Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Saturday. Hopefully everybody's enjoying your Saturday today. Some eggs and bacon, maybe some pancakes. Yeah, with some blueberries inside. Yep. That's a good Saturday. Yep. Do you remember Saturday morning cartoons? Very much, man. Wasn't that the best time ever? Absolutely. I think the world is lesser for not having Saturday morning cartoons. I agree. Yeah. 'cause the cartoons that exist now just aren't the same as they used to be. They might. You could stream them all like one season in your living room on a. Thursday afternoon if you want. Yeah. The specialness of waking up on Saturday and watching one of your favorite X-Men shows or whatever. Teenage Meat Ninja Turtles. TMNT. Yeah. That's, those are the good old days, man. And you had to wait a whole week not to find out what was gonna happen. You could not stream them and if you missed them. Yeah. That's the beauty of old school television. Yeah. The kids these days, they'll never know that. And I feel bad for my kids about that. And the commercials after these messages, we'll be right back. The commercials were some of the best parts. Yep. They were entertaining. And the theme songs, crossfire? Yeah. Yeah. That was good days. Oh yeah. That thing with the little guns and the sil. Wow. You remember that nostalgia. See, yeah. I had that. That was fun. Cartoons are crazy nowadays. In fact. So different. There's one that's gaining popularity. I, full transparency, I haven't watched it more than once or twice the whole season. A few a hundred times. You haven't watched the season more than three times? See, I in one city. I think it's a movie. I think it's a movie. I thought it was a. Cartoon TV series. I looked it up online. I think it's a movie. Anyways, now that we've completely undermined our authority to be able to speak to this issue well, we don't have to know the show to answer the question though. That's true. So let's go to the question, 'cause this is really relevant. Speaking of Saturday morning cartoons, the question is this, how should Christians think through the K-pop demon hunters, K-pop, demon hunters. All right. K-Pop demon hunters. Yeah, I'm gonna answer. Carefully on this. Number one, this is there, there is freedom in Christ on this. And there's no verse that says, thou shalt not. And this goes back to, I, I remember when I was in college, one of my wife's friends had a Harry Potter book in her dorm room on her shelf, and she was accused of being a witch because she had a Harry Potter on her shelf. I understand that. Spoiler alert she wasn't a witch actually. She was just an a person and she likes to read the story. And so this is not new to, to look at something in. Pop culture and media and say, Hey, what is the, what do we do with this? It seems to be, there's some dark images, dark themes in here. Should we be okay with this? Should we not be okay with this? Parents listening to this is where your discernment has to come into play, and you have to be involved in this. You have to make a decision one way or another. Don't let. Entertainment happen to your kids. That's not a good job. You are abdicating your role. If you give your kids the iPad, give your kids access to the tv, and then you walk away and you're not actively involved in what they're watching, say it again. Even if they're on Disney Junior or they're on something like that you can't abdicate that role. That's your role. You can't let them be the guard of what is coming into your kids' minds. So that said. You need to do research on this and figure out what, this is what I've read. For me and my household we haven't watched this, I don't think we will. I read online it talked about engagement in the demonic. They're literally fighting demons in here. There's scenes where demons are sucking the souls, out of some of the people in this, they're fighting demons though, right? They're fighting. The heroes are fighting the demons. The heroes aren't the demons. Okay. You sound like good, the good people then. Yeah. It's just for me it's, do I wanna open the door into the darkness of these themes into my home? Yeah. And so for me, we've said no. I'm not saying that has to be the conclusion for everybody across the board, that's just where we are. But I think that the principle that I wanna stress. Behind this is regardless of what it is, whether it's this or bluey, right? You as parents need to have an active role into what you are letting into your home and understand that you are by turning on the TV or giving them that app on the iPad, you are allowing voices into your home and you need to know what those voices are talking about. That's my take on it. Pr that's a great take. Let me preface everything I'm about to say with one Corinthians 10. All things are lawful. But not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Paul's talking about food here, and of course this section ends with the famous phrase that most people know if you're a Christian. So what? Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do all to the glory of God. So that's the general basic operating principle that I'm working from. That's my starting place, but I have a few resources that I go to when I'm evaluating whether or not I want to watch a TV show. And if I'm being. Especially prudent about it, and I don't always do this, but I would recommend if you're concerned about a show, these are three places you should go in. The first place might be Kids in mind.com. This is where you can see a movie usually broken down in categories of a sex, an nudity, B, violence, and gore and C language. It'll give you a number between one and 10 as to how much of each of these things you're gonna find. So kids in mind.com is a great place usually for movies. Second place is plugged in.com. If you pop this one in. This is also gonna show you a breakdown of how the movie fares. It doesn't use a rating system, but it will tell you what's in the movie and they'll give you their take on whether the content is worth you diving into. So they're gonna help you try to make a decision for yourself. They don't really give you a recommendation. They're just gonna help you evaluate it. Plugged in.com is a ministry of focus on the family. So if you've any experience with those guys, you kinda know what you're getting into. So they have a couple small ratings in there, but mostly it's just content about how they've evaluated it. The third resource is common sense media.org. This one also has a rating system. They'll give you a number at how, what age they think your kid would be able to watch it. Where it's semi appropriate. Of course it's subjective. You have to make a decision yourself. But they'll, they're gonna give you reasons why they think what they do, and so they're gonna refer to specific parts of the movie. Okay. So those are three places that I could look and perhaps would look when I'm trying to evaluate whether or not I want to enjoy something. And of course, you're gonna wanna look at the rating. The rating is pg, pastor pj, you said it was a movie. I think you're right. It looks like it's an hour and a half long. Okay. All of that is preamble before I come to the decision making criteria. And I think your principle is right, PPJ, is it something I wanna expose my family to? Ultimately, I have responsibility for that. So if I am gonna watch it, I'm gonna watch it with my family, and then I wanna be able to watch everything that's happening. And if at some point I find it objectionable, it's. Crossing a line that I don't see fit, I have no problem turning it off. I remember we did this with one of the TV shows on Netflix. I forget what it was called, but it was a family flick. It was something about family, something or other. Anyway, we were watching it and they introduced a character that I said, oh, that's not happening. We're turning this off. My kids are disappointed, of course. But I felt no sorrow about that whatsoever. In fact, I felt. A little bit tinged on the inside. 'cause I'm thinking, I wish I wouldn't have showed them that in the first place. I would've liked to have avoided that. So again, going back to these websites here that are gonna help you make the decision. All that said, your job dad, if you are dad, is to make the call for your family to know what's coming into your house, to guard it and to safeguard your family's eyes and ears. Now you've of course remember times and you've seen things, I'm sure, or heard things and you wish you never would've seen them or heard them. Would you say that's true for you PPJ? Absolutely. I could say the same. There's things that I've seen and heard that I wish I never had the exposure to in the very first place. What a terrible thing it would be for your kids to say that. And it's something that you allowed into the gates of your home. All that said your job is to be responsible. Your job is to make a good decision. And if you could do it to the glory of God, then I'd say, Hey, enjoy it. If you can't. Then don't violate your conscience. And certainly if your conscience is even on the edge for the sake of your family, I would say just don't do it. If you can do it freely without condemnation in your soul, then hey, maybe it's a great thing for you to do. But again, go back to one Corinthians chapter 10. All things are lawful. Not all things are beneficial. Yeah, absolutely. Common sense. Media, by the way, has an app for your phone, so you can even download that and get that right there and check on things there for Android still I those people too, I don't know. Okay. Which it really doesn't matter, so it's really the iPhones that we care about. Yeah. So good question that's our answer there. So it's not a hard and fast, like anathema or blessing. It's use your discretion, discernment. Not just neither one of us have seen it. Correct. Neither one of us have seen the show, just so you know. So if there's anything in it that's oh obviously you should say no to this, for this reason we haven't seen it yet. Or ever, I guess to answer that we may never see it. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. One other point of clarification and then we'll get into our text for today. This is not dealing with K-Pop demon hunters. This goes back to the concept of our ladies and the ladies retreat. You mentioned, I think during that time I had said, Hey, men shouldn't listen to the women preachers. That's right. And then you said, Hey, I listened to Amanda's sermon and. You were complimentary of that, which was great, and she was encouraged by that. We as pastors do know what the ladies are preaching in our ministries. Whether that's Amanda preaching or one of the preachers I know. One of the preachers, I live with her. That's true. You live with your preacher too. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken. In fact, we're gonna also have Pastor Mark's wife preach in women's Bible study coming up. In a couple weeks here. And he lives with her. And he lives with her. Yeah. That's amazing. And all three of us as pastors, are heavily involved in the message prep process with our wives. And so we know what they're preparing, what we know, what they're delivering. And so this is not a hands-off approach. We're not saying whatever they're doing, just, let's hope it's good. We care about that. And that's part of our role as of shepherding the flock to make sure that we are guarding the flock on that front too. So you can trust that as pastors, we know what is being preached. We know what is being taught there. And as pastors, we do. Listen, and we do survey and we do know what's being preached there because of that shepherding role in that capacity. Amen to that. And we don't let anyone occupy the pulpit that we don't trust. So there's always gonna be that tacit understanding that if someone is in the pulpit, opening a Bible with a group of people that are our people, our church, that they have our approval and our encouragement because we trust them. We don't need to look at every jot and tittle. In fact, at one church that we were at, there was accusations that the pastors didn't have enough oversight over the pulpits because one of those pastors was lifting information off of other people's sermons and using it in their sermon. Yep. And people were saying, why didn't you guys know that? You should have known that. And the reason why is because we don't do that. We trust each other. There's that. There's an underlying necessary trust that comes with the pulpits. If you're in it, there's already a lot of barriers that you've crossed because you possess the trustworthiness to be in that position. Now, if there's ever a reason why you break that trust, then things change. For sure. Yeah. But that said, there's always an inherent trust with the pulpit. If they're in the pulpit, that means we trust them. We don't need to examine every jot and tittle to feel like they're gonna bring it clearly and articulately. Yeah. Let's get into our DVR today. We are in Nehemiah six and seven. Nehemiah chapter six and chapter seven. And sorry, parents, those of you with. Junior hires and high schoolers in the car. We just set them all off saying six, seven, because that is something that they do. So Nehemiah, how do they do it though? They just do it. How do they do it? I, you're gonna have to find one and ask them. I'm sure they will be more than happy to do tj, the san, the hand motions and everything. Pj, come on. I can't bring myself. Do it. You could do it. I can't. Six, seven. Come on. Come on. You could do it. You could do it. Oh man. Anyways, Nehemiah chapter six. We've got Tobi and Sin Ball who are back on the scene, and they're gonna come after Nehemiah and they're gonna come after Nehemiah and they're gonna try to stop him still. And Nehemiah, I love Nehemiah's response. He said I'm too busy doing God's work to come down and bother with you guys. Just go away. I don't have time for this. And so when they're not able to get him. In before them. Then they slander him. They say we heard that, you were trying to rally the Jewish people and that this is all an effort to regain power in the area and everything else. And Nehemiah, I love his response again in verse eight, he says, no such things, as you say, have been done for your, inventing them out of your own mind. He says, for they wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands will drop from the work and it will not be done. But now, oh God, strengthen my hands. I love that you're inventing them out of your mind. And then the response, which is such a good response, again, modeling good leadership here. He says, God, strengthen our hands. He turns to the Lord in the face of opposition, and that's where his trust is going to be. And so from there, he went on and there's another person that shows up that poses in a different way by trying to lure him into disobedience to God by saying to Nehemiah, why don't you come and stay in the temple? Why don't you take shelter in the temple? And Nehemiah knew that was not his, that was only a role for the priests. And so he says, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna disobey the Lord. And God is going to honor this because the rest of chapter six shows us that the wall ends up being completed and it be, it's completed in 52 days. And so that's amazing. When you think of the fact that this wall had been broken down. If you look in the maps of the back of your Bible, you may even have a map back there that shows you Nehemiah's wall. It's a pretty amazing feat in today's standards to get a wall built in 52 days. That's to this degree, this strength, this height. But in Nehemiah's Day, this is a symbol of the fact that the people really bought into this. And there was the desperation too of a city without walls, right? The Proverbs talks about, that talks about a man without self controls, like a city without walls. In other words, he's vulnerable. And so the people had the desire to get these walls up. But it's still amazing that they got it done in 52 days. Amen to that. And that goes to show that God is behind it. I can't help but see the connection between the walls being built quickly and Nehemiah being a man who's peripheral throughout the whole situation here, it seems like he just can't stop praying. And I think that's why God blesses the work as you just said here, this is incredibly important for us to see that God is supporting what he wants to see done with his people. When you comply with what God wants to do in your life and you're praying for what God's will is in your life, man he's inclined to obey. He's inclined to not obey like you're commanding him. He's inclined to indulge you and say, yes, I wanna do that. You're praying for more godliness. Fantastic. I can support that. So pray for what God's will is and watch God work. This is amazing by the way. I had a question. You brought it up as you were talking about the wall being built in 52 days. Who built the pyramids? Everybody wants to know the Israelites built the payments. Is that right? Do you believe that? Really though? I think they built some of them. I think that was part of the their job to build the tombs of Kings. How did they do that? I don't know. How did they build that? Those things are amazing. They're amazing. How did they do it? They used levers and pulley and logs to They excel, huh? Move the pieces. Yes. We don't know. We, I guess we're guessing We don't know how they did it. No, we don't because it's precise. It's amazing. I'm amazed. Yeah. They use their laser levels and they used probably their, all the technology that they had that we lost for eons. And so we guess we discovered it just recently. Really. They had to have something. We are flabbergasted. We have no idea how they did what they did. Yeah. Which is what makes it all the more remarkable because we, even with our current technology, we would struggle to do something like that. For sure. Yeah chapter seven what we find here is Nehemiah's leadership is not done. Now that the walls are built, he's gonna continue to make sure that he's providing for the people, and he's gonna do that through appointing gatekeepers. We have gatekeepers in our church who help keep us safe on Sunday mornings and make sure, and other days too when we've got ministry going on, make sure that nothing. Onward is happening with any threats from outside. And that's what Nehemiah does here. And these people are not just gonna just trust in the wall. They're gonna do more than that. They're gonna use the wall as it should be used. And so they're gonna open the gates, but then they're gonna make sure that they shut the gates before the darkness comes because they don't want to run into a situation where somebody with. With nefarious intentions, we'd be able to come in and attack them or hurt them or anything like that. So that's what they're doing here in the first part of chapter seven. And then after this, Nehemiah is going to, because God, it says in chapter seven, verse five place it upon his heart. Nehemiah is going to call for a census and the people are counted and God is going to use this, not like David called for a census and wanted to trust in the men and trust in the numbers. But. This is this is God showing Nehemiah his faithfulness to bring the people back into the city and to repopulate the city. And so Nehemiah is gonna do this, and it's also a way, I think, of showing honor to those that labored so faithfully and endured the opposition for the Lord. Let's wrap up this episode then, and then we'll be done with this, with Nehemiah six. And 7, 6, 7. Alright, let's pray. God, thanks for the resources that we even talked about at the beginning of this episode. Things like common sense media and these others that allow us to to, to consult these things and to be. Mindful as parents of what it is that we're allowing into our home. And so I pray that we would be good stewards of our children, that we'd be careful to guard their minds, to guard their eyes Lord against things that they shouldn't see. We don't want to, as Pastor Rod was saying, be those that are the source of things that they'll never be able to forget. And so give us as parents the wisdom to know when to turn something off or when to not even turn it on in the first place. And help us to teach our children that sometimes following the Lord. It means saying no to things that other people get to say yes to. But it's worth it in the end. Lord, we want to have God honoring homes. Help us Lord, in the midst of a culture that is attacking that to remain faithful to you. Even as we see with Nehemiah in the midst of opposition. Lord, we want to continue to do what you desire, what your will is, and not just fall prey to the easy way out or to what the world wants for us. And guard our families. We pray, Lord, in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles and tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Okay, I'll come back now. Bye.

Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said