Hey folks. This time, welcome back to Monday's edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. We have more questions. We asked and you guys asked, we said we don't have enough questions, and you guys stepped up to the plate and just started sending them in like crazy. So thank you. Good job. We're thankful for the questions. We have them now, but keep asking 'cause once we answer these. Then we'll be left to just googleize on our own. Well that's maybe an incentive not to send questions then if people like the Googling, because now we're not gonna do that. We have to answer questions we do professionally. That's true. Yeah. Well, pastor Mark's not here and we know that he drives a lot of the nonsense on the podcast anyways. So typical. Yeah. Really. Yeah. So let's get to the question. We have a question about the paralytic who was lowered through the roof, and he was laid down there at the feet of Jesus, and Jesus looks at him and he says, son, your sins are forgiven. So the question that came in today has to do with the nature of that forgiveness. What did Jesus mean when he said your sins are forgiven? The question says specifically, what did it mean to have your sins forgiven prior to the cross? What's the difference between the forgiveness and atonement in this context? It's a great question. It's a perceptive question. It's one that is, again, as we're reading, we should be asking questions like this. What did this mean? You pointed out Pastor Rod, when we read that and kind of emphasized the fact that Jesus recognizes their faith in that interaction there when Jesus forgives this man's sins, we're in full agreement with this question. There has to be atonement. There is no forgiveness without atonement. And that's something that even goes back to the Old Testament. That's what the sacrificial system in the Old Testament was meant to point to was the atonement that was necessary for the forgiveness of sins the lifeblood in the animal the death of the animal. So atonement has to take place. My take on this one is that Jesus was forgiving this man's sins and even applying the atonement of the cross. In advance in response to the faith that he perceived within this man and his friends. That's a, that's conjecture because we don't know who this man is. We don't know what the rest of this man's life looked like or his friends' lives. We don't know if they followed Jesus, if they became disciples, if they became Christians later on. But what gives me confidence that I think they did is that Jesus is very much aware that atonement is necessary, meaning a sacrifice has to be offered for sins to be forgiven. And that's one thing that differentiates us from the Muslim that may live next door to you. The capricious nature of forgiveness when it comes from. Allah, the God of Islam is not based on any perception of justice that way that we understand justice. There's no concept of a sacrifice that has to be made. There's no sacrifice of atoning, the wrath of Allah that's present there. But for us as biblical Christians, as we understand it from the very beginning of the Bible, onward, sacrifice has to exist for there to be forgiveness of sins. So that's gonna be true when Jesus tells this Man, your sins are forgiven. I believe my take on it is that this man did though it's conjecture based, end up following Jesus and become one of his disciples, become one of his followers. And so Jesus is ahead of time applying the forgiveness or the atonement of the cross to this man's sins based on his faith that he exercises through him and his friends and their actions. Yeah, I think I'm, I think I agree with that. In verse 23, this is chapter five of Luke, verse 23. He says, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven. He's arguing to the disciples rather the scribes, the Pharisees. He's saying, look, you think I'm wrong to say that your sins are forgiven? You? And he's trying to make a point. And so he says, look I can either say I forgive his sins, or I can show, I could show you that I can forgive sins by making him walk. I wonder. I'm only hesitating 'cause I haven't done enough research in this to, to make a definitive answer so that's where my slowness comes from. But I'm gonna say, I think I agree. I wondered if possibly what's happening is that he's acknowledging that his sins are forgiven already. When Jesus speaks in verse 23, he says, which is easier? Sins are forgiven you. That's in the perfect tense, which in my mind it what's not my mind. Greek grammar says this is an action that's happened in the past with ongoing. Effects. And granted, he's using that in verse 23 to talk to them after the fact. So he could just be talking about like the past three minutes ago, or he could be talking about the past as in this guy was forgiven already. Clearly his sins are forgiven because of what his faith is doing. I can declare he's forgiven based on the actions that I presently see. He was forgiven. Maybe that's one way to look at that. Another way would be to see, well this is his faith right now, and he is speaking to only him. He saw their faith together, verse 20, but he also speaks only to the man. Man, your sins singular are forgiven. You Singular. It's not plural. Yeah. Clearly he's talking to the paralytic. When he, when that forgiveness is functional, I'm not entirely sure of whether it's here and now or whether he's saying back in the past I could see your faith is legitimate. Regardless the atoning work, I think his future focus, his future pointing as all Old Testament sacrifices were, which would mean that Jesus is saying, look, this is the reality. Just like a Abraham Genesis 15. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Mm-hmm. We say counted to him as righteousness and we think, oh man, his faith is justifying, but included in that would have to mean his sins are forgiven. Yeah. It has to mean that otherwise Abraham wasn't right with God. And so in the same way that Abraham was saved, this guy was saved and Jesus is pointing to his soon coming future sacrifice on his behalf in order to declare him righteous. And I think that's what's happening here. Yeah, that's good. That's clarifying. Well, let's get into our DBR for today. We've got Judges one and two, and Luke chapter seven, one through 30. So, judges is a unique book. It is not a great book as far as if you're looking for a lot of warm fuzzies judges is not gonna give you much of it. It covers the time from Joshua's death up until Samuel's leadership takes over. So, it's gonna lead us right up to around 10 50 bc give or take. In fact, a lot of people, Jewish tradition included, holds that Samuel was the author of the Book of Judges. We don't know because the book doesn't have an author ascribed to it. In the book itself, but it would make sense because there's a repeated refrain throughout the book that says, in those days there was no king in Israel. And the people did as they pleased. And so that would seem to indicate that perhaps the author's writing during a time when there was a king that would fit Samuel. So it doesn't have to be Samuel. I'm not gonna be dogmatic on that because we just don't know. But that's what Jewish tradition has long held is that Samuel is the author of this as he reflects back during Saul's reign or perhaps at some other. Point and he records what happened in the era leading up to it. The book opens in chapter one with a fairly strong start for Judah and for Simeon in verses one through 10. As they continue the conquest in the region allotted to them they're going after this guy out Anai beek, and they end up cutting off his thumbs and his toes. He ends up dying in actually in Jerusalem as he's taken there, and he ends up dying there. But this is a strong start. There's an interlude here with Othniel Caleb's marrying Caleb's daughter here and standing up and she must have been quite the looker 'cause he's willing to go to the lengths, the extreme lengths to be able to marry her. And so, he marries Caleb's daughter. Othniel is gonna come up later on. We're gonna see him as one of the judges there. Rest of chapter one. There's more conquest. But there's also now some. Mixed in failures here. In judges one 19, Judah fails to trust the Lord Foley, which leads them to fail to completely drive out the people of the plane. There. In Judges 1 21, you see that Jerusalem is gonna be attacked, but its inhabitants are not devoted to a destruction but permitted to continue living there among the people. Again, the these are the beginning cracks in the facade and the veneer here where Israel is failing to do what God told them to do. 1 27 through 36 more failures to drive out completely. Israel's disobedience is gonna grow. And they're permitting these people to remain in the land would prove costly. In the end, they're gonna be the snare that God said that they would be. But chapter one, open seems strong, and then we see the failures begin to creep in. Verse one says that after the death of Joshua, the people, the people of Israel, inquired of the Lord and I think I take that as being part of the problem for them. Anytime they don't have strong, centralized leadership, they go astray. They start doing strange things, and even though they're doing a good thing. Going after Adonai beek. I, it's terrible. The barbarism where they're cutting off his toes and his thumbs, that's not something God told them to do. Right? Even though he himself did it. And he acknowledges that this is not the kind of ethic that God gives them destroying them entirely. that would arguably be more merciful. But instead they do what they do and the silence of God is a deafening silence. It's something to me that speaks to God's disapproval of the situation and the further dissent of the chapter reminds me that this is in fact what's happening. The whole book of judges, everything that you read is suspect. Anything they do, you should not take and say, well, this is clearly an example for me to follow the whole book of judges. The purpose of it is to give you a cycle of judges, Israel sins, they're delivered into. Foreigners. God sends them a deliverer to take them out of their sins and their situation only for them to be at peace for just a short period of time to go back into it. They sin, they get delivered into a conquering people. They're delivered by a judge, and the cycle goes on and on and on. At the very last section of the book of Judges, there was no king in Israel. Everyone knew what was right in his own eyes. Yes, I think they, he says that three or four times. So the Book of Judges is not a good book. There are lessons to be learned, but making and drawing application from judges is a little more challenging because it's not as obvious. You almost have to make. Application by the contrast, like what would it have looked like for them to do this the right way? And to your point, PPJ, they're sending by not driving people out, they're not doing what they should be doing. And so their leadership, because there's no one at the helm, they begin to suffer. They all go their own way. There's no shepherd to care for them. And that's again, another reason why we need Jesus. Chapter two opens up with, and Pastor Mark's not here to argue with us. So, if you wanna argue in his stead, you can, but I think this is, again, a Christoph. If we wanna call it just a theophany, that's fine, but I believe this is the angel of the Lord acting as God because of the way that he speaks here. And when he speaks as God, you have angels that come and for example, when the angel shows up to Mary, the angel clearly is not speaking as God, but it says that the you have found favor with the Lord, that the angel is speaking on behalf of God, but not as God. This is the angel speaking as God. I brought you up from the land of Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, I will never break my company. And he goes on and on using the first person, which leads me to. To conclude that the angel of the Lord the angel of the army of the Lord is indeed the pre-incarnate Christ. And that's my take again because we see the Christ as the member of the Godhead who does take on human form eventually we, whereas we see the Father referred to in John for as God as Spirit, we see the Holy Spirit obviously as a spiritual being. I believe this to be a Christoph here. As the book opens, does it make or break anything? No, God is reminding them of. What he's done and then challenging them and warning them and even promising his wrath that's going to come because they have not obeyed his voice. Really sad development is that it only took one generation. For Israel to totally lose it. Verse seven, the people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. But notice here in verse 10, all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there are arose another generation. So we're just talking one, maybe two generations if we wanna be generous here. Another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Now the word no is interesting because it can be taken in a few different ways. No can mean literally like, oh I didn't know the way that we typically use it. But no can also have the, a more intimate and relational connotation. It can be used to speak about a man and wife. Relationship, if you catch my drift. He knew his wife Rebecca, and she bore that kind of idea here and here. I think what's happening is not a knowledge of like, oh, we didn't know that, but more a knowledge of relationship. They didn't know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. That tells me it's more than the knowledge of relationship. It's a knowledge of what he actually did. They were biblically illiterate. So multiple layers of failure here. And the question I ask is, how did this happen? How did this happen? What took place? What failure, like what a massive failure and it only took one or maybe two generations for it to take place. I think the warning for us is for all of us, is not to take for granted what you might ordinarily be tempted to think, oh, there's always gonna be a good church. Oh, we're always gonna have the Bible at the center. Oh, we're always gonna have faithful preaching and teaching. Oh, we're always gonna have these. A rich worship songs that we sing, those are not givens. Decline and drift happens slowly over the course of time to the point where clearly it's possible that it can be forgotten. We have to fight to keep our focus where it belongs, and if we don't, we will drift. Is there anything in that concept. As the church, we have the spirit of God dwelling within us, which is unique. That's not something that the Israelites had. In fact, we see the spirit rush upon people from time to time, but they did not have the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. To help preserve them even as we talk about the perseverance of the saints. We've talked about that a little bit in one Peter, that God is guarding us through power for a salvation ready to be revealed. In the last time you'd look at Ephesians one, we've been sealed by the promised Holy Spirit. They had a different relationship to God than that wasn't as, I don't know if preservative is the right word. It wasn't as secure as ours is today as Christians. Different. I'd have to say it was, it's different. Obviously, the future promises of the new covenant were that you'll have a heart of stone removed and you'll be given a heart of flesh and that speaks to a love and an affection for the Lord that transcends the regulations and the rules. Not saying that was all that was there, but I also see, again, I'm gonna look back at Abraham and see his relationship. He knew God and God honored him. And there was a, there was salvation there, but it wasn't spirit-filled salvation like we enjoy today. So yeah, I think there's a difference for sure, but there's not a difference in the level of commitment and responsiveness to the Lord. Sure God expected them to do this and granted, I would say it was probably hard for them. Because of their relationship with God that they had no spirit. Like we do the indwelling work of the spirit to keep us, to preserve us, to motivate us. But they were still responsible. Sure. The difference is that God now en enables us by his grace to do the things that he calls us to do. So the difference is that they didn't have the same resources and benefits that we enjoy. And consequently, because we have greater blessings and greater benefits, there is now greater responsibility. Yeah, I'd agree. I found it interesting, and I think it's only here that it says in verse eight, Joshua, the son of none. The servant of the Lord died at 110 years. Moses was called, time and time again. Moses, the servant of the Lord. I think this is the first time at the very end of his life that Joshua gets the same epitaph as his mentor did, as Moses did as he's called here Joshua, the servant of the Lord. 'cause earlier it's, it refers to Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, but it doesn't give him that same moniker the way it did with Moses before. So maybe a stamp of approval from God. As Joshua dies here, that he recorded that he is like Moses was the servant of the Lord. It's a good catch. One other thing to note in verse 11 here, it says, in the people of Israel, did what was evil in the side of the Lord. I, if you underline your Bibles, highlight anything in your Bible, that's gonna be a repeated refrain that's gonna show up over and over and over again. Like Pastor Rod said, the Book of Judges is meant to show us a cycle of judges that people do what's evil. God hears their will, will punish their evil. Hear their cry for mercy. Show them mercy and raise up a judge. And so we're gonna begin to see that unfold in the coming days here as we get deeper and deeper into the book of judges. Let's go over to the New Testament though. We've got Luke chapter seven verses one through 30. Luke seven, one through 30. In Luke chapter seven, we are introduced to the Centurion who came to Jesus while he was there at Capernaum. And he came because he had a servant who was at the point of death. And I touched by this because this was a man who clearly cared about his. Staff. This is not a son. This is not a child, but this is a servant. And yet he cares about him to the point that he's willing to pursue his healing. And so he approaches Jesus sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. It says in verse six, Jesus went with. Them. And so as he was on his way towards the house, the Centurion sent friends. And so this is where we get a little bit of a interesting situation because one account says that the Centurion went, the other account says that the friends of the centurion went on behalf of him. And so I think we can probably assume that it was the friends that were sent on behalf of the Centurion, but they were acting as him in, in, in a representative fashion with Jesus. And so they come to Jesus and they're pleading for him to to come and do this. But the servant is. Is dead at this point. And the centurion tells Jesus if you will just say the word I know that he will be healed. Is he dead yet? Did I misspeak just then? I may have misspoken. I don't know that he's yet dead. I don't think he's yet dead. The friends come to him saying, Lord, do not trouble yourself. That's what it is. The friends come and say, Jesus, you don't have to come in. In here to my house because I'm a man just like you under authority. Just say the word and he'll be healed. And that's exactly what happens here in, and the servant is healed. I get this confused with the son sometimes and when the son dies. But this is not the son. This is the servant. So now that I've confused you thoroughly, this is again, Jesus demonstrating his power over death and his authority and his deity. Because he heals from such a great distance this would've taken a long time to walk to, to get to this centurion's house. And instead he just says, in response to your faith, I'm going to go ahead and do what you've asked. I'm gonna heal your. Servant, and that's exactly what happens here. Yeah. It speaks to our current prayers and our faith even today, because Jesus is not here on the scene with us. He's not physically present in our churches. He's not in your homes. And yet we can be assured and confident that his prayer does extend as far as the curse is found, which would include your home, your living room, your bedroom, where you have a sick child or even the hospital room where you have a sick relative. Jesus' power is not limited by spatial constraints. It is powerful and effective to do all sorts of things everywhere in all of human creation and even beyond what you and I would acknowledge as creation. The universe is constantly expanding. Which leads me to ask, what's beyond the universe? If it's expanding, what's out there? What do you call that? I don't know what the answer to that is, but I do know that God's power even extends beyond our known limitations. And here it's a small distance by comparison. It just shows us our faith is never in vain when it's in the Lord. Yeah. This scene with the widow son, which precedes what happens in the rest of the chapter, which is the messengers from John the Baptist, which we've read about a couple times now. When John says, Hey, are you the one? But before we get there, the scene with the widow son I think is so sweet because Jesus, no doubt. There was a lot of death happening all around Jesus and he didn't resurrect every single person that he came across that had died. He didn't resurrect go into the graveyards and just say, okay, everybody up, let's go get back after it. But he sees a widow who's lost her son, and you say, well, why is that such a big deal? Other than the fact that, man, this is hard because anytime a parent loses a child would've been hard. That widow, her lifeline would've been her son. Her son would've been the one that would've cared for her and provided for her, and made sure that she didn't go into destitute state of homelessness and despair. And so losing her son on top of having lost her husband, she was really gonna be just totally alone. And so when we see here that it says that Jesus had compassion on her. I think this is far more than just the warmth of here's your son back, but he has compassion for her life. He values her and doesn't want her to go into the destitution that she would've otherwise gone into, had her son truly been dead and buried. And so Jesus' meeting needs that aren't even explicitly discussed in this paree here, in this scene by giving her her son back so that she would be cared for in the future. Yeah, they spoke better than they knew when they said God has visited his people. Truly. And not only that, but much more. Yeah. Well, in the rest of our reading, which goes through verse 30 today, we again have the situation where John is in prison and he sends to Jesus to say, are you the one? And John, understandably, I think, is showing a little bit of his impatience here as he's in prison. And this is gonna lead to his death. He's gonna lose his head to Herod. And he's wondering, is it now? This is not a question of ignorance. This is a question that the other disciples would've had as well. 'cause in Luke 24 that we're gonna get to in a little while here, the two disciples after the cross they've got the same question. They thought Jesus was coming right then to establish the kingdom. So that was a, an understanding that was there prevalent within the disciples and it appears that John had it as well. So Jesus sends messengers back to correct his understanding and to say, yes, I'm the one. And he does so by quoting from Malachi three as well as Isaiah 29. And. Chapter 35 as well to say that, John, yes, I'm the one that, that has, has come to fulfill these things. And yes, you are the one, as he turns to the crowd to say, this is the one who is the messenger that was sent before the face of the Messiah. And so this is the statement of verse 28. No one is, has been born of women greater than John, and so Jesus thought great, greatly and highly of his, most likely his cousin here, but he's correcting an assumption that wasn't John's alone, the other disciples had it too. I love the way that Jesus responds to him. And this is the most famous guy in the Old Testament, John. John is the last part of the old order. And Jesus says about him there's no one greater this guy's it. But even the least in the kingdom is greater than he, he says to this greatest figure under the old covenant. Bless is the one who's not offended by me. I love that because, well, the, it's actually quite a comfort. If Jesus never offends you I wonder if you're even interacting with the real Jesus, number one. So there is something good about that. If you find yourself offended by him, it's because you're engaging with the real God. If you, God is always in agreement with you, you probably aren't reading the real God. You're yourself into God. But secondly, I think it warns us. To not be casual or formulaic about our relationship with Christ, to have expect expectations of him that are either ill-informed or unbiblically informed, where we have certain desires that God will do. If I just do these things and God's going to do these things for my family, he's going to take care of my kids in these ways. He's going to keep our house and protect our 401k. I think a lot of us may not, we may not say those things, but we would be thoroughly upset and depressed if after giving and after serving, and after going the extra mile, staying the extra hour, spending the extra dollar, God let something tragic happen to us. Mm-hmm. I think Jesus' words are to us and for us, blessed is the one who's not offended by me. Let the Lord be the Lord. That's the role that he should play our role as a servant to say, Lord, as you will, in fact, even like Mary, be it unto me as you say, whatever you want, Lord, if this is the path that you want me to take to honor you, and so be it. And John the Baptist path was beheading. And if we're in good company with John, if we're saying we're on John's side, we're on Jesus' side. We need to be okay with the fact that God may not do the things that you expect him to do. And if he says, this is what's necessary for your good and my glory, that's where we need to trust him most. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that we would have that mentality that says your will be done. Even as we talked about this past Sunday, as Whitfield said I'd rather wear out than rust out. I pray that we would get to that place of always being willing to do good while entrusting our souls to our faithful creator, that we would be pursuing you no matter what circumstance you lead us into, and trusting that you are Lord, even as Pastor Rod was just saying. So help us to be that type of church Lord that's faithful to you in all things we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Keep in your Bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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