Hey everyone. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's up? It is the 28th, so that means in just three short days, Halloween itself will be upon us. That's gonna be on Friday, so. We held our fall fest on the 26th, and we do that for a lot of reasons. We do that because we wanna do it on a Sunday 'cause it makes sense for people. We also do that because we want on the night of Halloween itself, our people to be in their neighborhoods. And the reason why we want you to be in your neighborhoods is not because we are here condoning, you know, black arts or the evil of Halloween or anything like that, but we also know that this is probably the one of the main nights of the year where you're gonna have more of your neighbors outside than at any other time during the year. And they're gonna be coming along and you're gonna have parents bring their kids by your house and they're gonna be ringing the doorbell, singing trick or treat or whatever, and then their parents are gonna be standing there on the sidewalk. So we want you in your neighborhoods because we want you to be engaging your community. We want you to be a light there. We want you to be having conversations with people. So one of the things that, that we love to do on Halloween night. Every year as we bring our fire pit out, we set it on our driveway and we sit outside with our candy so that as kids come up, they can grab some candy and that we can talk with the neighbors that are there. We'll bring out some more stuff. So some of the kids like to make us some more while they're standing there, and that gives us a little bit more time to talk to our neighbors too. All that to say listen, I know there's a lot going around and there is every single year you see reels, you see YouTube videos. Is Halloween Satanic and should Christians abstain completely from Halloween? I'd say there's a measure of conscience on this, and if your conscience. Convicts you that you shouldn't be involved in this, that you feel like this is a participation in that which is evil, then don't stand against your conscience. Okay. I get that. But I do think there's a room for us to say, okay there's a lot of differing things about Halloween. Not all of it is directly associated with the occult or witchcraft or anything like that. There are things that have to do with. The Reformation, all Saints Day, the day of the dead, so forth and so on, that have more ties actually to the church than they do to anything that is of the occult either. So there's freedom in this and I think there is a potential for us to make an impact in our community by being a light in our neighborhoods on Halloween. So that's why we would say this Friday, if you're not convicted, that this is a matter of conscience not to participate, make sure that you're participating. That's one reason why we don't do Fall Fest on Halloween night. Yeah. What about. The conscience though. You talk about this and you did talk about it on Sunday, so maybe it'd be, it would be worth unpacking it for this particular area. Clearly your conscience is totally fine with this. There's nothing inside of you that says mm-hmm. I, I shouldn't participate, or I can't participate. Yeah. How would you counsel someone who says, you know, I'd like to get there. Yeah. I am bother right now because I think it's gory and I, I heard on the podcast one time that there's days where people are sacrificing animals and they're doing evil things. Mm-hmm. And force and all those things. How would you counsel someone to inform their conscience in such a way that it would allow them to partake of something like this with ease? What we talked about on Sunday is having a biblically informed conscience. The Puritans wrote quite a bit on this as well. And that is that the Bible needs to be our guide. The Bible needs to be that which binds our conscience. So when we have something in scripture that clearly prohibits an action or an activity, then we can say with Christians, okay, yeah, I can't do this, but there are going to be things that. Are matters of conscience that we're not gonna apply across the board for everyone to say, no one here can do these things. And yet they're not gonna be black and white things in the scripture. They're gonna be more things that are personal. So for example, with Halloween, maybe you've got somebody that was saved outta the occult, right? And so for them, all of a sudden you've got a night where they have memories of things that they did on Halloween night. They've got images, they've got experiences. So for them, their conscience is wounded by the idea of going out and participating in this because their background, their past, what Jesus saved them out of. I'm not gonna look at that person necessarily and say, I think it's a good thing. You need to engage in these things. You need to be out and you need to be participating. That said, I think there's a broad spectrum. I think there's a much bigger difference in dressing up as something that's ghoulish and gory and horrific and celebrating the occult and playing with a Ouija board versus sitting out on your driveway with a bowl of candy as the cute little kids in the neighborhood come by dressed up as Cinderella and. Like 'em, McQueen and giving them a candy bar. I think there's room for there to be a variance there. So as Christians, I would say there's wisdom for us to be careful not to have the appearance of evil. So I think we need to be careful not to engage in the things of the occult. You know, if your neighbor who's an atheist next door is having a Halloween party and says, why don't you come over and you know that this is gonna be a place where there's not godly things happening there, then I think your conscience biblically informed, should say, I'm not gonna go, but I think. If it's a matter of can I have an opportunity to engage my lost neighbors in this? And is there something inherently sinful or evil in me handing a candy bar to a little boy that's dressed up as a baseball player while his parents are there and we have an opportunity to say, Hey, here's an invite to our church for this Sunday. I think that's okay. And I think any other day of the year, we could all get behind that. It's just the association with the occult and the darkness that we automatically say we're gonna throw the baby out with the bath water. That's an important point. I think growing in maturity is learning how to weigh and measure things with a careful and nuanced hand. And I know nuance has some negative connotations these days. People don't like when anyone uses that term. What I mean by that though, is thinking carefully about what you're doing and why you're doing it. For instance. Participating in this event for some bothers their conscience because they think it's a day of evil, and I can understand why they would say that if they have any experience in this, right, they sacrificed cats or what have you I can understand. However, I still might over the long term, say John or Nancy. You can take what was evil and redeem it. Yeah. And make it good. Good point. You can look at the darkness and say, I wanna bring the light of Christ into this. And with a measured and thoughtful faith saying, I, I wanna do what I can to insert the light of Christ into the darkest places in my culture without solely my own faith in the process. And I think that's really one of the questions I would ask, can you do this without sacrificing your holiness? And I think you can Well do that. In fact, you can be like my neighbor and have your Christmas tree set up already, jingle bells and still be handing out candy to the neighbors and say, Hey, God bless you guys. Where do you go to church? Or whatever you say. You can find ways to connect with their neighbors because you're coming to your front door. Yeah. Now I say, Nancy, John, this can be redeemed for good. Yeah. If you can take evil and redeem it for good, why not? Right? Why not do that? Right? And this requires you to know your Bible so well that you can say, okay, in all that God says. Jesus expects us to know the lighter laws. And the weightier laws. This is what he challenges the Pharisees with. He says, you guys will honor the light laws of tithing, mint and cumin spices going down to the nitty gritty. Mm-hmm. He says, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law, which tells me that Jesus recognizes, and he even intends that we understand his law in both lighter and weightier ways. Which means can I say, Lord, do you want me to be holy? Of course, I'm not gonna do Halloween. That's a law. On the other hand, he tells me to go after making disciples. Mm-hmm. Okay. I have two laws and they seem like they're in conflict, make disciples and be holy. How do I do that? Well, I'm gonna have to harmonize it too and say one of these is gonna have to take priority and precedent over the other, which does that. And I'm only using two laws here. Obviously there's more that we can add to this equation, but you get the idea of what I'm trying to get to. Right. God gives us his word and he gives us the responsibility to carefully interpret and apply his word such that we don't do damage to either one. And I think faithfulness in a complicated age like ours is knowing your word so well, that you could take all those scriptures and say, okay, based on what I know about God and his word and his people, how do I harmonize these things? We think. One of the best ways to harmonize it is to love your neighbors by being part of that community and shining the light of Christ to the best of your ability, whatever that looks like, by opening your doors and interacting with their neighbors. Yeah. Yep. Hey, Luke, 16 and 17. Today we've got an opening here of the parable of the Dishonest Manager, which is interesting, and it's hard because Jesus commends the guy that's dishonest here and it's one of those like, what, why, what's going on? And it's not so much that he's commending the dishonesty, but the shrewdness that this man has to win favor with people who will then receive him into dwellings when he's in, in need. This is exactly what, how we're looking at Halloween. Exactly. This is part of that. Yeah. I wish I would've remember this. Yeah, there you go. Well, now you do. And so the equation there is that we would be shrewd with the resources that he's given us to win people for Christ. And what that looks like. Yeah, maybe that is passing out candy on Halloween and engaging the king size candy bars, the king size, king Jesus, king Jesus size. Candy bars, candy bars, and handing those out to people and having an open door for the gospel. And then all of a sudden the implication is if they beat you to heaven, that they're gonna be there to welcome you into heaven when you get there. And how cool will that be? Just encouraging us not to just think it is gonna happen naturally, not just to think everyone is gonna be this altar call moment, but sometimes salvation happens in the nitty gritty of life and use your resources to get people to that point. After this, he talks to the Pharisees who he describes there as lovers of money, Luke does, who are listening to all these things, and they were mocking Jesus. And so he. Confronts them and confronts their hypocrisy here verses 14 through 17, knowing that they loved money and they loved status and basically accused them of missing the forest for the trees. They were so busy attacking him and mocking him while others were busy responding to his teaching with great passion and zeal. And I think that's what he means when he says that people are forcing their way. Into the kingdom that their zeal, their passion for Christ is leading them into the kingdom with great excitement and great exuberance. Meanwhile the Pharisees are rejecting in missing the point on it. You've got another well-known parable here, and that's the rich man and Lazarus, which introduces some interesting questions here. And so the scenario is Lazarus dies and goes to heaven, and he's in Abraham's bosom as it's described there. Then the rich man dies. So the implication is that those that are in heaven can see those that are suffering in hell. Pastor, I Do you think that's pushing to make a universal point on that? Is that pushing the meaning of the parable too far here? Or is there room to say that we'll have an awareness of the suffering of the lost while we are in the presence of God? That's a tough question. my huffing and puffing is the heaviness of it. I don't know. I don't know. Let me just answer. I'll start with, I don't know. I'm not sure, but I do have opinions about it that are loosely held and could be swayed if I would say, oh, that's a compelling point. I don't think Jesus ever says this is a parable. I don't think he ever says that. Okay. And so I'm tempted to give this more weight than just, this is a story meant to communicate. An idea because Jesus gives names to these people. He doesn't do that for any other parable. And so I'm wondering if he's communicating something that he has personal experience with. I've seen this. Here's what happens. Lemme tell you this story. So it's possible that this is more than a parable, but if it's a parable and it's meant to fit within all these other things that Jesus is doing, then I could say, yeah, I'd be pressing a parable. Mm-hmm. To do too much to say, oh, this is the way it is for everybody in heaven or the afterlife. But if it's more than a parable, maybe there's something to it. And only maybe because this is still before Jesus died, rose again and ascended to the right hand of God. Yeah. And I now believe things are very different in the afterlife because of that transaction. So I do think either way you're still on very, difficult ground. I wouldn't say it's terra firma because you're still saying, oh, maybe it's like this again. If we're talking about Sheol, the Old Testament conception of the afterlife, and Jesus seems to be alluding to that, that's gonna be a different experience than what we have today. If we were to die. Yeah. Yeah. I think the argument in favor of this being perhaps not a parable is the naming of Lazarus. But I think when you go back to the others, aside from the ESV saying the parable of, he starts 'em the same way. There was a man who had two sons in chapter 15, verse 11 chapter 16, there was a rich man who had and then chapter 16 verse 19, rich man and Lazarus. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple. So Jesus doesn't identify all of his teaching as. Here's a parable that I'm teaching you. That's an editorial comment that the ESV makes, but you're right, this is one that he names the man Lazarus here. So that's possible that it could be more than a parable, it could be actual Mm. In reality there. Mm. One of the things that's worth note though, is what the. Rich man begs, he says, send Lazarus back to tell my brothers. And Jesus says they have enough to know they or Abraham does. They've got enough to know they've got Moses, they've got the law. And again, he's saying this in the context of the Pharisees. In other words, you guys should know this. Jesus said in John's gospel, he said, if you believe Moses, you would believe me. And so it's kinda the same idea there that the Old Testament foreshadowed and pointed to Christ and now Christ is here. And to reject the Old Testament is to ultimately reject him. All right, Luke chapter 17, we have him again dealing with the severity of needing to treat sin radically. And we've got a mini church discipline section here in 17, beginning of verse three says, pay attention to yourselves if your brother sins rebuke him, and if you repentance forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. So again, similar to what we wrote about in Matthew chapter 18. There you've got. The reference to faith, like a mustard seed there, which, let's talk about that for a second. Pastor Rod. Should we see this as saving faith alone, or is this, man, I need to have just faith like a mustard seed as I'm going through a trial, in God's goodness, in that faith, like a mustard seed is gonna grow, is this, should we see this as more than just saving faith? Or is this faith that is. Limited to just that initial faith that we exercise in Jesus, that all that has to be is small. I think it's operational faith. Yeah. So what I mean by that is not only saving faith, I think saving faith also can be relatively small. And I think what Jesus is getting at is he's talking about the operation of your faith on a daily basis as you're going about your life. It really isn't a lot that God's asking for. He's asking you to trust him and to do what he says. And so I would say it's operational, although I wouldn't say it's exclusively that. And I would say small faith is also what's necessary to become a Christian. He doesn't ask you to jump over the moon or to do a thousand pushups or showcase your faith. He's just saying believe and trust. What do you think? Yeah, I would agree. I think you're right on that. And so many times the fate that we have when we're going through a trial is so small. Yeah. And that's encouraging. Yeah. It is encouraging. Only need a little bit. E even the father, when Jesus was. Bemoaning the fact that this was a faithless generation and the father said, I believe help my unbelief. Yeah. That small faith in saying, God, I need more faith than I have, I have enough faith to know I have to turn to you. I have to cast myself on you in this season. Gimme more faith than I have right now. I felt that before. Yeah. He talks about the 10 lepers here, which is a good reminder to us to say, Hey, we need to make sure that we are thankful to the Lord for our salvation. Yeah. Lots of cats there. 10 leopards. Leopards, uh, I got, yep. Because only one returns, only one returns thankful. And so we as Christians, should be regularly giving thanks for the salvation that we have. And then he gets into talking about the coming of the kingdom and he makes a statement there. He says, the kingdom is in your midst, Luke 1721. And the reason he says that is because the king was literally in their midst. Jesus is there he's there in the presence. It doesn't mean that the kingdom had been inaugurated. This is not support for a metaphorical a thousand years. This is not an amillennial verse that's saying that the kingdom is here and he's inaugurating it. In its metaphorical sense now, but rather that the king is there and where the king is, so is the kingdom. But later on he, he tells us in verses 23 through 24, he says, there's gonna come a day. They're gonna say to you, look there, or Look here. Do not go out or follow them for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from the one side of the other. So will the son of man be in his day? That's the coming kingdom. And so it's gonna be un unmistakable. So it's there in a veiled form with Christ. It's there in, in his kenosis, Philippians chapter two, where he is veiled his full glory and his humanity. But before we get there, the Messiah has to suffer, and that's what he says in verse 25. He must first suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Then comes the kingdom and that we've read about that recently in one Peter, one Peter chapter one verses 10 and 11, where Peter said, the prophets inquired carefully searching what time or place the spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he predicted that this. Son of man or that the Christ would suffer. And then the subsequent glories afterwards, Jesus is referring to that right here, that suffering and then the glories. But the kingdom will come and it's gonna come. Suddenly, and that goes back to our need to be ready for the coming kingdom. And so those that are lost in Luke 1737, those are the ones that are taken away. They're gonna be taken away into judgment. And so we wanna be ready for the return of Christ. We don't know when that's gonna happen, but we do know that it is going to happen. I love this chapter because one of the things that's highlighted is Jesus greatness and our relative smallness. I know this is earlier than what we were just talking about, but in verse 10, one of the right mindsets that Jesus commends of his people is we are unworthy servants. We've only done what was our duty. When's the last time you thought about yourself that way? Mm. When's the last time that you said man? I was just thanked for this. Praise God. Thank you. But I'm a unworthy servant. I, I'm just a, I'm, I am doing the Lord's work, and this is his work through me. Yeah. This is the right mindset. If every Christian in every church had this mindset, our churches would be radically changed. Yeah. We would not fight. We would not need to forgive one another because there would be such a palpable humility our relational crud would get dealt with quickly. We would not need to assert ourselves or to dominate or feel like we need our pound of flesh. You have to remember. Jesus saved all of us from the gutter. We were not the best and the brightest. We were not the dog and pony show. We weren't the ones who are winning first place, right? We were the last place people, and yet Jesus saved us. We are just unworthy servants. We've only done what was our duty. This is the right mindset. I would love for you to cultivate this, and especially speaking of forgiveness, when Jesus says If someone repents seven times, you have to forgive him. I don't think he's kidding about that, right? Jesus calls us to reconcile. There must be at least an attitude of reconciliation and ideally a transaction of reconciliation. And it's so important. Jesus will say, look if you're about to go worship the Lord Sunday morning, you're about to sing praises and say, mm-hmm. You know how great you are. Mm-hmm. If you remember your brother has something against you, go deal with that before you lift your hands to Jesus and worship. Yep. It's that important. So let me encourage you, think of yourself rightly, you're an unworthy servant, all of us are. Mm-hmm. And then let that humility drive you to keep. Short accounts with the people that God has saved. Yeah. And this flew so well into that 10 lepers because the one that comes back is the one that recognizes that he's an unworthy servant. Yep. The others are like, well, he saved me, but I had less leprosy than you had. So I mean, look at, I'm better than you are. And instead the one is like, no. And thank you for saving me. Yeah. I, I'm unworthy. That's right. Well, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God give us such a mindset, I pray that. This mindset, it doesn't come naturally. It grates against our flesh. Our flesh wants recognition. Our flesh wants the acclaim and the praise of men, but help us to serve and labor and work for you and not for the applause of men. And so we want to make sure that our rewards for our labors are not only gonna be the applause we receive here and. Earth, but the, ultimately the commendation that we'll receive from you one day when we hear well done, good and faithful servants. And so until that day, Lord, help us just to do what you've called us to do and to love one another. Well in that process as well. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles, tuning again tomorrow for another edition at the Daily Bible Podcast. See it. 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