Participants: David Asscherick, James Rafferty, Jeffrey Rosario, Ty Gibson
Series Code: TT
Program Code: TT000035A
|
00:00 [Music]
00:10 [Music] 00:22 going. 00:24 Everybody ready, quiet on set and start your move and action. 00:30 >>TY: This particular question that we're gonna raise right now 00:35 for our conversation is one that comes up for me in just about 00:39 every Q&A session, no matter where I go in the world, if you 00:44 open it up for people and say, hey, if you had any difficult 00:49 question that you would like to put forth regarding the bible, 00:52 what would it be and everybody asked the question, why is there 00:57 so much killing in the Old Testament? 00:59 There are variations of this question, some people just say, 01:02 why is the God of the Old Testament so brutal? 01:05 Some people say, it sure seems like there's a big difference 01:07 between the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. 01:10 What's going on here? 01:11 The Old Testament looks crazy, it looks insane, it looks like 01:15 there's everything from genocide to polygamy, slavery, and it 01:20 looks like God is condoning all of that. 01:22 It looks like God is right in the middle of all that and 01:24 actually commanding some of these horrible things. 01:28 >>JEFFREY: And Jesus is kind of caressing a lamb. 01:30 >>TY: Meek and mild, he's caressing a little lamb, that's 01:32 right, he's meek and mild. 01:33 >>JAMES: Some people would say, is Jesus the God of the Old 01:35 Testament? 01:36 >>TY: Yeah, that terminology is used, isn't it? 01:38 The God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament. 01:41 So, it's a serious problem and I believe that there are a lot of 01:45 people who just hold the bible and Christianity and God at 01:50 arm's length and just say, no, I can't go there, that is just too 01:55 crazy, what's going on in the Old Testament. 01:59 So, we need to begin, I think, by just confessing that it is a 02:06 serious question, it's a serious problem. 02:09 We need to feel the weight of it, as we said about some of the 02:12 questions yesterday, it's a weighty question, and we don't 02:15 have, I think as we've explored the subject individually and 02:19 together, at times, we don't have neat packaged little 02:24 answers, little sound bites, a sentence or two that would 02:27 resolve all the mystery and have everybody feel okay about what's 02:32 going on. 02:33 Jeffrey, what were you saying one time when we were talking 02:36 about it that we ought to feel, we ought to feel something about 02:39 what's going on in these stories. 02:41 >>JEFFREY: Yeah, it's a messy thing. 02:42 God is dealing with fallen structures, fallen social 02:48 structures, and I don't think it's genuine or honest to think 02:53 that just because we're believers, we could read some of 02:56 the really tough passages in the Old Testament and just be 02:58 totally fine with it, unmoved, unaffected. 03:01 I think we're supposed to, yeah, untroubled, I think we're 03:05 supposed to feel, like you said, feel the force of what we're 03:09 reading. 03:10 Look, to be honest, everything's in the Old Testament, and I'm 03:13 just like, ugh, that's a hard one for me to swallow. 03:17 Like, what, I don't understand what's going on. 03:19 And I think that's okay. 03:22 >>DAVID: It is okay and for every person that Ty described 03:25 that said, you know, that is noncommittal about scripture, 03:29 that's noncommittal about Jesus, about Christianity, that's 03:32 holding these things at arm's length, for every one of those 03:35 people, there's at least one who loves Jesus, who loves 03:38 scripture, who loves his word, who is also troubled by these 03:41 things in the Old Testament. 03:44 Exactly, it's almost like that relative that, you know, you 03:47 just like, yeah, you know he's related to you but you don't 03:49 always invite him over. 03:50 You know he's there, but he's not like the top of the list 03:53 when it comes time to, you know, when you're sitting down, 03:55 saying, hm, what am I gonna preach a series on this, you 03:57 know, you get an invitation to a conference or a church or 04:00 whatever, what am I gonna, I think I'm gonna preach on 04:03 genocide in the Old Testament. 04:05 I think. 04:06 >>TY: You just don't do it, it doesn't occur to you. 04:06 >>DAVID: That's my point. 04:08 You're just, you're like, whoa, and honestly, how many sermons 04:10 do you hear on that? 04:12 >>TY: It's so difficult that I think most theologians and 04:16 preachers just avoid it. 04:18 >>JEFFREY: And that's a complaint from the unbelieving 04:20 community, isn't it, that we pick and choose. 04:22 >>DAVID: Yeah, you're being disingenuous with your own text. 04:24 >>JEFFREY: Yeah, we love to pick and choose the pretty text, the 04:27 nice text, the morally elevating text, but we just skip around 04:32 and avoid and skirt some of the more difficult passages. 04:36 >>DAVID: And a word about, Ty, and I so appreciate you saying 04:39 this, and I think we need to be saying things like this more in 04:42 the Christian faith, that not every difficult question has a 04:45 nice, neat, you know, square edged platitudinous answer and 04:49 you just put that block right here and this block fits 04:52 seamlessly right here, not just with regards to this issue, we 04:57 spent a couple episodes ago wrestling through, if God is so 05:00 forgiving, then why did Jesus have to die? 05:03 And I felt like we had great clarity there, I loved that 05:04 conversation. 05:05 I went home rejoicing about that conversation, but when it was 05:09 done, it's not as though we had solved the mystery of the nature 05:13 of God and solved the mystery of the nature of the cross. 05:17 It was helpful, super helpful, it was beautiful, it was 05:20 awesome, it was edifying, it was all of those things, but this 05:23 isn't the only mystery. 05:24 There's lots of mysteries in scripture, but this is a mystery 05:28 that seems, in some significant degree, no, it doesn't seem, it 05:32 is, in some significant degree, out of character with the God 05:36 that we've been talking about through 8 episodes. 05:39 >>JEFFREY: Can I just, I wanted to reemphasize, as well, on that 05:42 point, is that, it's not merely that it's okay for us to 05:46 struggle through these, through this difficult terrain, but even 05:51 in scripture itself, the prophets, we said this in an 05:55 earlier conversation, King David in the Psalms, he's just like, 06:00 God, you know, what's going on? 06:02 Why, why? 06:04 Are you deaf, are you blind? 06:06 This is the kind of language that the prophets themselves 06:10 used. 06:11 And I think that's a powerful thing, and that shows to affirm 06:13 that it's okay to struggle, it's okay to wrestle, because if the 06:18 prophets themselves struggled and wrestled, what would we 06:22 expect from those of us who are readers who are encountering the 06:26 words of the prophets. 06:27 You would assume that we also would walk away, many times, 06:31 with that dilemma, that tension, that's the word for me, there's 06:36 a tension there that, I think it's, it has to be there. 06:40 >>TY: You literally have the prophets filing complaints with 06:45 God, crying out, how long are you going to let this go on? 06:50 And the prophets are so bold at times as to say, God, why not 06:54 this, this, or this? 06:56 Making suggestions to the monarch of the universe. 06:59 I think you should just, you know, cut to the chase and deal 07:02 with it? 07:03 David, at one point, Lord, why don't you just lay waste to the 07:07 wicked and stop all the evil stuff going on in the world? 07:09 Why do you let it go on? 07:10 That's David's, I think God can handle that. 07:13 I think God wants us to genuinely feel the gravity of 07:18 how horrible the sin problem is. 07:22 The problem is, is that we oftentimes not reading the story 07:28 as the story unfolds, we think that God is the one who's the 07:33 perpetrator of the evil in the storyline, rather than the one 07:38 who is in solidarity with us, suffering through the evil. 07:44 Do you see what I'm saying? 07:46 We don't see God, we don't see God as with us in the messy pain 07:51 of earth's history and navigating the problem, we see 07:55 God just pouncing and pouncing and pouncing, sitting up in 07:58 heaven with his finger poised over the zap button, so to 08:02 speak, and just sitting there waiting for somebody to do 08:05 something he doesn't like and arbitrarily saying, zap to you 08:08 and zap to you and boom, bam, take that. 08:11 That picture of God is not the one that emerges when you take 08:17 in the storyline of scripture. 08:20 >>JEFFREY: That's a great point, James, if you need to jump in 08:23 there, I think we should lay that foundation very clearly, 08:26 you just said, the storyline. 08:28 It seems to me that the difficult terrain of the Old 08:31 Testament is even more difficult when you just isolate a passage 08:36 or a text from the Old Testament, I mean, let's be 08:39 honest, normally, when this is presented as a difficulty, it's 08:43 normally just lifted from the page and analyzed in isolation 08:49 as if it existed in a vacuum, and I think what will come out 08:53 of this conversation is, when you view scripture as a 08:57 narrative, as a story, as a plot, there's main characters 09:00 and there's an underlying tension, controversy, to the 09:04 whole narrative. 09:05 Then, those specific passages, I'm not saying we arrive at a 09:10 squeaky clean answer, but I think... 09:12 >>TY: They begin to make what we could call narrative sense. 09:18 They don't make sense in isolation, but they make sense 09:21 within the narrative that is unfolding, right? 09:25 >>JAMES: I really like what you were saying, Ty, about David, 09:28 you know, the bible says David was a man after God's own heart, 09:31 which, to me, speaks volumes about the kind of God we serve. 09:36 And when you connect how David struggled with the evil in this 09:41 world, what was going on in this world, I think what David is 09:44 doing is he is giving us a picture of the heart of God. 09:46 You see the same thing in Job. 09:50 Job is God's man. 09:52 He's a perfect man, why? 09:53 Because he's longing for his children, he's sacrificing on 09:57 behalf of his children every day and Satan hates that picture of 10:00 God, who doesn't sleep, who gives the greatest sacrifice 10:04 ever on behalf of us and as Job goes through this trial, God 10:09 doesn't, Job asks God the same tough questions that David asks 10:13 God. 10:14 God doesn't get on Job's case, per se, God even says in the 10:17 end, Job is my man because Job feels about sin the same way I 10:22 feel about sin. 10:23 David feels about all of this evil the same way I feel. 10:27 That man is a man after my own heart. 10:30 And so, God not only allows but inspires David with this 10:34 revelation that gives us a picture of the heart of God, and 10:37 to me, in the end, that's the only answer that satisfies is, 10:41 in the midst of all of this evil, how does God feel about 10:44 this? 10:45 >>TY: We might even imagine that as the prophets cry out, God, 10:48 how long is this evil gonna go on? 10:50 We might even imagine God resonating with that and saying, 10:53 yeah, how long? 10:56 >>JAMES: They're his representatives. 10:57 >>DAVID: Couple things that I wanted to add to that, the first 11:01 is that this whole conversation that we're having, to me, one of 11:05 the takeaways, it's a bit of a tangential takeaway, but it's a 11:07 takeaway nonetheless, is that this speaks about the 11:09 authenticity of scripture to me, scripture doesn't come off as 11:14 this, you know, squeaky clean, spotless, legendary, 11:18 embellished, everybody comes off looking great, the heroes are 11:21 awesome, they don't make mistakes, they ride in on the 11:24 white horse, they do everything right, they ride out of town and 11:26 all is well. 11:27 No, we see many of the chief characters of scripture 11:32 presented in a less than flattering light. 11:34 And many of the chief instances that the great stories in 11:38 scripture where people are sometimes painted in a less than 11:41 flattering light. 11:43 There are some exceptions, it's very difficult to find anything 11:44 that Daniel did that was amiss, but you look at the life of 11:48 David, and I say all the time, what would we do without David 11:52 in the Old Testament and Peter in the New Testament? 11:54 I think we would, I would be tempted to despair. 11:57 Because I'm just like, man, I look at Peter and I think, oh, 12:00 I'm so glad this guy's in the New Testament, I need a guy like 12:02 that. 12:03 A loud mouth who gets the wrong answer quite a little bit, who's 12:05 overconfident. 12:06 I need that guy there. 12:07 And when I go to the Old Testament and I see David, I'm 12:10 like, man, what is he doing? 12:13 You know, about half of the time. 12:15 And even Moses, you know, his story starts off and he's just 12:18 totally out of sync with God's plan, he's murdering an 12:20 Egyptian, he's gonna do it in his own strength, Adam, I mean, 12:23 this, the list goes on and on, Abraham, thank you, and what I 12:28 love about this is it just bespeaks of, when I read 12:30 scripture, I think, that sounds real. 12:32 The human, there's an authenticity there, there's the 12:35 ring of scripture. 12:38 That's the first thing I wanted to say, the second thing I 12:39 wanted to say is, about the isolated incidences. 12:43 If you followed, you know, me around with one of these GoPros, 12:46 if you took a GoPro like this and you followed me around for 12:50 my whole life and you had an incident of David's whole life, 12:54 like in the same way that we have a narrative of scripture 12:56 here. 12:57 If you had a narrative of David, you could pick out instances in 13:01 the life of David, even since conversion, you could pick out 13:06 instances in my life and they would be radically out of 13:11 harmony with the overall trajectory and direction of my 13:15 life. 13:16 You say, hey, what's he doing, why are he and his wife here 13:18 arguing, what's that about? 13:19 And here, he's spanking his child here? 13:22 And you know, why is he committing this sin? 13:25 You see what I'm saying? 13:26 You know, you'd be like, what, I thought this guy was a 13:28 Christian, but when you take those, when you take those 13:32 incidences that could be lifted from the overall story, out of 13:36 the narrative arc, well, now we got a problem. 13:38 But you put them in the narrative arc, does that excuse 13:41 me becoming impatient with my wife? 13:43 Does it excuse me being impatient with my children or 13:44 doing something that I know I shouldn't, no, it doesn't excuse 13:48 it, but it gives it a context. 13:50 >>TY: This is a super, super important point. 13:53 Jeffrey has brought this to our attention. 13:56 I mentioned the narrative sense that it makes, now you're 14:01 emphasizing this. 14:02 I think that we need to bring to our attention the fact that over 14:08 and over again, there is misunderstanding of the God of 14:12 the Old Testament and the God of scripture as a whole, because as 14:17 Jeffrey said, stories are being looked at in isolation from the 14:21 narrative. 14:22 For example, we have, case in point, with Dr. Richard Dawkins, 14:26 very famous atheist, he's a biologist and he rants against 14:32 the God of the Old Testament, the God of scripture, and when 14:37 he's doing so, if you read, for example, the God Delusion, his 14:41 book, yeah, New York Times best seller, when you read that book, 14:44 you're not reading the writings so much of a scientist. 14:49 He's not making so many scientific statements. 14:52 He's ranting, he's upset at the God of the Old Testament, and as 14:59 he's doing this, you read the examples he gives. 15:04 And for example, he sees, and we'll get to this later, I 15:07 think, we're gonna discuss this in detail, but he looks at the 15:11 biblical story of the flood and all he sees is what in the 15:16 world, this God just drowns the whole world? 15:18 And the picture he gives is God just grabbing people by the neck 15:21 and sticking their head underwater, you know? 15:22 It's an isolated picture. 15:25 >>DAVID: It's not even an accurate picture. 15:26 >>TY: It's not even an accurate picture because, you think, he 15:28 didn't read the story and he didn't take in the whole terrain 15:33 of the subject matter. 15:34 For my own personal amusement, David, perhaps, read this 15:41 quotation from Richard Dawkins from The God Delusion. 15:44 Read this quotation. 15:45 >>DAVID: Yeah, I was just gonna, this is the one I was even 15:46 thinking of. 15:47 >>TY: Were you really? 15:48 >>DAVID: Yeah, I was gonna reference that classic, you 15:51 know, atheistic description. 15:54 >>TY: This is the problem. 15:55 >>DAVID: So, Dawkins, in his book, The God Delusion, writes, 15:57 the God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant 16:01 character in all fiction. 16:03 Jealous and proud of it. 16:04 A petty, unjust, unforgiving, control freak, a vindictive, 16:08 blood thirsty, ethnic cleanser. 16:10 A misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, 16:14 phileocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, 16:17 caprisiestly malevolent bully. 16:20 >>TY: Good job. 16:22 >>DAVID: That is a mouthful. 16:23 >>TY: That is a mouthful, but here's the thing. 16:25 This guy sees God in, arguably, the darkest life that you could 16:32 possible imagine. 16:34 >>DAVID: That is satanic. 16:35 But that's a great description of Satan. 16:37 >>TY: That's a description, hey, hey, that's the point. 16:41 This is a description of Satan that's being transposed over 16:44 God. 16:45 >>DAVID: That reminds me of the great statement, the great 16:47 controversy is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the 16:51 character of God, and he's obviously done a marvelous, a 16:54 fantastic job. 16:57 >>TY: So, here, you have an example of a man, Dr. Richard 17:03 Dawkins, we're not picking on him, he's, this is what he's 17:06 written, a man who gives, obviously, a very intelligent, 17:09 he's an intelligent guy, he's been voted the most intelligent 17:12 person on the planet or one of the top 3 most intelligent 17:15 people on the planet in polls that have been taken at times, 17:18 so he's not lacking IQ, he's not lacking in IQ, but what is he 17:25 lacking in? 17:26 He's lacking in perspective. 17:28 >>JEFFREY: Context. 17:29 >>TY: Context. 17:30 >>DAVID: Even faith. 17:31 >>TY: Even faith. 17:33 And he sees something going on in the Old Testament narrative 17:37 that we don't see going on there. 17:40 We read the same text and we see an entirely different picture of 17:47 God. 17:48 And so, how do we unpack that? 17:51 What is the picture of God that we see taking place in the Old 17:57 Testament scriptures and in scripture as a whole? 17:59 That's where we need to go. 18:01 >>JAMES: I think it's really important to add to that that we 18:03 don't see that because we were necessarily brought up in a 18:05 Christian environment where we were protected from and 18:08 insulated from all of these wild ideas about God. 18:12 We have the same issues with God, the same struggles with 18:15 God, the same questions about the Old Testament that have come 18:19 to a different conclusion here and we looked at that with the 18:22 same desire to find an answer. 18:27 >>DAVID: I think that's a great point and we, we don't wanna 18:30 create a situation where we fob all of this off on the Dawkins's 18:36 of the world, as we said, and we need to do that, we need to say, 18:39 hey, look, these are actual questions. 18:40 But for every Richard Dawkins, again, that's holding at arm's 18:43 length, or even at, you know, a football field's length is this 18:45 God of scripture, there is somebody, there's at least 4 at 18:49 this table, and probably a whole lot outside of it that are 18:53 saying, okay, I do have faith, I do trust Jesus, I do believe in 18:56 the narrative scope and all of that, all the lines, but still, 19:00 okay, so why is that story in the Old Testament? 19:04 And I think when we come back after the break, we're gonna 19:06 have to take a look at that and say, okay, let's get into some 19:10 of these texts and let's see how does it fit into the narrative? 19:13 It's not always nice and neat like we could wish it would be, 19:16 as we mentioned, but we have been able to cling to our 19:19 confidence and our hope in the God of scripture, not because of 19:23 these stories, but in spite of them. 19:25 They're there, and yet, we think that they can be, while maybe 19:29 not harmonized, they can be understood. 19:31 >>TY: Okay, let's dive into the difficult stuff after the break. 19:35 [Music] 19:42 >>This is the story of Niyima, who took a bus to the doctor and 19:47 found a piece of paper with words of hope about Jesus, which 19:52 was left by a church member who unpacked a box that came from a 19:56 truck which drove in from Durban where a ship was docked that 20:01 sailed from Seattle, loaded with containers stacked high with 20:06 millions of tracts, trucked in from the Light Bearers 20:09 Publishing House, where more than 600 million pieces of 20:13 gospel literature have been printed in 42 languages. 20:17 Here's the amazing thing, Light Bearers distributes this 20:21 literature free of charge all over the world, and each piece 20:27 costs only 5 pennies to print, transport, and deliver. 20:33 Every day, millions of people buy a $5 cup of coffee, $5 a 20:38 cup, 5 days a week. 20:40 It adds up fast. 20:42 But at just 5 cents a piece, that same $25 can also ship 500 20:48 pieces of literature and give hope to people like Niyima, who 20:55 shared that paper with a classmate, who gave it to her 20:58 cousin, who shared it with his boss, who passed it to her 21:02 grandmother, who left it on another bus, where it will be 21:07 found by someone else. 21:09 And the story continues. 21:13 Five cents doesn't buy a lot these days, but in other parts 21:16 of the world, your nickel could change someone's life. 21:20 Your gift of $25 a month sends out 6,000 pieces of gospel 21:26 literature each year. 21:28 Fifty dollars sends out 12,000, and $100 a month sends out 21:33 24,000 messages of hope every year, all over the world. 21:39 Empower Light Bearers to continue the story. 21:43 Send your gift through lightbearers.org, or by calling 21:46 877-585-1111. 21:51 Who knew 5 little pennies could do so much? 21:54 [Music] 21:55 [Music] 21:56 the answer to the problem 22:00 that we've posed that at least, for me, has been helpful, and I 22:04 just wanna throw it on the table and see if you guys, just see if 22:08 you think this helps. 22:09 We're about to deal with the messy, difficult parts of a 22:14 narrative, of a story. 22:15 Things that we're not comfortable with, and things 22:17 that we've suggested that God isn't even comfortable with, 22:20 okay? 22:20 So, that's the body of the story. 22:22 But if you look at the biblical narrative and you go back to the 22:26 very beginning of the story, alright, Genesis 1 and 2, what 22:30 we call pre-fall. 22:32 You have a picture, you have a picture of God, how he thinks, 22:37 how he feels, his aspirations, his desires, the kind of person 22:41 God is and you go to the end of the story, the last two chapters 22:45 of the bible, in Revelation 21 and 22, and you have a picture 22:50 of God. 22:52 Now, watch where this goes. 22:53 These are like two bookends. 22:54 In the beginning of the story, you have a God who creates a 22:57 world in which he looks at what he's made and he says, it's 23:01 good, good, good, good, good, good, very good. 23:05 It's very good. 23:07 God has created a situation in which there is no pain, there is 23:11 no suffering, there is no relational discord, there's just 23:14 love, love, love, and more love, there's giving, giving, giving, 23:17 and more giving. 23:19 There's freedom, freedom, freedom, and more freedom. 23:20 >>DAVID: And pleasure, we've talked about that. 23:21 >>TY: Pleasure, and all that's going on in those first 2 23:23 chapters, okay? 23:24 Then, the story unfolds, the messy part of the story. 23:28 In chapter 3, the fall occurs in Genesis, and the word curse is 23:32 introduced. 23:34 Alright now, watch this, then all this horror unfolds down 23:38 through history in this story, high points and low points and 23:41 successes and failures and people who are achieving great 23:45 things by faith and God is giving the nod and yes, and 23:51 then, there are things where it descends into horror and 23:54 ugliness and the story's unfolding, unfolding, unfolding, 23:56 you come to Revelation 21 and 22 and now, you have a situation 24:03 where God is described as wiping all tears from eyes, and he 24:09 says, no more pain, no more suffering, no more death, no 24:13 more, no more, no more of all this stuff in the body of the 24:16 story, we're going back. 24:18 And then, this, in chapter 22 and there was no more curse. 24:25 What has happened, verse 3 of chapter 22? 24:28 Okay, so you have, in Genesis, you have the introduction of the 24:32 word curse, not curse in the pagan sense of abra cadabra, 24:37 curse. 24:39 Curse in the sense of suffering and horror and ugliness and 24:43 terrible things. 24:44 All that starts to unfold. 24:45 >>JEFFREY: As a result of. 24:46 >>TY: Yeah, and you get to the end of the story and now, no 24:49 more curse. 24:51 So, what this says to me is that whatever's going on in the body 24:56 of the story, all the horrible things that we're about to look 24:59 at and unpack, okay, all the horrible stuff, none of it is 25:05 reflective of God's character, will, or aspirations, his 25:11 original plan. 25:12 And none of it is reflective of what God finally leads us to as 25:18 a restoration. 25:19 You see how that works? 25:21 I gotta add a scripture to this, gotta add a scripture. 25:24 This is in Isaiah chapter 11, verse 9. 25:28 And it's just phenomenal, it says, this is God describing 25:33 reality and our world as our world is in its final 25:38 configuration when everything is the way that God wants it to be. 25:42 And they shall not hurt nor destroy in all of my holy 25:48 mountain, says the Lord, for the earth shall be filled with the 25:51 knowledge of the Lord. 25:53 What? 25:54 This is telling us that, at a very bare minimum, that all the 25:59 horror and ugliness that we see taking place and unfolding in 26:02 human history is not reflective of what's going on in the heart 26:06 of this sensitive God who loves and is good. 26:12 What we see is two bookends and then God navigating the evil in 26:17 between and returning us. 26:19 Do you like that as a general way of looking at that? 26:22 >>JEFFREY: You know, I was going to say that everything in 26:27 Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22 is reflective of God's 26:32 ideal. 26:33 Your point exactly, everything we read in between is, falls 26:41 short of God's ideal. 26:43 I wanna introduce now as this thing that we all know as the 26:45 accommodation principle, right? 26:47 What we read about in between those two bookends is God 26:53 meeting humanity where it is, right? 26:58 In order to deal with the brokenness and the fallenness of 27:04 the human race, but in order to meet humanity where humanity is, 27:08 God has to operate and relate to humanity in ways that are less 27:12 than his ideal. 27:13 So, there's an issue that, whenever we read things in 27:16 scripture in the Old Testament, we cannot jump to the conclusion 27:20 that that's what God wanted, that's reflective of God's 27:23 ideal. 27:24 We always have to read it against the backdrop of Genesis 27:26 1 and 2. 27:27 For example, we'll read passages in the Old Testament where women 27:31 are related in a certain way, or related to in a certain way. 27:35 But we always have to 27:36 -- >>TY: In a bad way. 27:37 >>JEFFREY: Yeah, and we have to read that always against the 27:38 backdrop of Genesis 1 and 2, where none of that existed, 27:42 inequality didn't exist, like you were saying, pain, 27:44 suffering, and so forth, didn't exist. 27:46 I wanna share a passage that I think is super, super powerful 27:51 on this very point, and it's Matthew chapter 19, and I'm 27:56 beginning in verse 3 and I'm hoping I have the right verses 28:00 here. 28:01 But Matthew 19 and verse 3, this is where Jesus is being 28:05 confronted in regard to marriage and divorce, okay, so I think 28:09 this is a great point where you have things in the bible that 28:12 are written, but that are not reflective of God's ideal. 28:15 Matthew 19 and verse 3, the Pharisees came to Jesus, testing 28:18 him, and they said to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his 28:22 wife for just any reason? 28:25 And verse 4, Jesus says to him, haven't you read that he who 28:30 made them at the beginning made them male and female, and that's 28:35 in quotation marks, he's quoting from Genesis, pre-fall, right? 28:40 And verse 5, and said, for this reason, a man shall leave his 28:44 father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall 28:46 become one flesh, again, quoting pre-fall. 28:48 Verse 6, so then, they are no longer two, but one flesh, 28:52 therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. 28:56 They said to him, then why did Moses command to give a 29:01 certificate of divorce to put her away? 29:04 >>TY: Break that down, by the way. 29:06 >>JEFFREY: Jesus, you're telling us that it was never God's 29:10 intention for divorce to be a thing? 29:13 If what you're saying is true, then why is it that when we 29:17 crack open, more like the scrolls. 29:20 >>TY: We unroll. 29:22 >>JEFFREY: When we unroll the scrolls of the Old Testament 29:25 scriptures, why is it that you told Moses to tell us-- 29:30 >>DAVID: Divorce should be conducted like this. 29:32 >>JEFFREY: That there's provision for divorce? 29:36 If you're not into divorce, then why did you communicate through 29:40 the Old Testament scriptures that, here are parameters for 29:43 divorce. 29:44 I think this is brilliant. 29:45 And Jesus' answer is just like, it's money, verse 8, he said to 29:50 them, Moses, because, Moses, comma, because of the hardness 29:58 of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives and then, but 30:03 from the beginning, this was never supposed to be the case. 30:07 So, to me, again, this doesn't allow me to walk away with 30:11 squeaky clean answers, but I'll tell you what it does do, it 30:14 gives me something to work with. 30:15 I read stuff in the Old Testament that, frankly, freaks 30:18 me out. 30:20 But, I have to read that against the backdrop of Genesis 1 and 2, 30:24 and this principle, although only speaking in regard to 30:27 marriage/divorce, applies to, and I'll just put all the dirty 30:32 laundry on the table, slavery, women's rights, polygamy, and 30:38 all the rest of it, right? 30:39 Everything, genocide, killing, war, in the Old Testament. 30:43 That principle, it's a key that unlocks and helps us grapple 30:48 with all the other difficulties in the Old Testament and that 30:51 key is, namely, this is not God's ideal, God's ideal is 30:56 Genesis 1 and 2, equality, liberty, mercy, justice, so 31:01 forth and so forth. 31:02 But, because of the hardness and the fallenness of the social 31:07 structures and of the human race and of the people, God has had 31:13 to work with the mess that the curse has brought on and because 31:19 of that working, he has to work with what he's got, although, 31:25 it's less than his ideal. 31:26 So, I think that's super important to unravel that. 31:29 >>TY: A very high level of clarity. 31:32 That was extremely helpful in outlining the essence of what 31:38 we're referring to as the accommodation principle. 31:42 I'd like to give now, and see if this fits or not, just cross 31:45 examine this, you guys, an Old Testament example that will 31:50 serve as a lens through which we can see this accommodation 31:53 principle in action, okay? 31:54 We have this guy that we've referred to as David, alright. 32:00 David is a man who becomes a king in Israel basically because 32:07 the people have demanded a king, alright. 32:10 First there's Saul, but then there's David. 32:12 God, in the story, doesn't want Israel to have a king at all. 32:16 He wants to govern his people through prophets, through 32:18 information, through wisdom. 32:20 He wants to educate his people to live in such a way through 32:24 information that they'll be self-governing. 32:26 Yeah, they're self-governing, they're a kingdom of priests. 32:29 That's how God wants to govern his people, with wisdom. 32:31 No, we want a king, we want someone over us to, like the 32:35 other nations. 32:36 God says, no, you're not gonna have a king. 32:39 They insist, and so, what does God do in this story? 32:42 He accommodates. 32:43 He says, okay, you insist upon having a king, you're gonna have 32:47 a king and it's gonna get, I'm just gonna tell you, it's gonna 32:49 be bad, he's gonna take your women as concubines, he's gonna 32:52 tax your lands, he's gonna take your sons off to war. 32:55 Just so you know, that's what it's gonna look like to have a 32:58 king. 32:59 You put a human being in power and power corrupts. 33:01 >>JEFFREY: For our viewers, you're referring to 1 Samuel 33:04 chapter 8, keep going. 33:05 >>TY: So, then they get Saul, alright, then the second king 33:10 after Saul, cutting to the chase here, is David. 33:12 Now, this is astounding to me. 33:14 David is a man after God's own heart. 33:17 David is chosen by God to be the king of Israel. 33:21 David is under the blessing of God. 33:23 David turns to God for guidance and strength in conducting war 33:29 with the nations around, right? 33:31 And David is a man of war. 33:34 David goes through his entire military career as a king, 33:37 alright? 33:38 He comes to the end of his career, he's getting old, and he 33:43 says, God, here's how I wanna go out, here's how I wanna end my 33:46 life. 33:47 I want to build for you, God, a temple. 33:50 For the worship of God. 33:54 And then God says something astounding. 33:57 >>DAVID: I know, this is astonishing. 33:57 >>TY: Yeah, God says, David, no. 34:01 You can't build a temple for the worship of me, God, because 34:07 you're a man of war and there's blood on your hands. 34:11 The temple has to be built by a man of peace. 34:14 Which, in the story, that will be Solomon, who was not a man of 34:17 war, but a man of wisdom, a man who had his ups and downs, of 34:22 course, we won't go into that, but here's the thing, here's the 34:24 thing. 34:25 Do you see what's happening here? 34:26 God is essentially, God is essentially blessing David, he's 34:31 going along with David and he's, he's guiding David, he's 34:36 blessing David, David's my man, but then when it comes to 34:39 worshipping God, or building a temple to worship God, God 34:43 disassociates himself from the very wars that he blessed David 34:50 to win, and that tells us that God's ultimate will is not war. 34:55 In fact, when we come to the minor prophets, there's a 34:59 passage, and maybe you guys know where it is, I don't know where 35:01 it is, where God is expressing what his ultimate will is and he 35:05 said, they shall teach war no more. 35:08 No more war. 35:09 >>DAVID: Like that old, that great spiritual, gonna study war 35:13 no more. 35:14 >>TY: So, there's God accommodating his people in 35:19 their fallen, messy state, and then, disassociating himself 35:24 from war. 35:26 People say, well, why all this genocide in the Old Testament? 35:29 Why all these, the Israelites going in under God's command and 35:33 slaughtering other nations? 35:34 We'll get to that, but we can clearly see that whatever it is, 35:38 God ultimately is not a God of war. 35:41 >>DAVID: I love the way that we are inching toward the answer, 35:45 and frankly, it's the responsible thing to do. 35:46 There might be some listening in, maybe someone has shared, a 35:50 believer has shared this conversation with an agnostic or 35:53 an atheist or someone who's hostile and they're saying, 35:55 okay, get to the point, get to the point. 35:57 But the point is is that this is the point. 35:59 You can't just run headlong into these difficult passages any 36:03 more than you can run headlong into the narrative, the GoPro 36:06 narrative of David's life and say, why is he yelling at his 36:08 wife right here? 36:09 What's going on? 36:10 So, okay, wait a minute, what about this and this and this, 36:12 there's a context. 36:14 And what we've said here, this is not escapist, this is-- 36:19 >>TY: The actual story. 36:20 >>DAVID: Trying to wrestle through and understand, but what 36:23 I love about what we've done so far is we've shown God's ideal, 36:26 okay, we've done that. 36:27 We've started this way, this is I'm compartmentalizing. 36:29 Number one, we said this is difficult, these answers aren't 36:31 all nice, neat, and easy. 36:33 Number two, we've said, this is God's ideal, and we did the 36:35 Genesis 1 and 2 to Revelation 21 and 22, and then I love, there's 36:39 almost like that little buoy in the middle of Isaiah 11:19, you 36:43 know, this is what it's gonna be like, 11:9, thank you, on my 36:46 holy mountain, and then, now, we're saying, okay so, what's 36:49 the next step? 36:50 Well, it's accommodation. 36:51 Matthew, was it 19? 36:53 Accommodation where God's accommodating and then we just 36:55 had this accommodations principle. 36:57 I love that. 36:58 I just feel like it's important for us to say that we're inching 37:01 toward, and when we get there, it's not as though everything is 37:03 gonna line up and every i is gonna be done and every t will 37:05 be crossed and all will be well, but at least we'll have a 37:08 superstructure, a narrative from which to say, okay, I still 37:14 don't like that, but I see where it fits in the flow. 37:16 >>JAMES: Totally, I really like what you just said, David, 37:18 because that's what's missing. 37:19 Ty was talking, as he introduced this about this whole attack of 37:24 atheism against the bible and against the God of the Old 37:26 Testament specifically, and what is missing from all that is this 37:30 inching and inching and caking of the big picture, which I love 37:34 the way we did that, starting in Genesis and going to Revelation 37:37 and showing the bookends of the beginning and the end. 37:39 But also, a lot of these principles that Jesus talks 37:42 about in Matthew 19, as you said that remind us that God is 37:47 accommodating, accommodating, accommodating, but he has a will 37:49 and he wants that will to be done, and it reminds me of the 37:53 prayer of Christ in Matthew 6, among other places, where he 37:56 says, you need to pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in 37:59 heaven, which tells us it's not being done and tells us we gotta 38:03 be delivered from this evil. 38:04 >>JEFFREY: You know what, it just occurred to me that the 38:08 accommodation principle is not merely a thing within the canon 38:12 of scripture, it's not just a thing God did in the Old 38:15 Testament times, until we would come to our senses and he can 38:19 relate to us differently, it just occurred to me that this is 38:24 still the way he relates to humanity. 38:26 Think about your own journey. 38:29 When I first encountered the gospel and I had this radical 38:36 transformative experience in my life, God didn't relate to me or 38:40 expect from me or reveal to me the things that he revealed to 38:45 me 5, 6, 7 years later. 38:47 So, God gave me what I could handle at the time. 38:52 >>TY: And stayed in relationship with you. 38:54 >>JEFFREY: Yeah, God took into account the context, you were 38:57 saying, not the context, the trajectory of my journey and he 39:03 related to me accordingly. 39:04 So, I just think it's awesome that this principle, this 39:08 accommodation principle in scripture is still the way God 39:11 relates to humanity today. 39:13 And furthermore, if you just think of, I mean, we're a bunch 39:15 of evangelists at the table, but the expectations one would have 39:19 towards other Christians or newly. 39:22 >>TY: Or what about going to the mission field? 39:23 >>JEFFREY: Or to the mission field, you enter an entirely, 39:25 radically different culture who's being introduced to 39:29 this for the very first time. 39:30 It would be crazy to relate to that culture in a way where you 39:35 would expect them to totally alter and recalibrate everything 39:41 immediately. 39:42 >>TY: You would've ruined the relationship. 39:44 >>JEFFREY: Yeah, you would assume there's a gradual process 39:46 that would be needed, and that's exactly what we're saying is, in 39:49 the Old Testament, there's a process. 39:51 >>TY: So, you could say God, for example, God doesn't like 39:53 polygamy, right? 39:55 We know that. 39:56 We know that from Genesis 1 and 2, we know that from Jesus' 39:59 statement in Matthew 19. 40:01 God is not in favor of polygamy, but he's dealing with Abraham 40:05 because he's got this big plan that he's working out and to go 40:10 after that in that culture and that setting at that time with 40:15 that man, to go after that would circumvent the bigger objective 40:20 that God is trying to achieve. 40:22 >>JEFFREY: We were saying in a previous conversation that you 40:24 bring up Abraham, so Abraham is coming from an environment and 40:28 civilization, a culture where children are being sacrificed to 40:32 idols. 40:33 So, God has, he has to evaluate his approach, okay. 40:37 This is my man, this is my number one man, okay, I need him 40:41 to be on point. 40:43 He's coming from an environment where children are being 40:47 sacrificed and he's also into having 2 or 3 wives. 40:52 Okay, so... 40:56 See what I'm saying? 40:57 So, he has to deal with something, but he's not just 41:00 gonna lay it all on Abraham, so you see the polygamy thing 41:03 persist a little longer through the narrative, but the child 41:07 sacrificing, God is like, get up and pack your bags. 41:11 >>DAVID: At the most fundamental level, even apart from the 41:14 polygamy thing or the genocide thing, or the slavery thing, God 41:17 is accommodating every one of us at the level of language. 41:21 This is something that we need to understand. 41:24 >>JEFFREY: That's a good point. 41:25 The fact that the bible is even there. 41:27 >>DAVID: The fact that God has condescended to speak to beings 41:32 that are not like him, the chasm between created and creator is 41:37 an infinite chasm. 41:38 It's greater than the chasm between an amoeba and Gabriel 41:41 the angel. 41:42 That chasm is say, whatever, 100 miles. 41:45 Okay, well, then the chasm between the kind of being that 41:47 Gabriel is and God is is a billion miles. 41:50 So, the moment that God makes, that's a condescension, right? 41:55 It's an accommodation. 41:57 Then the moment he speaks, that's an accommodation. 42:00 So much so that when we're dealing with God even in our 42:03 prayers, there's this great text in Romans 8 that says that the 42:07 spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be 42:09 uttered, because God's like, I know what he thinks he's asking. 42:12 I know what he thinks he wants or what she thinks she wants, 42:16 but I'm going to hear the intent. 42:19 I will accommodate the fragility and the humanity of that prayer, 42:24 of that situation, of that. 42:26 So, this accommodation is not just in the big things. 42:29 In other words, it's not just like a nice little principle to 42:31 get these skeletons, you know, back in the closet where they 42:34 belong, no, God is accommodating us at every conceivable level. 42:38 The second thing that I wanted to say, and I love this, is, 42:41 great quotation from Norman Geisler, well known Christian 42:44 philosopher and apologist, and this has just stuck with me, I 42:48 read it, oh, probably 15 years ago, it's just stuck with me. 42:50 He said, apparently, God would rather wrestle with stubborn 42:55 human wills than reign supreme over rocks and trees. 43:00 >>TY: Oh, that's good. 43:01 >>DAVID: He said, when I read scripture, apparently, God would 43:06 rather wrestle with stubborn human wills than reign supreme 43:09 over the rocks and trees. 43:10 >>TY: We have to take a break because we have this whole 43:13 schedule thing going on, but we'll come right back and 43:16 continue with the discussion. 43:18 [Music] 43:23 Announcer: The Light Bearers Story is a short award-winning 43:26 video that gives an inside look at one of the boldest and most 43:30 effective missionary ventures of our time. 43:32 You will see how multiple millions of gospel publications 43:35 are flooding the nations free of charge by surprisingly simple 43:39 means. 43:40 For your free copy of the Light Bearers Story, call 43:43 877-585-1111, or write to Light Bearers, 37457 Jasper Lowell 43:51 Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 43:54 Once again, for your free copy of the Light Bearers Story, call 43:58 877-585-1111 or write to Light Bearers 37457 Jasper Lowell 44:06 Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 44:10 Simply ask for the Light Bearers Story. 44:14 [Music] 44:17 [Music] 44:25 now, we need to spend some time getting into some of the 44:28 difficult situations that we encounter in the Old Testament. 44:32 I'll begin with the flood, because that's an early story in 44:37 the big narrative that people really struggle with and as I 44:41 mentioned earlier, there are people who see it as just a 44:44 malicious act of drowning a bunch of people with no just 44:49 cause and in a way that is cruel and heartless. 44:53 But I want you to notice something in the story, in the 44:56 text of Genesis chapter 6 that is oftentimes overlooked. 44:59 First of all, as the story is told, it says in verse 3 that 45:05 the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever. 45:11 So, the first point is this, God is striving with man. 45:14 What's the context, striving what? 45:15 Striving to get human beings to stop hurting one another. 45:18 >>JEFFREY: He's working with them. 45:19 >>TY: To stop perpetrating injustice on one another. 45:21 He's working with them. 45:22 So, that first of all, tells us. 45:24 >>DAVID: Tells us a lot about how God deals with people. 45:26 >>TY: Yeah, how God deals with people. 45:27 Secondly, down in verse 5, it says that the Lord saw that the 45:31 wickedness of man was great in the earth. 45:33 So, this thing is going off the charts. 45:34 Wickedness is now exponential, it's gone viral, it's everywhere 45:40 and it's horrible and it says that every intent of the 45:44 thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 45:48 That's pretty strong language. 45:49 This is some bad stuff. 45:51 The world is in a bad place. 45:52 Verse 6 says that the Lord was sorry that he made man and that 45:57 it grieved his heart. 45:58 Here's a God who is looking on the way children are being 46:02 treated, the way women are being treated, the way men are 46:05 treating fellow men and he's grieved. 46:09 So, this isn't a barbaric God who just flies off the handle 46:14 one day, this is a God who's laboring, he's pleading, and 46:17 he's grieved. 46:18 But here's the part that I find very interesting. 46:20 As the story goes on, it says in verse 11 that the earth was 46:24 corrupt and filled with violence. 46:26 Filled with violence, you guys. 46:29 How much violence? 46:31 How bad was this wickedness? 46:32 Verse 13, and God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come up 46:39 before me. 46:41 The end of all flesh has come up before me, and then he says, I 46:44 will destroy the earth with the flood and start over with Noah. 46:47 That's the short version. 46:49 Do you see what's happening here? 46:50 The end of all flesh, that term, very few people take that into 46:55 account. 46:56 Essentially, what God is saying here is the human race is 46:59 teetering on the edge of extinction. 47:02 There's not gonna be anybody left. 47:04 So, God, I'm gonna take action. 47:06 I'm gonna intervene to save the human race by ending this evil 47:14 that is like a parasite that's just spreading, it's gone 47:17 pandemic. 47:18 Everybody's taken in. 47:20 We know how bad it was because how many people got on the ark? 47:22 Eight. 47:24 Okay, this thing had spread. 47:26 This was a virus that was infecting the whole world and 47:29 God says, I have no choice but to destroy in order to save. 47:34 To destroy in order, I have no choice. 47:37 What are my options? 47:38 What am I gonna do? 47:39 If I allow one more generation to go by, there's no Noah. 47:42 There's nobody, the human race is trashed. 47:45 The whole thing goes extinct. 47:46 What are we gonna do then? 47:47 So, God preserves the human race by preserving Noah and his 47:51 family. 47:51 And the larger story, why? 47:53 In order to enter into covenant with Noah so that Messiah can 47:57 come to reverse all of the effects of evil and eventually 48:00 save humanity. 48:02 >>JEFFREY: It's the whole surgeon thing. 48:03 Removing the tumor, removing a cancerous part of the body in 48:07 order to preserve the rest of it. 48:08 >>JAMES: You know, I really like that because in Luke chapter 48:11 5:30-32, Jesus describes himself as a physician, and it reminds 48:16 me of a story, I had 2 dogs, Jake and Willy, they were labs, 48:19 brothers for many years, and both of them died of cancer, it 48:24 was a little different with Jake than it was with Willy. 48:26 Willy was the first one to get cancer. 48:28 And he got it in his eye, and we didn't know what it was. 48:30 We just said, whoa, his eye looks kinda funny, it's kinda 48:32 changing in its appearance. 48:34 It's like he's going blind. 48:35 And we took him to the vet and they told us, he has cancer, 48:38 it's in his eye, if you remove the eye, there's a possibility 48:43 that the dog will survive. 48:45 And I think this is a beautiful picture of what we see in 48:48 Genesis. 48:49 God sees the cancer of sin permeating the entire body of 48:52 the human race and he puts the race down. 48:56 When we took Willy, I wasn't there, my wife took him in. 48:59 When we took Willy in to the vet, she broke down, she 49:03 couldn't handle it. 49:04 In fact, later, I'm just gonna cut this story short, but just 49:06 to make this one point, later, when Jake also got cancer, when 49:11 I had to put him down, I told my wife, I said, I'm here, I'll put 49:14 him down, don't worry, I know you couldn't handle this, I'm 49:16 the man, I'll take it, I got this. 49:18 Took him in to the vet, the vets say to me, hey, if you need to 49:21 leave, if this is too much, no, I'm good, I can handle this, 49:24 boom. 49:26 I go in there, they put the first shot in, I literally fell 49:30 apart. 49:31 I was weeping, I left there, I just couldn't even control 49:33 myself. 49:34 >>TY: And you're a fallen, dysfunctional human being, 49:36 what's the heart of God grieving? 49:38 >>JAMES: The heart of God is in, in Hosea, God gives his heart, 49:42 he talks about how, and the reason I think this is so 49:45 powerful is because it lines up with, and I'm just gonna say 49:48 this quickly, I'm not gonna take a lot of time with this, but it 49:51 lines up with another story in Sodom and Gomorrah. 49:53 A story where God comes down and sees the evil that is taking 49:57 place there. 49:58 The cries have come up and there's one verse here, in verse 50:00 20 of Genesis chapter 18, it says, the Lord said, because the 50:04 cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is 50:08 grievous. 50:10 We see grievous sin in the world today and we wanna do something 50:13 about it. 50:14 We wanna do something about the slave trade and the sex traffic 50:17 trade and pornography that affects children. 50:20 We wanna do something about that, don't we? 50:21 And this is what God sees in Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham 50:25 is pleading with God and God's like, yeah, if there's 50, if 50:28 there's 45, if there's' 40, if there's 30, if there's 10, I 50:33 will save that city. 50:34 He barely got one and the two daughters. 50:35 Barely and God is just, in Hosea, God is just saying how 50:39 can I give you up? 50:41 How can I let you go? 50:42 And I think about my dogs and I think about the fact they had 50:44 cancer and I didn't want them to die but I knew that it was 50:48 better for them, it was an act of mercy to put them down. 50:53 >>TY: James, I wanna emphasize that in Genesis 18, the Sodom 50:57 and Gomorrah story, you mentioned this really fast in 51:00 passing, but I think we need to really emphasize that it says 51:05 that the reason God intervened is because the cries of 51:11 sufferers were coming up before him. 51:13 There was an outcry against Sodom. 51:15 There were children who were being mistreated, there were 51:19 women being mistreated and God intervened to end suffering, not 51:24 to impose suffering. 51:28 >>JEFFREY: The passage is pretty rough, man, I mean, the passage 51:32 implies that it was customary in a society where if you're a 51:36 visitor and you're a man, you're strolling into town, that gang 51:41 rape of men, raping another man was customary. 51:45 >>JAMES: And the women were offered. 51:48 >>JEFFREY: Yeah, and women were treated... 51:49 >>JAMES: In the place of the men. 51:51 >>TY: This isn't women with their strollers on their way to 51:54 Target or Walmart, and God just flies off the handle. 51:57 This is a decadent culture. 51:59 >>DAVID: Ty mentioned earlier in the first segment of this 52:03 program that you just quickly ran by, power corrupts, and yet 52:06 the reality is that that's a statement from Lord Acton, and 52:10 the context of that statement's fascinating, no need to go into 52:12 it here, but when he said power tends to corrupt and absolute 52:15 power corrupts absolutely, God has given humanity a sphere in 52:18 which to operate. 52:19 So, the people of Sodom had, they had power over their city, 52:24 they had power over their lives, they had power over their 52:26 families, but when that power has been so employed, so 52:31 misemployed, so corrupted and perverted that it's beginning to 52:35 affect people outside of that, their sphere of influence, and 52:40 then, furthermore, add on top of that, those people, if they're 52:44 reproducing, so now, you have children born into environments 52:48 that are so corrupt. 52:51 I mean, we find instances in the Old Testament where people were 52:54 putting their children into the fire to a god named Molech. 52:59 And there's this great text in Jeremiah, where God says, this 53:01 never even came into my mind. 53:03 What are you doing? 53:06 So, the idea that God would come down and say, and he's uniquely 53:12 qualified to do so. 53:13 The vet was uniquely qualified to say, hey, look, this dog is 53:18 not gonna survive. 53:19 God is uniquely qualified to look at Sodom and say, there's 53:23 nothing redeemable in that culture. 53:25 Now, somebody says, well, why doesn't God come down and force 53:28 them to, but that's not the way that human beings work. 53:31 A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. 53:33 If God could force every human being to believe the ideal, to 53:37 accept the ideal, to be loving, kind, you know, just, merciful, 53:40 well, surely he would do it. 53:42 >>TY: Well, we do have the story of Nineveh and God didn't force 53:46 but they changed and he didn't destroy. 53:49 >>JAMES: Right, and that's God's purpose. 53:51 >>JEFFREY: Guys, can I put some other rough, rough stuff on the 53:56 table? 53:57 I just wanna read some of the, some really hard passages. 54:01 And I'm gonna read from Deuteronomy chapter 20, we're on 54:05 this very subject of the whole surgeon, cancer and so forth, 54:10 but this is usually what's alluded to when people bring up 54:13 difficulties in the Old Testament. 54:16 Deuteronomy chapter 20, I'm beginning in verse 16, the 54:19 cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as 54:24 an inheritance, you will let nothing that breathes remain 54:27 alive. 54:28 But you will utterly destroy them. 54:31 The Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the 54:36 Hivite, the Jebusite, different people groups, just as the Lord 54:41 your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according 54:45 to all their abominations. 54:46 >>DAVID: That's the point. 54:47 >>JEFFREY: Which they have done for their gods, and you sin 54:51 against the Lord your God. 54:52 So, I just wanna make a really quick jump from there and ask 54:56 the question, who are these people? 55:00 Who are these people? 55:03 What is God doing here? 55:05 What is he reacting to? 55:06 And there's a description of that, actually, if we go back to 55:10 Leviticus. 55:11 In Leviticus, we have a specific description that helps me 55:14 process. 55:16 In Leviticus 18, I may need to hurry here, clock is ticking, 55:18 but in Leviticus chapter 18, God explains what's going on here, 55:23 and I'm reading from verse, let's just start in verse 20. 55:27 Listen to the types of warnings that the community of Israel 55:30 were given. 55:31 Moreover you shall not lie, that is sleep with or engage in 55:36 sexual interaction, carnally with your neighbor's wife, to 55:40 defile yourself with her. 55:41 You will not let any of your descendants pass through the 55:45 fire to Molech, you were just alluding to sacrifices and child 55:49 sacrifices, nor shall you profane the name of the Lord 55:52 your God, I am the Lord. 55:54 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. 55:57 It is an abomination. 55:58 Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with 56:04 it. 56:05 Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. 56:08 It is perversion. 56:11 To me, you're looking at a society, at a culture, at a 56:16 people group where sacrificing children to fire was customary. 56:21 Where, and this is difficult to even process, bestiality, by 56:25 which we mean human beings engaging in sexual interaction 56:28 with animals. 56:29 So, you were saying that the issue there was, not only that 56:33 they had the power to do whatever they wanted to do 56:35 within their own society, but this was becoming a problem that 56:38 was spreading. 56:39 >>JAMES: Yeah, and verse 24 says, all the nations are 56:41 defiled. 56:42 >>JEFFREY: All the nations are defiled. 56:43 So, when we think of, hey look, there's no question, that 56:47 doesn't immediately say, oh, okay, no problem, I get why God 56:51 said, the Hittite, the Canaanite, and why he needed to 56:54 remove them from society. 56:56 It doesn't enable be to walk away squeaky clean, but it does 57:01 help me to understand, okay, how would I feel, how would we feel, 57:05 how would the modern unbeliever if we were aware that, in a 57:11 society near us, this was happening? 57:12 >>DAVID: I can answer that question. 57:14 We can answer that question with the United States Military 57:16 policy right now. 57:17 Now, it's not perfectly consistent and it's not in every 57:21 instance, but the US sees abuse taking place in this country or 57:24 whatever and often, whether it's legit or not, the point is that 57:28 we see ourselves in some significant sense because we 57:31 have the ability to stop oppression, injustice, 57:34 exploitation. 57:35 We feel a compulsion to do so. 57:37 I wanna just be clear, I'm not endorsing the way we do it, the 57:41 point is, if we say, if I see a 17 year old boy that I could 57:45 take, you know, that I could wrestle to the ground, trying to 57:47 rape an 11 year old girl, I'm gonna stop that. 57:49 I'm going to. 57:50 >>JAMES: Even if you couldn't take down the person that's 57:52 doing that, you're gonna intervene. 57:53 >>DAVID: Intervene, I'll do something. 57:55 >>TY: And if in the process, you had to stop the act by actually 58:00 injuring or ending the life of the person who's doing that, 58:04 society would not call you a murderer, but a hero. 58:08 God intervenes in similar situations in scripture and we 58:13 call him a monster. 58:14 Do you see that? 58:15 I mean, we're completely out of sync with reality. 58:18 The fact is that we don't see God in the biblical narrative 58:24 flying off the handle in a rage and being arbitrary in his 58:29 actions, we see God intervening in mercy, intervening in 58:34 justice. 58:35 Doing what is right and we see extraordinary patience over and 58:40 over and over again. 58:42 Why, you could ask the question, why is there so much killing in 58:45 the Old Testament? 58:46 You could also ask the question, why isn't there more? 58:48 Why didn't God intervene more than he did? 58:51 >>JAMES: Yeah, why is God allowing all of this? 58:52 >>TY: Why even now? 58:54 >>JAMES: He went to flood 120 years. 58:55 >>TY: Exactly. 58:56 So, I think we've given a good base for the answer. 58:59 There's still questions, but that's the note upon which we 59:02 have to close. 59:04 [Music] 59:14 [Music] |
Revised 2016-04-14