Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. It is April 3rd, it's a Thursday, and we're back with with more in the book of judges. But before we get there, pastor Rod, we're just kicking around a little bit. The this massive earthquake that took place. I. Yeah, it was a 7.7 earthquake. And as far as I know the death toll is in the thousand if not thousands. Yeah. I don't exactly know what the aftermath is yet. I don't know if we're gonna find that anytime soon, but burma, 7.7. I saw videos of some of the people on the ground. Yeah. There's the massive tower. I don't know what it's called. I just saw that it has a land bridge between these two towers and the land bridge broke, which reminds you never to use a land bridge 'cause you never know what there's gonna be an earthquake do. That's terrifying. It is horrible. Did you see some of that stuff? People, the pool with the waves? If you're in the pool? On that upper story, what do you do? You're going over, you just, I don't know, catch some, hold something, right? Dude, that was terrifying. So you saw water coming outta that building and people, again I've heard the death toll is in a thousand, if not thousands. That's a ter That's a terrible thing. Horrible. So explain then. I'm gonna pretend to be a critic here for a second, and I'm just gonna put on my atheist hat and say, if God were good, why would he allow things like this to happen? Doesn't God care about people? And it seems like if there is a God, he certainly isn't loving enough to protect the people of Myanmar, Burma. Why would he do these things if God is as good as you say he is? Yeah. And this goes back to our understanding of what took place at the fall. And so if we go back to Genesis, even there was a curse that took place not only on the people, but also on the creation. So creation itself, Paul says in Romans eight is groaning under the way to the curse. And so this is the judgment. This is part of the judgment of God against sin. And that means that the world that we live in is no longer the world that he originally created it to be and prepared it to be. With Adam and Eve living in the garden, there were no earthquakes. Prior to the fall, but when the fall took place, when sin took place, when mankind rebelled against God. And this gets into our understanding of our represented rep representation by Adam. That in that we all participated in the sense with Adam, he was our federal head, he was our representative. We sinned. In Adam, that's Paul's argument in Romans chapter five. And I know we don't like that, but if we don't like that, we also can't like the fact that we were represented by Christ on the cross. So it's a sword that cuts both ways. But this, we're watching some of the images, even as we record this tragic, this horrific event that takes place is a reminder that we rebelled against a good and holy God. And in doing that, we brought upon ourselves and upon this creation, the curse of sin, that this world is broken. And these things remind us of a future that is going to be unlike this, a future where there is no, no longer gonna be anymore earthquakes. There's not gonna be anymore. Of the fires or anything else that you see, like this is a reminder that this world is not as it should be. And so does God permit this and allow this to take place? He does. And yet it's also a consequence of our sin, our actions, our rebellion against him and against his his goodness and his kindness and his holiness. And so it is God holy. Responsible in the sense that he is sovereign over these things and allows them and even ordains them to take place. And yet these things are here because of our sin, and we are responsible for our sin. So how does Adam's sin affect tectonic plate movements? And that, that gets into the cursing of the ground back in, in the garden when God said, by the ground, by the sweat of your brow, you will har you will work, you will labor to get food from the ground. That even tells us right there that there was a change, even the, in the makeup of the soil. Before, when Adam went to 10, the Garden of Eden, it was easy for him to grow the food that he needed from these trees. That wasn't laborious. It wasn't hard work. But after the fall that there was something that changed wherein now it was gonna require, he was gonna have thorns and thistles that were gonna grow up. There were gonna be weed that he was gonna have to combat. There were gonna be things that were gonna compete for the good of the fruit that he needed to be able to survive because God had. Cursed and judged not only Adam, but also he had cursed and judged mankind. And we have to remember too, the wages of sin is death. And in the church we so often run and rightly so to spiritual death, but that death also includes physical death, that is part of the wages of sin as well. So when we've seen a earthquake that takes out 1600 people, we've talked about this in our DBR reading recently, justice is that God would destroy everyone that is justice. But the fact that he doesn't, the fact that he's merciful, the fact that he's patient is an evidence of his grace and his kindness to us. And so even a horrific event like an earthquake is a product of our rebellion against God. It's bringing about the natural consequence of sin, which is death. That is what we are deserving of because of the holiness of God and our sinfulness. Yeah. Luke chapter 13, Jesus says essentially that when they came to him and said, look, this tower that fell on these 18 people, Jesus, isn't this awful? I. And he says, or those 18 on whom the tower in silo fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No. I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And so while we should feel some level of sympathy care, and enough to pray, at least for the people of Myanmar, it ought to remind you that we are equally susceptible to having something as catastrophic happen here, if not worse. We can't look at them and say, man, these guys are a special these guys are a special breed of sinner. I think they could make a case that we're probably in a worse situation. In many ways, it's hard to qualify or quantify these things, but just know Jesus would have us to take to heart the fact that people perish every day, that the towers that fall or that the. Earthquakes or the tornadoes. We've got some gnarly weather up ahead for us in the next couple weeks, at least according to our weather guys. They're telling us, Hey, it's a storm season right now. We're going into a severe storm season. And the models are showing that this is gonna be a gnarly season, and that's terrifying. It was May of last year that Salina had that tornado tear through, so we're familiar at least with some of it. If something bad were to happen to our church family, we can't say well. At least the lesson shouldn't be you guys are especially bad sinners. That's why God did this to you. The point for all of us needs to be, we need to be aware that our life is short. It's fickle, it's fleeting, and we're equally susceptible and vulnerable. Let us repent. Let us love others enough to tell them to repent and let us bring more into the kingdom Mother still opportunity. Yeah. Yep. Let's jump into our daily Bible reading for the day, judges 10, 11, and 12. Thank you for agreeing with everything I just said. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not. I said that one time and somehow it slipped in so many times in the last handful of episodes. I have no idea you did it this one too. Did I? I'm sure I did. You said, I'm sure you said it again and even though you just said no. I'm sure I did. Maybe that actually didn't happen. There are bible verses that talk about bearing false witness. I'm just throwing that out there for pondering in consideration. I'm just, oh, yeah. That's great. They should do that. Yeah. Yeah. You all should think about that. All right. Anyways, judges 10 two more judges arise in chapter 10 to, to govern Israel before they return to their evil ways. That is before Israel does this time though, after being given over by God to the Philistines and the. Ammonites. God initially refuses to respond to their cries for deliverance. Israel cries out to God. They're being oppressed. And again, this is a consequence of sin, right? We're, this builds on what we were just talking about. This is a different consequence, but this is a consequence of sin that God turns them over to the Philistines, the ammonites, to judge them and to rule harshly over them. And so they cry out for deliverance. And God initially says, no. He says, go to your false gods and let them deliver you. But they persist. The Israelites do in their repentant posture. At least they. Purge those false gods from their midst. And the chapter ends with God as it's described in the text, being impatient over their suffering and the people preparing for battle against the Ammonites. So this is an interesting chapter here where God is really revealing to the people, okay you're wearing on my last nerve here and you're calling out for deliverance. I'm not gonna deliver you just yet. I'm gonna wait and you're gonna suffer a little bit more for this. And by the way, why don't you go to your false gods and call to them for deliverance rather than turning to me only when it's convenient. I think it's really cool that God becomes impatient over the misery of Israel, as it says here in verse 16, because God can't be impatient in a technical sense because he doesn't he doesn't have human capacities. This is an anthropomorphism, right? It's meant to help us to feel something of what God feels but it's not a one-to-one because his impatience is different than ours. Ours is a sinful impatience. His is. It's trying to convey the sense that God finds repentance irresistible, and he just wants to act on their behalf. And so there's something of a, I don't know, a childlike anxiety, a joyful, an anxiousness to say I wanna do something on their behalf. And I think in part, again, as I said, because God is so attracted to repentance, he's so attracted to humility. Yeah. As scripture says, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. God is on the side of the humble people. God loves to give power and favor and kindness to those who are humble at heart, and that's evidenced in repentance. How are you doing today? Are you humble in heart and are you repentance? I think repentant rather. God loves that and God wants to do good things for those who possess those qualities. He does. He does like people who don't make other people say what they didn't say over and over again. Amen, bro. Amen. Do you have something specific in mind or nothing? You're just, oh yeah, that was a really good application for somebody out there. Do you agree with everything I said on that one? No. Okay. Hey, verses 29 through 40 then, or hello, where am I? Where's my head space? Verses one through 28 of chapter 11. That's, man, that's where I get, that's what I get. That's exactly what I get. God's showing me favor. He is. In spite because he is a merciful guy. That's why. That's right. That's why. Anyways, judges 11, then impatient over their misery. God raises somebody up to deliver them, and this time it's gonna be a guy named Jha. And Jha does do this. He delivers them from the Ammonites. He, in verses 14 through 27, basically he warns the Ammonites to consider Israel's history. He's saying, Hey, look at what God has done in us and really you don't think he can deliver us from you. And how the Lord had done so much for them already who were. Were they to think that they would be able to stand against Yahweh? And so JTA stands up and comes through the aid of his people, comes through the aid of the Israelites and delivers them. But unfortunately, in the process, upon returning to his house he had made a vow, which is known as JHAs, tragic vow, and that's why you know the name jta. If you know the name jta, you know the name for what happens in the rest of the chapter. The vow was not necessary. But once he made it, now he had to pay it. He had to be faithful to it according to the law. And so this vow was that he vow to the Lord, I will offer to you. I will sacrifice to you the first thing that comes outta my house to meet me when I come home. And I don't know if he had a cat, he probably had a cat. 'cause he's that's not a big loss. I'll just throw the cat on the burn offering pile and call it good. Call it good. But no it's actually his daughter, his only daughter, his only child that comes out to meet him. And she's there and she says, father, why aren't you rejoicing? And he tells her the vow that he had made and she says, okay, let me go and mourn for my virginity with my friends and then come back and you need to do, as you, you had said to the Lord that you would do, we talked about this last year. I remember we did, even looking at my notes from last year, let's talk again. Yeah. If this is metaphorical, this is a metaphorical offering that he devoted her, consecrated her the way that Hannah did with Samuel, devoting him to the temple, right? Or to the service of the tabernacle there. Yeah. It's possible there's enough ambiguity there that you can go there. Although the language of the text, if we're gonna take a literal grammatical historical approach to the text it seems like. He did what he vowed he would do. Now, God detests human sacrifice. That's on the flip side of this. And yet we also have to understand God doesn't condone this. He doesn't say this is a good thing, but this is also pointing to the seriousness of vows and how seriously a person's word was at the time and Jetta's obligation to do this. So the reason why I, I. I, I don't love going literal, but the reason why I tend towards that a little bit is even the response to the fact that they would the women would go and they would remember her virginity. They would do this thing every single year. It seems like she's gone, it seems like this is a memorial, not like a Oh she's just over here at the Tabernacle in Shiloh, it seems no she's no longer there. I agree. And I think as a, every time I come to a text, I try to read it fresh and just see how it hits me. Every, it's like when you put your foot in a river as the saying goes, you never step into the same river twice. It's a different river. I. It's because you're changing. And I think that's the way that we approach the word of God. Often we see some of the same things that we've read before and say, oh, I, I didn't think about it that way before. As I read through it again this year, I tried to just have a blank mind and say, okay, I'm just gonna try to take it in as if it were my first time reading it again. And I walked away saying, I think he killed her. I think he sacrificed her. It just feels like that's where the text leads us. And although there's some difficulties in terms of oh, why is she weeping for virginity, then why wouldn't they just say, Hey, we're gonna weep for your life. Seems more obvious. But that would've been a big deal, right? Yeah. Marriage was a big deal. Having kids is a big deal. So the fact that they would weep for that would make sense in a culture like that would be reading it according to the eyes of the people, the audience at that point in time. So that makes sense to me. And I think this is again, meant to showcase the fact that even the best in Israel at this time were just complete knuckleheads. He says, look, I've made a vow. I can't take it back. And that wasn't true. Leviticus five gives us an option for if you make a rash vow, you say something foolish. There is a way to deal with that, and it requires a sacrifice ironically not your daughter. So it's one of those things where I think the point is, look how bad things are. Look at what they're doing. Look at what they're saying. Look at how they're dealing with these things and to show that even the best right here are just the absolute worst. Yeah. And I think that's ke keeping with Samson too. Samson is not a good dude either, and there's just depravity after depravity in his life too that we have to point to and reckon with. And yet he was the one that was judging Israel during that time. Yeah. So these are, these, judge, these judges are a judgment, right? They're not, or I guess you could say some of them have some redeeming qualities because they do positive things, but they're still very broken in their characters. And I think this is meant to show us here's what happens when people unmoored from God's grace and God's leadership. This is how they live. Yeah. I think there are periods in our history where you could look back and say, yeah, we did okay. As a nation, as a people, when you have strong, good leadership, good things. Tend to happen here. We're seeing largely bad leadership where there are some exceptions to the rule where they're doing some good things that God would be pleased by, like delivering them from their enemies. But by and large, these are not examples for us. At least not in the positive. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna talk about that concept of God's judgment of a people. We're gonna talk about that a little bit on Sunday too. 'cause still God's plan for Israel is developing now and we are not. In any way, shape or form Israel 2.0 as the United States. But I, one of the plans that we're gonna be talking about, or one of the things that we're gonna be talking about on Sunday is that God's plan is never arrested and it's never stopped. And we're looking at a time right now, even in our culture here in the United States where we're seeing, I think we're reaping some of the fruit of the godlessness of our. Last, what decades, handful of decades that, that we've seen. Even here in our backyard we've got this epic, Islamic city that's being planned. This 400 acre masterplan Islamic community where they want it to be a Sharia law place and broadcast the call to prayer over these loudspeakers. You've got a massive one that's planned up in McKinney. Now you've got a gigantic Hindu temple. And then you just look around our nation. It's, this nation is far from what it once was as far as the nation. It was under our founding fathers and the Christian principles and everything else like that. And who knows where it's gonna go as far as where we are now versus where it'll be 12 years from now and maybe we have a Muslim governor and a Muslim president at that point, and there're surreal lobbying practice openly in our nation and where do we go as the church? And I think we just need to understand we're not guaranteed about anything. And yet God will always be working his plan out. God's plan does not guarantee our wellbeing and our safety and we're not Israel. But we also can't think that we're exempt from God's discipline in our nation. And if he was gonna judge his people, then certainly we could expect that, that he will judge us for being a largely godless nation while giving him lip service on the side of things too. And I think as the church, we just need to be aware that the landscape could get. Darker and yeah. Right now we've got a different administration in place, but that comes and goes and that changes with every four years, obviously. So we don't know what the future's gonna hold but God's still sovereign even over the wickedness of what's going on right now. He's still on the throne, like we talked about last Sunday, and we'll talk this Sunday a little bit more, developing that further. So we're not post-millennials, correct? Correct. Just making sure. Okay. If that's the case, what would, if you could wave a magic wand. And you could do some important things in the church to cause her to be salt and to be light, to do what she's called to do during this season of history, whatever it is that you would call it. What would you do now? What do you think the church really needs right now in order to do good work in preparation for the future? So let's just say we do have an Islamic governor and someone in the White House. Yeah. All those things that you just mentioned. How would you prepare the church? What would you do? What are, what's maybe one thing that you could say, if I could just do this thing for the church man that would prepare us and equip us to do battle in the best way possible. Not physical. Yeah. Not trying to say kill anybody, but to do spiritual battle. Honestly, something that, that has come up a couple times recently, conversations with people, and then I saw him talking about it too. Something from the guy who is his name is Escape Me now. He. Does evangelism on the street in Ray Comfort? Yes. Thank you. He said, look if you are afraid to share the gospel with someone the thing that you need to pray for is not less fear, but more love. Love for the person that's lost. And if you have a greater love for the person that's lost, then your fears that are holding you back from being willing to share the gospel with them will be overcome and you'll be driven by your love for them and your love for the Lord to be obedient to, to pursue them with the gospel. I had a conversation with somebody else recently going, Hey, look, if this happens and we get these Muslim communities and everything there, we need to recognize that they are deceived and they are. People that are destined for hell, and rather than looking at them as a threat to our, our civil liberties and our rights as we're Christians and we've grown up in America and the land of the free, the home of the brave and, get, go back home or whatever, you, people are tempted to say to these things, we need to look at these people and go, they need the gospel. They need to hear the gospel and if persecution is coming, then man, we need to step up and be evangelist. That's the way we can do the greatest damage to the enemy is to see more people come to faith in Christ. So I, yeah, we could go, we need more doctrine, we need more theology. We need to know our word better, we need to pray more. All of those things. Yes. And I also think we need to love the lost more than we do. That's really encouraging and powerful thought. What about for the Christians here in our church in particular who are listening in, they're saying, okay, how do I do that? What would you suggest? Yeah getting to know them. Making sure that you've got lost people in your life. That it's not just a nameless, faceless concept of somebody who's lost. So finding, a neighbor or somebody in, in, in your workplace and spending time with them, having them over to your house, getting them into your kitchen, having meals with them, vice versa. Too busy doing church things. Slow down. We can't be so busy doing church things that we're not, and that's one of the things that we was on our heart when we planted this church. We wanted to build in margin to say, we want you to have space that you're not at the church every single day of the week, and you've got time to have that family next door over for dinner. You've got time to meet with the family that is on your kids' baseball team who are Hindu and say, Hey I'd love to, to spend some time with you. Get to know you guys. We're not gonna love people we don't know. It's just, it's not gonna happen. And so for us to be a church that's gonna love the loss, we have to know lost people. We can't just sit here and be like, okay, God, help me love the loss by just bringing somebody into my life that's ready to hear the gospel and repent and believe immediately. It happens every once in a while, but far more often it takes us putting in the time to pursue people, get to know them, and hopefully win them over time. Yeah, that's a good point. We've still got one more chapter, right? Chapter 12. Yep. We need to touch on chapter 12. Yeah. Civil War breaks out between the ephraimites, the Trans Jordanian tribes again, and and Israel and they're mad that jep the, didn't include them in the battle against the Ammonites. And so the ephraimites bow up and they are ultimately defeated. And their fugitives are executed if they failed to say this word, shibboleth correctly or properly. And so that was the revealer, there was a way they would say it that wasn't, that was a dead giveaway, that they had an accent that was from across the Jordan and they're executed for the rebellion against the main people of God there in the promised land. So this goes back to the foolish decision to be. Camped out across the Jordan and to set themselves against the people of Israel. But yeah. Then chapter 12 continues and goes on from here through the end of it with just a, another 25 years or so of various judges in Israel that are raised up to help and judge the people and deliver the people throughout that time. Really fascinating to see here that Israel began to develop dialects. Yeah, I never thought twice about that until I. Read this and I think a commentator mentioned this, like there was dialect. Oh there's dialects. Yeah. Enough time has passed that. Yeah. That's crazy. Interesting. Yeah, because they were a people traveling together, you would think that they probably had the same dialect. Probably no dialect. I guess now trans Jordan tribes are, have having their own way of saying things, which I find fascinating. Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. Which I mean, makes sense. There's different ways people, even just in the south. Yeah there's even here in Texas, Florida South, there's Georgia South, there's, yeah. You got that Southern draw. I still haven't received it yet. Yeah. I haven't received that second anointing. Yeah. But y you say all the time, and sometimes when you're preaching, you're like, now listen, y'all, I'm about to tell you something. Y'all need to hear. I'm like, pastor pj. Hold on, cowboy. Yeah, hold on. You know when I, yeah. When I get passionate, when I get, if I talk to somebody who's got a draw it comes out, it's oh man, it's my true colors are coming out oh, yeah, I feel it, man. But when you rode him with that horse too, that was too much? A little bit. Okay. I'll leave the horse off stage this week. Thank you. Hey, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God, give us a love for the lost. I want us to be that type of church and to do that we, we have to know the lost. And so help us to care enough about our neighbors to find out whether or not they are, and to care enough about our coworkers to find out about whether or not they are. And if they are lost, God, we don't wanna just retreat and look at them as something that's gonna defile us or. Or a threat to us. But God, we wanna pursue them with the good news of the gospel 'cause that's what they need to hear as we needed to hear it at some point in time when we were lost. And God, make us a church that is passionate to reach people for Christ. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep renew Bibles. Tune again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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