your name.

For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.

Let me be blunt. To avert the judgment of God that's coming on the earth, this is what's needed. I fear nothing like this is coming. So here's then, that's kind of the in-between. You'll note, God is assuming you're reading this text and here you have this abrupt change in tone from judgment to, but I will restore you, I will have mercy on you.

And you have to ask, what brings on such an abruptness? The understanding that the reader has read this and like Daniel, has considered their own sin, considered the sin of their people, cried out to God, confessing and pleading to God to have mercy.

Does God turn away anybody who prays like that? No, not a single person. So therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when it shall no longer be said, as Yahweh lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as Yahweh lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country, out of the countries where he had driven them, for I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

Proleptic Prophecy and the Future Restoration of Israel

Now here's where we have to note that there's a thing that happens in scripture. And that is that, this is a feature of prophecy that is very interesting. And the feature is that these prophecies oftentimes have kind of like dual fulfillments.

There's an immediate fulfillment and then there's a long range fulfillment. And so, let me see if I can do it this way. All right, yeah, this is not a bad way to do this. All right, so this is a photograph I took in Ireland.

And so, a landscape photo here. So we got this nice little dock here in the front of it. It was a gloomy day, but it rains in Ireland. I don't know if you guys know that. And so I put a neutral density filter on my camera so that I can run the camera at a long, long exposure.

Stopped it way down in order to keep any amount of light from coming in. And this was probably a 60 second exposure. And it softened everything up. But here's the idea, is that we know that in landscape photos, we see this also in paintings that are landscape, that what ends up happening is that you usually have a foreground element and you have a background element.

This is a great example of a foreground element and a background element. And so in the same picture, you have something that's kind of immediate and something that's kind of far off. Prophecy works in a similar way.

Several prophecies in particular, we call them proleptic prophecies, where there's an immediate fulfillment in the foreground of the prophecy, but there's a long range fulfillment that still awaits its conclusion.

All right? And in this particular portion of Jeremiah, these prophecies, you'll note, they almost have a double entendre meaning to them. Listen again. Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when it shall no longer be said as Yahweh lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as Yahweh lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country, which is where Babylon is, and out of all the countries where he had driven them.

For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. Now, have the people of Israel been brought out of captivity in Babylon? Yeah. Okay, read Ezra and Nehemiah. That's how you pronounce Nehemiah, by the way.

It's Nehemiah. So, but have all the people where God has driven them, have they been brought back? No. So you're gonna note here, there's a little embedded in that little language is an eschatological promise.

And we have been driven into the nations, and I remind you that this theme exists in the New Testament, specifically in the opening portion of 1 Peter, where Peter writes to Christians, to the elect exiles of the dispersion.

The what? That's us. Y 'all are elect exiles of the dispersion. And here's the fun thing about looking at Zoom right now. Some of you are part of the dispersion. You're in South Carolina. Some of you are in Germany.

Some of you are near Baston. Yeah, others of you are in New Mexico, right? And so, and when we do our Aletheia services, we have people who join us from South Africa. We have people join us from Sweden, from the Netherlands, from the United Kingdom, different portions of the United Kingdom, from Ireland, New Zealand.

And so, when you think about it, this theme here, it's really comforting because there's something in here. When you learn to read some of these prophecies in this way, you can see that, ah, there was an immediate fulfillment that has something to do with the people of Israel.

They did come back after 70 years. But wait a second, we're still waiting for Yahweh to call everybody back. Hint, hint. New Jerusalem, right? New heavens, new earth, okay? Those of us who have been driven into North Dakota and Minnesota, God really is angry at us.

I ain't telling you. Okay, we are freezing our keisters off here, man. May God have mercy and may he give us sunshine and puka shells and stuff like that and the ability to surf again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm hoping for global warming, please God.

I don't care if the global south burns up as long as the north warms up. But the thing is, is we have been dispersed here and then you'll note that in the pictures of the New Jerusalem, you have the nation streaming into Jerusalem.

Those who are, so we are the elect exiles. We've been dispersed into the nations where God has driven us and, and he's calling us all back. It's a beautiful picture. So when you kind of see the eschatological themes and you see a prophecy like that, you sit there and go, you know, it seems like there's a little more to that than meets the eye.

Exactly. So those proleptic prophecies where part of it's been fulfilled, the foreground's been fulfilled, but we can see the background hasn't, we refer to them as proleptic prophecies with remainder.

You guys remember when you had to do long form division when you were in fourth grade? Okay, I've been trying to block that out. I tried to delete the fourth grade in order to make room on my brain for other parts, but it wouldn't go away.

But you guys remember when like, you know, how many times does four go into 13? Okay, all right. Yeah, so you end up with a remainder after that. That's kind of the idea. So a proleptic prophecy with remainder means that there's a portion that still is to be fulfilled in the future.

And Jesus's, all of that discourse, there's proleptic bits in it. So that I think is just fantastic. So Yahweh says, as Yahweh lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country, out of all the countries where he had driven them, for I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

And you'll note, we're all grafted into Israel. So behold, I'm sending for many fishers, declares Yahweh. They shall catch them. Afterward, I will send for many hunters. They shall hunt them. So now we go back to the God's judgment themes.

And they shall hunt them from every mountain, every hill, out of the clefts of the rocks, for my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. But first, I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols.

You'll note that God just isn't, he doesn't play well with other deities. He doesn't seem all that interested in getting along with them. And he refuses to get the coexist bumper sticker put on his VW Bug.

So yeah, you'll note that. So he refers to the images as, how did he put it again? They polluted the land with the carcasses. So he just considers idols to be dead carcasses of their detestable idols.

They have filled my inheritance with their abominations. Which kind of leads to another thing. I should show you this because I'm actually working on fighting for the faith segment regarding this one.

Hang on a second here. So on my social media, let's see here. Waiting for that to come up. I posted a tweet from, let's see here. Where is she? There you go, Jory Micah. Okay, so Jory Micah claims she's a Christian theologian.

No, she has an MA in Christian Doctrine and History. Yeah, but she's no biologist, okay? But listen to what she writes. I believe very much in one higher power. I grew up calling him Jesus, but maybe you grew up calling them, her, he, someone else.

There's a term for this. It's called blasphemy. Okay, that right there is what we call blasphemy. Yeah, I like the palm, hand palm Jesus. That's appropriate. All right, you'll know that's idolatry. That's a breaking of the first commandment.

That's just a flat out breaking of the first commandment. Does God, the one true God, accept worship of a different deity as proxy worship of him? No, not at all. But our world hears something like what Jory Micah said as oh, look at how loving, how kind, how progressive, how generous her theology is, right?

And all-inclusive, that's right, right? And then there's that Pastor Rose, bro. What a close-minded, bigoted, hateful, gunky, poopy head, right, right? He's a poo-poo head. Anyway, so the question that, don't name this Sunday school bat.

Yeah. I'm gonna have a five, part of 14. Thank the Lord, okay. Anyway. Consistency helps. Yeah, consistency helps. But the point is this. Is Jory Micah truly loving? No. No. Is this real kindness on her part to be so generous that all deities, regardless of which one, whether you worship a deity who is a male, who is a female, who goes by the name Jesus, who biologically we can't tell you exactly what he is because we're not biologists.

Or maybe you worship a multitude of deities. You're a polytheist. Or maybe you really particularly favor Shiva over Vishnu. It's all the same in her way of thinking. Is that true? No. And you'll note, God here is judging Judah for the exact same theology that Jory Micah, a Christian theologian, holds to and promotes.

I always like to point out that when God was hanging out with Dagon, God didn't play nice with Dagon. It's a great story. We'll do a little excursus here because I can. All right, hang on a second here.

I'm gonna, huh? What did she say? No, no. Oh, okay, Dagon. It's in the book of 1 Samuel. Hang on a second here. No, 1 Samuel 5, here it is. Okay, this is so fun. All right, 1 Samuel chapter five. 1 Samuel chapter five.

So in the early portion of 1 Samuel, because of the evil and wickedness of Hophni and Phinehas who were working at the tabernacle and their father Eli refusing to actually reign them in because their egregious sin, like today's megachurch pastors, they were sleeping with the volunteers at the tabernacle.

Have you watched the Hillsong thing yet? Holy smokes, that's terrible. Anyway, so God ended up basically causing Israel to lose a fight against the Philistines and the Philistines ended up capturing the Ark of the Covenant.

And what happens next is quite fascinating. So when the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon.

Now, if you don't know who Dagon is, just think of the little mermaid, King Triton, you know, half man, half fish, merman kind of God. Yeah, so that's the image of Dagon, half fish, half man. And so there's the Ark of the Covenant next to Dagon.

Is Yahweh gonna coexist with Dagon? Is he gonna be polite in Dagon's own house? Okay, no, this story is a scream. So when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of Yahweh.

So while no one was looking, Yahweh went, dink, just knocked him down on his face. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of Yahweh and the head of Dagon and both of his hands were lying cut off on the threshold.

Only the trunk of Dagon was left. They had to call him Stumpy. So God is not playing kind here. And this is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashdod to this day.

So they turned this into some kind of a religious, you know, superstition, you know, step on a back, break Dagon's, step on a crack, break Dagon's back. You know, weird, something like that, right? The very next thing that happens is actually hilarious.

And I have to show it to you in the King James because the King James actually gets at the difficulty of translating this particular Hebrew word. But so the hand of Yahweh was heavy against the people of Ashdod and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors.

Now, Ophel here, let me show you this in the King James and you'll kind of get the idea here. So King James, where's my King James? All right, there we go and I need to make that readable. Hang on a second here.

All right, so, do, do, do, do, all right. Hand of Lord, destroy the smoke. All right. Did I pass it? Hang on. First Samuel chapter five verse six. Yeah, hang on. Verse six. But when the hand of Lord was heavy upon Ashdod, he destroyed them and smoked them, there it is.

Emeralds, early, ancient, this is an English form of the word hemorrhoids. Okay. Legitimately, one of the potential ways of understanding this text is that not only did God cause Dagon to be stumpy, that wherever the ark went while it was among the Philistines that people broke out with tumors that may have made it hard to sit down.

You know, mandatory standing in the presence of God. So, just crazy stuff. Anyway, I throw that out there because there legitimately is debate as to how to understand the word tumors, but that's in the spectrum of potential.

Yeah, so you're not wrong. You're not completely wrong if you say that God struck them with hemorrhoids. Yeah, so all that being said, you're gonna note that God seems to hold that first commandment quite seriously, and you'll note that God, like the Babylon Bee, engages in satire.

Uses irony and humor for the purpose of shaming people who are believing things that are ridiculous. How stupid is it that you are worshiping a statue that somebody created, and that when your deity is in the presence of the actual real God, the real God shows who he really is, and you still are so far gone that you don't recognize, you know, we need to repent.

You know, what we're worshiping isn't true. So we continue then. All right, so you've filled the inheritance, my inheritance, with abominations, talking about the idols. Oh, Yahweh, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble.

To you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say, our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. There's a lot of that going around right now.

Stuff is for free. By the way, I need to remind you that it was Abraham Lincoln that warned us not to believe everything that we read on the internet.

So, you know, yeah, all right.

It must be true. So therefore, behold, I will make them know this, make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is Yahweh. Now, that's where we're gonna, I'm gonna pause there for a second, and let me check questions, because I think that this would be a good place to throw them in at this break.

Okay. Naya says, the Portuguese Roman Catholic translation uses hemorrhoids as well. That is in the realm of possibility for Ophel. So, all right, let's see here. Let me roll back up. Oh, wow. All right, let's see here.