Welcome to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. It's not good Friday. It's, it's not Easter. It's Extravaganza Saturday. It is, which is a mouthful. And everybody wants to know where is Jesus today? Well, not today. Today. We know where he is. Well, well, where is he today actually? Well, he's located specifically at what? The right hand of the father. Yeah. Where is that? The right hand of the father. I heard his kob. He still has, he still has a physical body though. He does. He does. So where is his physical body? It's in Hi, in the presence of the Lord. It's the same place that Heaven is right now. Which is, is not up in the cloud. It's just like hell is not in the middle of the earth. Can you put that in your Google maps? You find it you could probably type heaven into Google Maps. I don't know where it's gonna take you, so I wouldn't trust it, but it's gonna type it in right now. Yeah. Hey where was Jesus though? On the Saturday of his crucifixion? People wanna know. Well, we've addressed it in our series. In one Peter, I, I, he declared something to the spirits in prison, and so that took place at, at some point. We don't know exactly the timeframe on that. Here's what we do know. We do know that on Thursday that there is, on on Friday as he dies, he makes a statement to one of the thieves on the cross. He says, today, you will be with me in paradise. So we know at least a portion of his time was spent in the presence of the Father during those three days that he was there because the thief on the cross was going to be there with him as well. Did he venture out from there to go and declare victory to the spirits in prison? Peter implies that he does, although there's even questions about when, when does that take place? What's the timeframe on that? So we can't be entirely sure, but to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The eternal soul of Jesus was absent from his physical body during the three days in the grave. It wasn't lingering there. And so where it was in the presence of the father declaring victory, those are some of the mysteries of, of the text. Egg extra against. That's what we're talking about. We took quite a turn, didn't we? 10 to 12 people do wanna know where Jesus is? Yes. I don't apologize for my question. I don't know where we just went, but the question was there egg extra against is happening today? What's happening Pastor Mark happening? Is it inside, outside 10 to 12? Where is it? Whether it's raining or not, will happen happening. Your place? Yeah, it's at my house. Come on over. No. If it's raining and it does indeed look like it's raining. I mean, this is coming out on Saturday. Mm-hmm. So I guess you listen or know, but if it's raining, it'll be inside, but it will be at the school. Same place. Same place, same school, same place. Yep. Yeah. So we'll make the best of it. Mm-hmm. Whether it's raining or not. Yeah, it was supposed to rain a lot more earlier this week and it just didn't, so maybe we will get fortunate and God will smile upon us and he'll withhold the rain, although we could use the rain. That just goes to show though how accurate our weather reports are. Like I, I look and I laugh. Anything more than two days, I'm like, I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, we just have no idea really at the end of the day. Yeah. No, for sure. But it's gonna be a great event. Does it cost anything to get in? Is there a charge? Yeah. You can write a check to me, pastor Mark for a hundred bucks. Nice. Or it's free or, or it's free. It's your choice. It's your choice, really. You could, you could walk in or you could give Pastor Mark a hundred bucks. Choose this day who you'll pay Pastor Mark for a hundred bucks or nothing. It's free. And you should, if you're listening to this before you're headed out to it, go invite your neighbor. Go grab somebody, bring 'em with you. People have been told that you're dressing up as the Easter Bunny. Is this true? I heard it too. Who are these people? Who i's, lots of people been texting and, and emailing me. Someone came to my door, a neighbor, and they're like, I heard one of you pastor. Get too fax. I did. I got a fax, a smoke signal. Is it true that you're dressing up this this coming extravaganza? It's not, oh man, sorry. Yeah, it's a bunch of, a bunch of rumors. Will you eat the 10 pound chocolate bunny from Costco live on stage for everybody? I would be to see that. We're gonna have to wonder where my soul is if I do, if I do that, actually we're not gonna wonder. That's a, that's a actually a big problem if you are wondering. But did you see that though? 10 pounds. This thing is huge. It's like three feet tall. You guys got a 10 pound bunny? Yeah. 10 pound bunny. Wait, no C bunny. He's talking about Costco. He's talking about Costco. Costco. Who sells it? I thought you got one to give away or to some like prize. Maybe. We should. We should, should, should. That would be fun. We should, we should. We should totally do that. Whoever's kids get that, their parents will love us. Yeah, they will. They will. They, yeah. Anyways, if you can tell us where Jesus' body looks, you get the 10 pound chocolate buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Deal. We should pull that thread more when we have more time. Yeah. Two wills. Yes. Because we see that in the Garden of Gethsemane, not what I will, but we will be done, but not two souls. I think we agree on that. He doesn't have a human soul and a divine soul. But yeah, I guess after that, it's an interesting question, and again, we may not know the answer, it may not be possible first to know. I don't think I know I, I don't think, I don't think I know the answer. Well, don't think I know the question, and that's okay. Right. Yeah. There's some things that God has not revealed to us a hundred percent. Secret things belong to the Lord. But it's exciting to think about. I just wonder if sometimes God's like, I didn't even think of what you guys are talking about right now. Like, what are you, what? What do you even mean? Probably not. Probably not. That's heresy. Yeah. That's, that's just coldhearted heresy. Mm. Middle knowledge. Let's, let's, yeah, open theism. Let's open up to judges 12 through 14. This is spiraling outta control fast, and so let's just continue to spiral outta control by talking more about Jeff, the JI mean, viewing Jha as just a, a bad dude explains even more what happens here. 'cause what we find in chapter 12 is civil war. And civil war is never a good thing. And so the Israelites, they come to JTA and they are upset because they weren't recruited to go to battle. And so they're upset because they don't get the glory of the battle. And so JTA bows up against them and there's this test that's gonna take place that he puts some people at the Jordan River and they say if somebody comes over and denies being an ein, might, you should have them say this word, y'all. Yes, pastor Mark is gonna pronounce the word for us in the Hebrew. Did you hear it? Everybody? You just did. He just said it. Yeah. So, if you heard it, there must have been a glitch in the podcast, but this is gonna tell them because they had an accent whether or not they were an mite and then they were gonna be killed. So thi this is not, it's not a good thing that we're seeing here in this chapter. And then chapter 12 ends with these three other judges that are raised up from a period of time, seven years, 10 years, eight. Eight years. So we've got another 25 years at the end of chapter 12 that take place. Before we get into to chapter 13 there, I don't know if Jeff does at fault for this one. It looks like it's really the men of E who are like, we wanna fight you because you didn't bring us to be part of this. And yet he says to them, when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over. I dunno, I, I, I, I don't think Jeff does a good guy by any stretch, but I do think there's a, at least for most of us, we would know what it's like to say this person's not all bad, but they're not all good either. They're kind of some strange combination between, and I think that's what you see here. He's not at fault, per se, but I think this shows the degradation of the people of Israel. Mm-hmm. Things are so bad that there's now infighting between tribes and that's not a good thing. Things are falling apart quickly. Totally. And that's, that's what my point was. God is not behind this. God is not commanding him. Go and and take out the mites. Right, right. Yeah. Alright, well, chapter 13, we get a familiar character. This is the figure of s Samson. So Samson is going to come on the scene here. We've got more evil though. The Lord is going to give Israel into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. The Philistines are becoming more and more of a problem. We're gonna see them. Last, all the way in, in through the time of, of David as well. But the Philistines are going to hold them captive for these 40 years. But then the angel of the Lord is gonna appear to Samson's mom and promises that she will have a son and instructs that the mom, that he's to be a nazarite from the womb that's gonna be significant in Samson's life and that God was gonna use him to save Israel from the Philistines. So, we've got this. This situation here, Manoa is his dad, Samson's dad, that might be a trivia question that might wind you something some prize at some point in time down the road. Who is Samson's dad? Manoa. He seems to be a righteous man who fears the Lord and wants to do right by the Lord. And he even makes this comment, we shall surely die for we have. What does it say? Pastor Mark in there, we shall surely die for we have seen. God, right? Yeah. That is what it says. So would you allow for, nevermind, we're not gonna have that conversation again anyways. The angel of the Lord, at least in Manoa's eyes, it was an encounter with God and he even says, we're gonna die because we've seen God. And then the chapter ends with with Samson being born. But this is the announcement that Sams is coming to deliver the people from the Philistines. I think another indication of this being a righteous husband and wife is the barrenness of the woman. That is a repeating theme that we see in God's special provision and care for, I don't know the. The wise, righteous women of the Old Testament. Of course there's faults that they have, but I do think this recurring theme should lead us to think initially, this is probably a special situation and these are probably God's chosen people in, in a very specific sense, chapter 14. Samson's gonna get a wife for himself. And he's gonna take a wife from the Philistines, which is interesting because it says, get her forming now for, she's right in my eyes, verse three. And we wanna say, okay, right in your eyes, but not in the right, in the eyes of God. Right? Because this is inner marriage. This is marrying with the people of the land of Canaan. And yet, look at the next verse. His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord for he was seeking opportunity against the Philistines. So God is using a sinful decision by Samson. In order to gain glory over the Philistines. That's a brain twister, if there ever was one too, to, to think about, okay, how did that work? Is is God simply redeeming the sinful decision that Samson makes of his own accord, saying, okay, I'll use this to get the glory over the Philistines Anyways, it says it was from the Lord, so he does, but throughout this whole situation, he then goes on from there and, and. Plays a game with the Philistines because he, he goes and he, he ends up killing this lion and he eats honey outta the carcass of a lion when he comes back by, which would've made him unclean. 'cause this was a, a defy, this was a dead animal. And you can't eat anything, certainly from a dead animal, let, let alone even come into contact with him. But Sam plays a game with the Philistines in this chapter when he challenges them to, to solve a riddle about this lion and about the honey that's there and the fill. Philistines, as he puts it, plows with his heifer to gain insight into his riddle. And he figures this out and he goes off on them and kills 30 of them in the town, which then prompts further conflict. The Philistines are gonna give his wife to another man. I, this is just bad from the word go. The, the, the taking of a Philistine wife, the killing of the lion, the eating of the honey outta the lion, the trying to trick the Philistines. They persuade his wife. And then he kills 30 of them, and then they give his wife to another person. This is like daytime soap opera stuff that's going on. Truth is stranger than fiction, that's for sure. Yeah. This is again the, the point here is I think to showcase the fallenness and the weakness, these increasing weakness of the leaders who rule over Israel. It's not a perfectly straight line, but I think the judges get progressively worse in terms of their, their moral. Finitude, their weaknesses, their, their errors, their flaws in Samson has some, some redeeming qualities. I mean, you gotta, you gotta look sideways and kind of close your eyes a little bit to see 'em. But they're there. And yet even with that you still have a, a very flawed man. But to your point earlier, he still, spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. Yep. And he goes and he. Takes out an animal and he does incre impressive things. But again, I, I see a singular function that the spirit is doing within that person as opposed to something that is akin to the New Testament and dwelling. So if I gave you guys seven days to figure out the riddle that he gave, would you guys be able to do it? No. No. I've always read this and gone. Why would they agree to this? The key, it seems as though. S Samson has all The power. Yeah. He can make this riddle as hard as possible for whatever reason they agree to it. And this riddle. Maybe they had some sort of indication that they could have figured this out otherwise, but I sometimes I'm befuddled by why would they, would even agree with Samson to do this, this challenge, to solve this riddle. It's the greatest riddle since, or up until when Billbo Baggins said, what do I have in my pocket? I wonder if part of what's happening. 'cause it's, it's a, that's a great point. Is. There's, there's a pride in, in that, but there's also the honor of their culture. Like our people are honored. We're, of course, we're smart enough to figure this out. Yeah. Who do you think we are? We're of course, we're of, you're just a Hebrew, we can answer your question. We'll figure it out. So I, I think because of their mindset, their tribe, their loyalty, their affiliation and affection for one another says, of course we can figure this out, guys. We we're gonna get one and over on this guy. Let's do it. And they're enemies, they're not friends. Mm-hmm. Even though Samson is trying to marry one of their kin, they're still enemies. The Philistines know that the Israelites are not for them and vice versa. So I think there's under, there's undercurrents here that make this make sense, even though on the surface it looks super foolish. You're right. Yeah. And talk about a bad sport, you know? I mean, I'd be upset too, honestly. I'd be pretty upset. You gave away my wife. What's, and you gave it to my best man. How does that even make sense? That, yeah. Yeah. That's a bad, that's a bad thing. That's a bad situation. Let's flip over to Luke chapter nine. As we are going to continue our New Testament reading, and we are picking up following the amount of transfiguration. We've talked about this scene a couple times, but Jesus comes down to find that there is a demon possessed child that the disciples are not able to heal. And so here you get in verse 41, oh, faithless and twisted generation. How long am I to be with you and to bear with you? Bring your son here. We talked about that. I, I think when we went through this in one of the other gospels, this is not Jesus feigning ignorance, that he doesn't know when he's going to go to the cross or that he is going to the cross, but rather this is a, a, a expression of exasperation. How long must I bear with you? How long until you actually understand this and get this, which seems to reveal the indictment. On the disciples. In fact, this is where other times it says some can only come out by faith or by prayer. And so this is an, I think, an indictment on the fact that the disciples weren't really depending on the Lord for casting out this demon that was possessing this child. Perhaps they had grown overconfident in themselves, whatever it may be. But Jesus is, I think, bemoaning that situation there as well as just the fallenness of humanity that he was encountering from here. He goes on in infor, tells his death for a second time. And that that's followed you know, understandably by an argument about who's the greatest disciple of all of them. Hey, I'm gonna go die. And then everybody's like, well, which, which one is the greatest of us of all those around us. And this is a one of those situations where I have to check myself because I think I probably would've been right there with the disciples arguing as, as Jesus says, that we know the rest of the story. But Jesus is Mar Luke at least is, and the other gospel writers do this too, sets this up in such a way as. For us to see the juxtaposition between what Jesus says and then the mentality and the attitude of the disciples here. I think it's amazing that Jesus says to them, whoever receives this child, I'm looking at verse 48. Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and I think he's literally illustrating like, this child in some sense has nothing to offer. This kid cannot provide you income. This kid is not a philosopher. And Jesus is calling people to. To love children who in, in that day and age were worthless. I mean, I'm maybe a little overstated saying that, but I think we can, we can be tempted to think the same thing. And I think, you know, if you think, Hey, I'll make this a call to serving kids ministry, we should be people who are eager to love people who don't necessarily offer us. Any value. And I think that's because Jesus doesn't need us, right? Jesus doesn't need our worship, right? Jesus doesn't need our money. But he still loves us anyways. And so we should in, in adoration and in worship of who he is, respond that same way by serving in kids ministry. Great application point. Shameless plug. Yeah. Whoever is least among you is going to be who the greatest is. So Jesus is operating from an upside down kingdom. Mm-hmm. The greatest among us descended and condescended down to the lowest places in order to die for us. And so Jesus is the paradigm and the model from the way that we understand that. And when it comes to children, that the anyone who is weak and vulnerable, Jesus takes a special interest in that would include the orphan. The widow, I would include the aged. And I think even today's culture, we, we do understand these things a little better, but they're still some of the most vulnerable people. Mm-hmm. I think Christian men in particular ought to take a special interest in guarding those who are most vulnerable among us. As one, those who are most aware, I can do the most good. You know, if I have, if I'm younger and I have muscles that I get still use to defend and protect these people, I ought to do that. How we do it, it's gonna look different, but to your point, and it's well taken we need to make sure that we are guarding and protecting those who are most weak and vulnerable, because that's us. Mm-hmm. How about verse 60 this interesting interaction here where Jesus is calling or, or addressing people who want to come follow him. And one of the, the people that he is talking to in verse 59, he, Jesus entres him, follow me, but he said, Lord, let me first go bury my father. And Jesus said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. What, what is he talking about with that statement? Leave the dead to go bury their dead. It seems, again, cold or harsh. But what is he really saying here? I think Jesus is trying to help Reor. So this is, we, we've gotten into this conversation when someone was asking us, can you take anything? Jesus says at face value. And I think of course he can. Of course he can face value, but if we understand the nature of what he's trying to say, then it's easier to understand what he's getting at. Jesus is a master communicator. He uses hyperbole. He uses simile, he uses parable. He uses all sorts of literary tools to help people understand who he is. And I, I even think he's. Interesting. He's trying to be interesting to his here. He uses things like consider the birds and look at, look at the, look at the lilies of the field. He might even be actually pointing at them as he's teaching. Mm-hmm. And Jesus is a master communicator. So I think what he's doing here is trying to, he's not saying, don't take care of your family. Obviously one of the commandments is to care, you know, honor your father and your mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. And so when he says, let me go bury my father. I don't think he's saying, Hey, my father's on his death bed. He's in ICU right now. He's taking his last breath. Can I just wait with him? He's not saying, oh, get your act together buddy. Yeah, he's dead. Just come. I think what he's doing, this young man, whoever he is, is providing a smoke screen of I just need to stick around for a few years. Jesus. I need to, I. The next 20 years. Once my dad dies, then I can go and follow you. And Jesus is saying, you got your priorities wrong buddy. Mm-hmm. Let the dead bury their own dead means those who are spiritually dead, who are walking according to the pattern of the world. You don't have to take special interest in the same way that you would for an opportunity like this. You should. And again, Jesus is Lord, he's God. He's God in the flesh. And so he's making commands that you and I would not be able to make, but he's saying, follow me. Now's the time, now's the opportunity. And let those who are spiritually dead go the spiritually dead way. You follow me? Yeah. And, and that's similar to what he means too in the very next interaction when the person says, well, let me go back and say goodbye to my, my family. And he says, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom he's calling them away from. And in some ways, similar to the, the rich young ruler, maybe pressing in on some of those idols that they're not willing to seed to in order to follow Jesus and, and calling them to say, this is what it is to follow me. Right. These are such powerful words that we often, I mean, we've read them a lot of times. Maybe some of you on the on the line are listening and you're thinking, man, I've read this so many times that it kind of loses its punchiness fight to let it be punchy. I pray and not, not, not, I don't always walk away this way, but when I'm. Having time in my Bible and I'm trying to do my devotions, I fight to make it count, to make it matter to me, because there's times, even when I wake up, I'm tired and I haven't had the best night's sleep. And I, you know, the caffeine's not kicking in yet. It's a, it's a slog, but if you're willing to stay with it and to push through it and let the Lord work on you as you read through, I think, I think he, more often than not, in my experience, he does do something. He gets me to feel something or to remember something or to appreciate something that I did not moments before. What do you do, pastor Mark? I think it is an understanding of the order of things. I think it's an understanding of the order of things. And even think about what you referenced just a minute ago, right? We should seek first the kingdom of God and then these things are gonna be added to you. He's specifically saying there just practical things, right? He's saying in that, in that parable he's saying, food and clothes and water. But also we see throughout the New Testament that it's all the other things, right? It's. Sanctification. It's the fruit of the spirit. So I, I think understanding the order is important because it changes how we approach our devotions, right? If we think that we're somehow conjuring up ideas ourselves, or we, you know, we're the ones who are responsible for, you know, the great insights that we might pull from scripture, we're gonna have a hard time. Because that's not the right order of things. So I think understanding that is important. But then I think also, you know, the. Consistency of your Bible reading and your prayer. I trust if you're a regular listener to the podcast, that's probably something you do, but maybe you can think of times in your life when you, you weren't consistent and it becomes harder to read your Bible over time. It's good to read your Bible regularly and consistently, and. I love our plan, but sometimes it's also really helpful to read longer chunks of scripture. Yeah. You know, if you read, just as we have maybe a chapter of judges and you're thinking just about that one chapter of judges, it can be hard to develop your critical thinking and your ability to read the Bible holistically. If you're just allowing your brain only to ingest that one chapter, it's maybe even to the point of taking notes across. A book of the Bible so that you can begin to put these pieces together. I don't know. There's a lot of things I could say, but maybe that's a start on answering your question. That's a great start. Well, hey, let's wrap up this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast with prayer, and then we will be done. God, we thank you for this day and we thank you for unanswered questions, even with your word as we've been talking about it, even just talking about just now, we, we want to be able to plumb the depths of scripture and have interactions with it that, that are meaningful, that do count, even as Pastor Rod was saying, and, and that does so often require us to be disciplined with our thoughts and our time and our, our. Emotions and our, our just attitudes, everything to come to your word and, and to really seek knowledge and, and an interaction with you. Something that is relational with you and not just transactional. And so we thank you that we have your word and that we can do that. And we pray that you'd help us to continue to be faithful towards that end. And so we thank you so much for that. We pray for a great rest of our day to day as we anticipate tomorrow being Easter and joining with our church to celebrate our resurrected savior. In Jesus name, amen. Keep in your Bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another. Easter edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy one day before Easter. He has risen. He has risen indeed.

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