WWUTT 2505 Q&A The Promised Land Show, Assurance for Struggling Christians, Allie Beth Stuckey Addresses Men

Is the new Promise Land series on YouTube biblical? What are some good Bible passages to help encourage doubting believers? And was Allie Beth Stuckey right to lecture men about porn? The answers to these questions when we Understand the Text.

This is When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary on the Word of God, that we may grow together in Christ, longing for the day of His return. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

1 John and the Friday Q&A

I want to start with 1 John 3 today.

Okay.

Because I read this in church on Sunday. I quoted quite a few verses from 1 John. And we're going to use 1 John to respond to one of our questions today.

Oh, awesome.

So I'm starting with 1 John 3, verses 1 through 3. See what kind of love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.

This is the Friday edition of When We Understand the Text, when we take questions from the listeners. And you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com, or the voicemail is wwutt .com, and click on that voicemail tab.

And then record a voicemail from either your phone or your computer. Keep in mind, you've only got 90 seconds, a minute and a half.

Yeah, about that.

Because I've got a voicemail today that gets cut off right at the very end.

Oh, no.

Because it's only a minute and a half. I don't know if I can subscribe to something and lengthen that out. If I can figure that out, then I'll go ahead and do it.

That'd be awesome.

But here we go. This is our first question, and it comes from Ed.

Okay.

It's going to get trimmed at the very end, but here we go. Hey, Pastor Gabe. My name is Ed Ellis, and I'm calling from North Carolina. I sent an email a few years ago and asked about MacArthur's view on lordship salvation, and you spent most of that podcast discussing that biblical doctrine, which I really appreciated.

By the way, I got to go with a friend of mine to that Truth Matters conference at the Ark Encounter a few years ago. And on that last day, we discovered that J-Mac was staying at our hotel. He was having breakfast with his wife Patricia when we spoke to him, but he got up and engaged in conversation with us as if we were old friends of his.

That's the second time I got to meet him, and he's one of the most kind, gentle people I've ever met. Well, Gabe, your podcast is such a blessing to me because you have such an eye for biblical discernment on so many issues.

The one that has helped me the most, though, is your thorough treatment of the Chosen series. I've also been able to pass along your teaching to others, so I'm grateful for your ministry. My question to you is concerning this new comedy series on YouTube called The Promised Land.

While I think this whole show is utter blasphemy on an even greater level than The Chosen, I was shocked to hear that the World and Everything in It podcast, which you know is an otherwise very helpful Christian news podcast, actually gave it a good review.

They said that the humor in the show—. And there's where it gets cut off.

Oh, man.

I was on pins and needles there, Ed. I wanted to hear what you had to say about that. I do like The World and Everything in It. This is the news program that's put out by World Magazine.

Oh, okay, yeah.

And so I appreciate that we've got a Christian news outlet out there because one of the biggest conservative ones is The Daily Wire. Morning Wire is what they call their news program.

Okay.

And I've listened to a few episodes because I like Megan Basham, and she'll have segments.

On there.

So it's usually when she posts something on X, hey, we talked about this today on The Morning Wire, then I'll catch the episode that she's in. Because her husband, Brian Basham, works for World Magazine.

Right.

And he does—it's not The World and Everything in It, but it's their YouTube equivalent of.

That, basically.

So anyway, I don't catch the program that much because I think for most of my news, I'm still listening to Al Mohler on The Briefing.

Fair.

But it's still good. I still have recommended it to people. But yeah, as you said, they gave it a good review. They gave a good review to The Promised Land series that's on YouTube. If you're not familiar with this, so The Promised Land—.

Not at all.

The Promised Land is a comedy series.

Okay, I got that.

It is an office-style mockumentary.

Okay.

Of the characters from Exodus journeying to the Promised Land. So do you know what I mean by office-style? I don't know what else you would call this genre.

But like—.

The office?

Yeah, the TV show The Office.

Okay.

So you're following all of these—.

People around.

Exactly, right. All these characters and the drama that's unfolding—well, drama, it's a comedy, but—.

Right.

Everything that's unfolding in The Office through those characters.

Right.

And you'll have the breakaway segments where they're being interviewed by the documentarians.

Right.

Which, you know, even end up being characters in the show at some point. These filmmakers are there. The characters are aware they're being filmed.

Right.

And so The Promised Land series is filmed that same way.

Oh, interesting.

So you'll have the various adventures that the characters are going through. And then there's cutaway scenes where Moses is being interviewed or Aaron is being interviewed.

Okay.

Now, I'm curious, Ed, and maybe you can follow this up and you can tell me what you were thinking about. You consider the series even more blasphemous than The Chosen. I don't know that I share that review, but I would be curious to know what you're seeing that makes you feel that way.

One of the things that I would say is a great drawback to the show is that they're just trying to be funny. It's a comedy.

Right.

Whereas, you know, the tone of everything coming out of Egypt and going into The Promised Land and wandering in the desert was anything but funny.

Right.

So it's really bizarre.

Yeah.

To have the tone that you have in Exodus and they're trying to make it funny. It's weird.

Yeah.

And especially when right now in our Sunday school series at church, we're going through Exodus.

Right.

A year ago was when the pilot episode of The Promised Land came out. I want to say it was in the summer. Last year was when it came out. And then that was it. And then I didn't hear anything about it for a while.

And I got this voicemail from Ed. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember that. I only watched the one episode. It was the pilot. And I don't even remember if I finished it. I was really I did not find it interesting at all.

I heard about it through word of mouth. And when I started watching, I was like, I'm not even finding this funny.

Yeah.

So they're making comedy out of Exodus. But I'm not humored.

Yeah.

So I was just I think I watched. I probably watched most of it. I don't again, I don't even remember if I got all the way to the end. But once I got this voicemail from Ed, then I pulled the series back up to say, I wonder if there were more episodes.

Well, they finished the first season. So there's eight episodes.

Okay.

But the second episode didn't drop until just like a month or two ago.

Oh, wow.

So it was like a year from the pilot episode.

Goodness.

Until they came out with the second episode. So I went ahead and watched the second episode. You can tell that there is a difference in their filming location. And so I kind of researched this to find out like, why did it look different in the pilot episode than it looks now?

Sure.

In the pilot episode, they filmed it in New Mexico.

Okay.

In the second through eighth episode, I'm guessing all the way to the eighth episode, they filmed in Utah.

Oh.

So the color of the rocks is different. The landscape's different.

That is way different.

I did notice that when I picked that up, even though I can't remember much from the pilot, I guess.

Something stuck with you.

Right.

The landscape is what stuck out in my mind. They make the character of Joshua into an idiot.

I do. Oh, okay.

So I do remember the end of the first episode. So I did watch all the way through the first episode, because they did that at the end of the first episode. Joshua kind of shows up and he wants to be buddies with Moses.

And he said that your father Jethro said, I need to be your right-hand guy or something like that. And they just make him a total dork.

Okay.

So Joshua, who ends up being this incredible military leader.

Yeah.

Leading Israel into the promised land to take over Jericho and everything.

Right.

Yeah.

They just make him an idiot.

Wow.

So like the comic side relief to Moses.

Okay.

Who's not even all that serious a character either.

Person to pick.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It's very weird. And there's some. Who is the main guy in the office that Steve Carell played? Michael something.

Michael Scott.

Michael Scott. So you know how he was.

I was blinking.

He was kind of.

I don't know what.

He was just weird. He was a weird character. You'll see those clips on YouTube.

Awkward.

Very awkward.

Very awkward.

They'll be the Michael Scott isms.

Okay.

You can tell that they're trying to do that in the promised land.

Okay.

It just doesn't land. I really don't think the humor lands. And they're trying to do that with every character almost. So it's like every character they're trying to.

Have one personality.

No, it's not one personality. They do have different personalities, but it's like they're all trying to land these Michael Scott isms.

Oh.

To say these funny, awkward, weird lines. You know, to give you an idea, one of the Michael Scott lines is like, I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.

Right.

Remember that?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, I mean, no, I don't remember that, but that sounds like something.

That's just one of the right.

It's one of the ones I see quoted in memes.

Yeah.

So I remember that one.

Yeah.

So they try to give lines like that almost to every care. We're going to land a Michael Scott line with one of these characters and they're just trying too hard. And to me, when I'm watching and I'm going, I know what you're trying to do and it's not landing on top of the fact that it's making humor out of what's a very, very serious setting in a serious situation.

Yeah.

So at the end of the second episode, now this is where I probably understand where Ed is coming from about the whole series being blasphemous. At the end of the second episode, it's strange how you've been going through half an hour of comedy bits and suddenly God descends on the mountain where they're at Mount Sinai.

And they've had this segment where Joshua's guarding the mountain and nobody can go touch.

It.

And Moses even tells Joshua, if anybody touches it, you got to stone him to death or kill him with a sword. And this is played up for laughs.

Oh.

Yeah.

But in Exodus, it's not Joshua that kills whoever comes and touches the mountain. It's God who touches the mountain. Or yeah, anybody touches the mountain that is holy because God is there.

Right.

Will die.

Right.

So again, they're kind of like playing this off as humor.

No, that's serious.

This is a consecration. This is holy ground. You can't go on it.

Right.

But then at the end of the episode, God descends on the mountain. And suddenly the tone is very, very serious. And it's just a weird tone shift where suddenly the smoke is there. There's kind of fire in the smoke.

And they take the statement in Exodus 19 about the sound of trumpet blast seriously.

Literally.

Because when God speaks to Moses, it's just a loud trumpet blast. That's all it is. And it kind of what I thought of what I thought of when I was watching that was. This is the God version of the teachers in Charlie Brown.

Ah, yeah.

Like how all the all the teachers are, you know, and they'll use a horn sound for the way the teachers speak with the students.

Right.

This is now God talking to Moses. And it's just loud blasting of his trumpets. And then Moses will repeat. What was that, Lord? And I know it's. As I'm watching this, I'm going, this is terrible. This is a horrible representation of this.

And the whole purpose of the show is to be funny. So you're taking serious things that would even result in people's deaths.

Right.

To demonstrate the holiness of God and how fallible and sinful and wicked people are.

Right.

And you're taking that situation and you're trying to make it funny.

I was going to say the whole point of Exodus was that they're being punished.

Well, well, wandering in the wilderness, they're not to that part yet. So this is still on the way to the promised land.

Oh, OK.

But yeah, I mean, you're on to something where eventually they're going to get to a point where they're complaining against God.

Yeah.

And God's going to punish them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

Right.

So what's the viewer going to think of that if you get to that part of the story? Isn't it going to be like God's trying to be all serious and these people are just trying to have a good time? You know what I mean?

Now it's good.

God's just messing with them.

Or something.

Yeah.

It's going to look like God's just being overbearing on this. People are, you know, they're trying to make the make the best of a tough situation. And here comes God killing people.

Right.

It's just so vastly different from what the Exodus story actually is that I can't watch it with any level of like suspending belief. Even I can't even suspend my own belief to watch this and give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt.

It's made by the assistant director of The Chosen. So if that gives you any idea.

Oh, it's clear.

Even the dialogue when I first started watching it, that was the vibe I was getting. I was like, okay, well, you guys are trying to be The Chosen meets The Office.

Yeah.

And then I learned that the director was the first assistant director to Dallas Jenkins and The Chosen. I was like, okay, well, that makes a whole lot of sense.

That explains a lot.

Right.

Anyway, so I've been through two and a half episodes now. And frankly, I don't know that I'm going to keep going. But Ed, if you would share with me again, and you got 90 seconds to do it.

There you go. You can just continue on where you left off.

And yeah, I mean, one of the things so as we're going through Exodus as a Sunday school class, one of the things that I said in the very introduction to our study was that the main character in this story, if you know, pardon the crudeness of those terms, because it doesn't even really do it justice.

But the main character in Exodus is God.

Right.

It's not Moses.

Right.

And it's not Pharaoh.

Right.

And it's not the children of Israel.

Although that's what we tell to the children all the time.

Yeah, that's right.

Right.

Telling them about God.

I mean, it's kind of like we depict Exodus as a Western.

Yeah.

And yes, Pharaoh's the bad guy wearing the black hat.

Right.

And Moses is the good guy. The sheriff comes riding into town.

Right.

To say, let my people go. And the Israelites are all like victims in the midst of all of this. Somebody come and save us. And Moses is our savior.

They're helpless.

Exactly.

And even the Ten Commandments and Prince of Egypt are played that way.

Yes, very much.

Where Moses is the savior that comes in. And God is a background character.

Right.

And he's not even like the main voice in the book of Exodus. According to all of these portrayals that you'll see, even including the promised land. But God is the narrator of this story in Exodus. He's the one who's telling it.

He's the one who's showing himself. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.

Yeah.

And he has compassion on Israel. He's going to pour out his judgment on Egypt. And you see, as you go through Exodus, that Israel was not worthy of the compassion and the mercy of God.

Right.

And he gave it to them anyway, because God is faithful to the promise that he gave to Abraham to his descendants to give them this land. Moses doesn't even do great.

No.

In the story. There is no one in Exodus who is good, but God.

Right.

He is the one who is righteous. He is holy. He is above all. That's what you're supposed to get out of Exodus. But, yeah, they're playing up the promised land for last.

I mean, I understand they're just doing it for entertainment. They're not like a Bible study.

Well, that is.

That is all it is.

However, it's difficult for a person to look at it. And not, oh, I didn't know that. You know, oh, that'd be really cool if that was the part of the story or whatever. And it's just, it's too, I don't know, it just blurs the lines sometimes when you're watching something that's close to the Bible, but it's not the Bible.

Right.

And I don't know.

It's not even close.

Well, no, I mean, it uses the storyline, you know.

Right.

Well, it's using the characters.

It's using the characters. It's using the storyline. You know where that story comes from. So that's what I mean by close.

Yeah, something familiar.

Right.

But I don't know, like our brains just mush everything together if you're not careful. And if you don't keep your heart and your eyes and your mind and everything in the word.

Well, humor anyway, a good comedy is always self-deprecating.

True.

So if you have a hero that's always above everybody else in a comedy show, it's not funny.

True.

But if there's tragedy that's happening to that person and they think more highly of themselves than they really should, and then they're humbled somewhere in the show, you know, that's where it'll get funny to us.

And we'll be humorous. Like there is a humorous line in Exodus. We can laugh about it now, although at the time it probably was not very funny. But it's where Aaron tells the people to take off all their gold.

Oh, yes.

Makes them a golden calf.

Right.

And when he's explaining it to Moses, he goes, I just put in this gold and out came this.

Calf.

Right.

Like, I mean, we can read that now and go, oh, come on, Aaron.

Right.

You moron.

Right.

And that'll be funny.

Like, do you really believe that?

Or even Adam and Eve hiding from God.

Yes.

Where are you? Um, I heard you coming and I hid. OK, well, you don't answer.

Right.

You goofball.

Yes.

So there's things like that that can be funny because we're laughing at how absurd people are, but at the same time recognizing.

Right.

We would do the same thing. If we were put in the situation, we would do that as well. But that's just that's just they. If they were trying to do that with the promised land, they just don't do it well.

And it's the same sort of criticism I had with The Chosen.

Yeah.

You have a good idea on your hands. You just don't execute it well. It's just not good. And I know that I'm saying this when it's the most successful crowdfunded show that's ever been in the history of television.

Right.

So it's like, hey, what am I? What good is my criticism?

Right.

I just don't think it's good television. And I think Christians are largely easily entertained. This comes from if Christians loved their Bibles as much as they loved being entertained that they wouldn't be so easily snookered by this stuff.

But the moment something comes across our our viewing options that is Christian, we just love it.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah.

There's just so few and far between that it's something that we gravitate towards. Oh, here's something clean and wholesome and holy to watch. And it's not the case.

Anyway, so there's my... We could go this whole episode talking about it.

We totally could.

I even had a couple of clips that I was going to play of the show, but I'm going to pass.

No, that's okay. I think you gave it enough.

All right. Let's go to this next question. This is from James asking about encouragement for believers who are doubting. Hey, Pastor Dave, this is James. I had a question about encouraging doubting believers.

How would you go about doing that when you know that the person loves God, that they desire to know him more, but they feel like they're not growing to see others around them in leaps and bounds, and they're just discouraged by their own walk?

How would you go about helping them? Thank you. So how do you encourage a believer who is a Christian, but is just doubting and is struggling with growing in their walk?

Yeah.

So here's the number one place that I tell a Christian to go to when they're struggling with something like this. You go read 1 John. So 1 John is written to believers. John addressing little children, calls them children.

Children, I have written these things to you because. You'll see that come up multiple times in 1 John. So some of these verses will be of great encouragement. Let me give you five. So these are five verses from 1 John, and you see the assurance that he is attempting to give to the Christians to whom he is writing.

And it doesn't matter whether they're solid Christians or they're kind of struggling with assurance of their salvation. This is good and healthy reminders for any believer.

Right.

1 John 2 .3, by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. So as Ed had asked a moment ago, he said that he had written into the program a year ago and had asked about lordship salvation.

So lordship salvation is the name of the doctrine that's been given to a teaching that John MacArthur gave in his book, The Gospel According to Jesus, which MacArthur wrote to confront the idea of easy believism.

What do you mean by that?

Okay, so.

Like easy believism?

Yeah.

So easy believism is basically that you can just give mental assent to the gospel. And then that's enough. So if you, I believe Jesus is God. I believe he died on the cross for my sins.

You declare it, but that's it.

Right, yeah. But your life does not demonstrate or show or exhibit in any way.

Right.

A change has happened in you by the Holy Spirit that has been given to you because you believe in Jesus Christ.

Okay.

You're just giving lip service to it. You know, it's like Jesus saying, they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Right.

Or James and James 2 saying that faith without works is a dead faith. Now you say you have faith.