Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Saturday. This is Holy Saturday, or sometimes called Black Saturday. Is it called Black Saturday? Sometimes, not always. It depends on what liturgical calendar you follow. But yes, it can be called Holy Sat Saturday or Black Saturday. Is that where the band Black Sabbath? Yes. You got their name. That's, I don't know, maybe that is it. I doubt it. And they're not a Christian band by any stretch of imaginations, so last time I heard they were not professing believers. Yeah. But things could change. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about that then. Where's Jesus today? Not today. Today. We know where he is right now, but. 2000 years ago, where was Jesus on Saturday? What was he doing? While his body was in the tomb? In fact, we talked about this a little bit last night, that there is a, there's the deity the human nature of Christ and the god, the deity of Christ, right? And the death was experienced. The physical death was experienced in his humanity. But his divine nature did not die in that sense. It didn't cease to exist in his divine nature. He still was God and God can't die. And so that's confusing, but where, let's talk through that Pastor Rod. Where is Jesus on Saturday as his body is in the tomb? So that's an important place to start, what you just said. Everybody should know his body, his physical. Flesh was in the tomb. There, there was, there's no funny business there. The disciples did not steal his body, contrary to popular opinion but where his soul is, where his spirit is, God is spirit, and those who worship him as worship in spirit and truth. John chapter four, I believe it's verse 24, we'd have to say that Jesus' spirit is with the Father, and I think that's our best. That's my best guess. There is a, there is something mysterious about the timing of it though, and I'll offer this because Jesus is said to have gone to proclaim to the spirits in prison sometime after his death on the cross. This is mentioned in one Peter and he says that Jesus went there, actually one Peter three 18 region being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. This could actually be understood a few different ways, but there's something happening. He's probably proclaiming victory. I've defeated sin and death. He's proclaiming his victory in the cross and his soon to be resurrection. So it's hard to say what the exact and precise timing is, but in fact, even have the Apostles creed, which says that he descended into hell. So that might be worth talking about. But we believe that at some point in that transition, Jesus did go to. The right hand of the father in some limited sense because he doesn't fully do that until he ascends to the right hand of the father, post his 40 days back on Earth after his resurrection. So he ascends to the right hand of God in the flesh with his new body, minus the the physical wounds, which will remain there for the rest of eternity. So there, there is a bit of mystery in terms of the timing, but that would be my short-ish answer. Pastor Pia, I'd love for you to jump on in. Yeah. The, that Credle statement that he descended into hell was actually not originally a the. The, in the autograph of the Apostle Cree. It wasn't part of the original document. It was added subsequent at a lot of time. By who? I don't remember. Bob. I was just researching this though. 'cause I was studying this for for this weekend. I can't remember who it was that, that added that in. Was it that Uncle Bob that you always talk about? Yes, it was him. He did it. He's so mischievous. He doing stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. He is. No, I would agree with you. I think my take on it is that Christ was in heaven at the, with the Father. In fact, when he says to the thief on the cross, today, you will be with me in paradise. Some believe that because the text actually says, I say to you. Comma, today, you'll be with me in Paradise. Because the original documents didn't have any punctuations. No. Some argue, yeah. That it was, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise, which would imply that, okay, maybe Jesus wasn't in paradise with him, but he's saying, I'm saying to you right now in this moment, that eventually you will be, that's what the Jehovah's Witnesses say. And I don't think that bears, I don't think that holds up. I think as, as far as the. Proclaiming victory to the spirits in prison. I, in part I, the disarming, the rulers and the authorities that, that exist there. I think it's hard that, that's such a problem, passage for us of what does that mean? What does that look like? I don't believe Christ descended into hell. And certainly he didn't need to descend into hell to experience any sort of suffering. All of the hell that Christ experienced was the hell on the cross. Yeah. He absorbed the full wrath of the father, which is why he says it is finished. And so the only reason for him to venture into Hell is to. Proclaim victory. But then there's a question of, okay, to what end? Because the, some have said he went, he descended into hell to lead for lead out of hell that the, or out of the holding tank, if you will, the Old Testament saints, and lead them up into the presence of the father now again, I think that's an extrapolation. I don't think that's there in the text. So it's hard. It's a troubling passage. I'm confident saying he was with the father and being with the father. He was with the thief on the cross the believing thief on the cross at that point. And then reunited with his. Humanity in on the third day, on Sunday morning. What you're doing introduces the principle of interpreting less clear scriptures with the more, more clear scriptures. Jesus words to the thief on the cross do make it clear that he was in paradise, right? Minus the punctuation. It's, it would be really strange for Jesus to say, Hey, I'm saying this to you today. Obviously you are right. Yeah. And Jesus never says anything like that. He, it would be a unique phrase of Jesus to say, Hey, I say to you today. He doesn't do that, right? This would be the only instance. So it's better to say, I say to you. Today you'll be with me in Paradise. That makes more sense of the context, and therefore that's one of the clearest indicators of what we believe about Jesus presence after the crucifixion. So he had to have done some kind of proclamation to the spirits in Sheol at that point in the realm of the dead and then gone to the Father. But again, I would say it's a limited, it's not the formal ascendancy to the right hand because he didn't have his body. His body has was still on earth and he needed to go retrieve it because he's the first fruits of the resurrection. This is what's gonna happen to you and me at some point in the future. Our bodies may be left here. And our souls are gonna go to be with him, to be away from the bodies, to be present with the Lord. That's what Paul says, which seems to be, seems to apply also to Jesus himself. And so at some point he's gonna resurrect us our souls and our bodies will be reunited and glorified and be given to the Father for forever never to experience sin or suffering or death ever again. And that's what our hope is. And that's why Jesus being the pioneer of our faith, the first fruits of the resurrection, gives us that confidence because he's already shown that it's possible and that he's done it. Yeah. Yeah. And to the point that you made right at the beginning of that, when he said that's not in keeping with the things that he says, if he was trying to convey that, he would've said something like truly, I say to you, you will be with me in Paradise. That's what he would do to set something up and emphasize what he was about to say, is he would say truly, I say to you, right? Bingo. And instead of saying, I say to you today, yeah, no I'm with you man. I. Fascinating. I was reading through and preaching on this tomorrow, so I'm gonna be careful not to preach my legs out from under me on this one. Don's do it. It's it a smaller exegetical point. Don't do it. But it's fascinating to think about because Jesus is with Mary Magdalene after he raises from the dead, by the way, he raises surprise. What? And she's holding to him, holding onto him. And he says to her, don't clinging to me. I have not yet ascended. Go and tell my brothers that I am ascending. To their father and your father and their God and your God, and and Carson as well as a couple others make the point that Jesus may have gone back and forth in his resurrected body between the right hand of the Father and Earth during the 40 days of his. Of his post resurrection appearances. Interesting. Rather than interesting spending the night and sleeping there on earth, which would make sense with the appearance records that we have of this, because he shows up in the upper room with the doors locked, right? And then what do we find next? We find the disciples, they're out, ready to go fishing again, which would imply that they're waiting on the appearance of Jesus again. They don't, he hasn't been with them. And so they're ready to go back fishing again. They go back fishing again. Jesus, all of a sudden is on the beach again. And Peter's so excited 'cause they're Jesus again and he jumps outta the boat and he swims to shore. I like it. I like the idea of it. It seems like a stretch, but I like it. I'm, and I'm with you. I'll grant, it's a stretch, but they're, the reason is they're looking at that statement, don't clinging to me. I have not yet ascended. Go and tell them I am ascending to the father, to their father and your father. It's such a difficult text to understand what he's really driving at there that. You are left to, to speculate a little bit. And that's where they went in their sanctified speculation of going maybe he was, yeah. And see this is where my, again, this is similar to the Saturday situation where I'm saying it, I, there is something special about his ascendancy. Yeah. His coming to the right hand of the father. Yeah. That's a big deal and probably a bigger, big deal than we often think about. So I, yeah, it makes sense. It's a possibility. It just puts me back in the Saturday situation and saying, okay what's the nature of that? Going back to the father looking and what would you call that? Is everything short of the ascendancy? Except it's not the final. Ascendancy. Which is why it's okay. Yeah. It just feels different. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Alright, let's jump into our text now that we're 10 minutes into our go. Sorry, we're gonna, we're gonna make it quick. This has been doctrinal googly. It's been yeah. You can't be mad at this. Good googly. Hey first Samuel 28. So without Samuel and with God not responding to his inquiries about what to do here when the Philistines are drawing up for battle against him, Saul turns to. The medium the witch of Endor, if you will, and asks her to bring Samuel up. She does. And she's, I think, shocked possibly because it actually worked. And and here's Samuel, and she sees Samuel and that immediately tells her who she's dealing with, even though Saul was disguised. She says, your Saul, what have you done? Samuel says, Saul, what have you done? Why am I here? And Saul tells Samuel God wouldn't talk to me. Tell me what's gonna happen. And Samuel says the Philistines are gonna win, and you and your sons, you're both gonna die. All of you're gonna die in battle. And it wrecks Saul at that point afterwards, and his men and this this medium, have to try to encourage him to take some food to be strong, to be able to go on and continue with the battle at hand. One Samuel 29. The Philistines grow suspicious in this chapter of David and his men, as we've alluded to. And and they basically go to King Ake and they say, Hey, we don't want David and his men going with us. And ake calls David and says to David, Hey, you've been fine. I have no reason to question you, but my men are uncomfortable with you. We're gonna send you back home. You don't need to go into battle with this. And David says something interesting in verse eight that hit me differently this time. David said to Aish, but what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I entered your service until now that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my Lord the king? I wonder if David wasn't communicating, wasn't. The double meaning there that he, my Lord the king isn't Aish, but it's still Saul at this point. And that's in keeping with the fact that he wouldn't raise his hand against the Lord's anointed. That for him as an Israelite, Saul is still his Lord and king because he's the one that God put in place over the people of Israel. So David could Integrity with integrity. Tell Aish, look, I, I'm surely I'm gonna go and fight against the enemies of my Lord of the king. Yeah. Meaning, dude I'm going, I'm gonna take you guys out. Which would be deception. It would be, which suggests that there's a difference between lying and deception. Yes. I, so I, here's interesting. I've been, you and I talked about this before and I just want to lay it out here. I've been doing some more studying lately. Came across a situation that has caused me to dive back into this subject again. And as clearly as we can say let's just say the Lord hates lying. Yes, he is Evidently clear about that. He hates lying. But there are times when deception, it is permissible. It doesn't, but, and I guess again we qualified this last time. I'll just say it again. You can use this in a sinful way to say, I'm just gonna lie. And the Lord's okay with that. That's not what I'm trying to say here. But evidently this is, you're exactly right. David is using a fork's tongue. To say something true, even though in Ish's mind he's saying something favorable to him, he's actually saying the exact opposite. I don't think this is wrong on David's part. It is. It's what he's saying is true. Yeah. But what Aish believes is not true. I think this is intentional and deception on David's part that is permissible. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, I think so too. David is sent back in chapter 30. He comes back to a horrific scene back at Ziklag where he and his men have been living. And that is that the town has been ransacked and burned and all of his loved ones and the family members and every, everybody else have been taken captive. And they are now with the Amalekites, you'll remember the malachite, you remember King A gag. From a while back that Saul didn't fully execute the Amalekites didn't kill ag G we said they were gonna come back on the scene. Here they are and David and his men are distraught. His men are angry to the point that they're blaming David for this. But you'll note in verse six, David strengthened himself in the Lord his God, which. Sounds great, but we have to understand what he means. What is what? How did he do that? And that's what is next. He turned to the Lord and sought guidance from God when things were looking bleak for him, and he was distraught and he was distressed, and he was crushed and downtrodden and afraid for his life. He did not look for human wisdom to try to help him out of the situation. He didn't pull himself up by his own bootstraps and say let me figure this out on my own. He turned to the Lord and sought the Lord's guidance. Sought the Lord's wisdom, said, Lord, I need you to help. Me here. I think that's what it means, that he strengthens himself and the Lord is God. And we should do that too. And God responds and says, David, go I'll be with you. And so David rallies his men and what was probably the greatest halftime speech ever given to, to get them from wanting to kill him to being. Willing to go out against the Amalekites. And God just so happens to orchestrate things that they find this servant who was a servant of the Amalekites and he leads them to the camp. And David and his men get their vengeance. And I love it because David takes 400 men into battle with him. The 600, but then 200 stay with the baggage. He takes 400 men into battle with him. And it says in the text that 400 of them escaped. Of the Amalekites. So the number of those that escape are equal to the attacking army there, which gives us an in, in indication number one of the rage that they probably attacked with. And number two, this was gout behind the army. Chapter 31. Then oh, by the way, just a shrewdness of David there at the end of chapter 30. It says, when David came to Ziklag verse 26, he sent part of the spoil to his friends the elders of Judah saying, here's a present for you from the spoil of the enemies of the Lord. And so David is setting up his leadership already here by by currying favor with the leaders of Judah here. And so this is shrewd by David to do what he does here. Chapter 31. This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Samuel, or the spirit of Samuel at least. And this is where Saul and Jonathan and Beda and mal Kahua, the sons of Saul are killed in battle. And the battle rages Saul ends up falling on his own spear. And then when the Philistines find the bodies of Saul and Jonathan and the other, the his other sons, they take them to Behan and they hang them on the wall there in Behan. And the men of Jesh, Gilead, I mentioned, if you remember all the way back to the. Opening episode when we talked about the reign of Saul, that I said, remember the men of j Jesh Gilead, because they're gonna remember Saul fondly because they hear about what's happened. And this is the town that Saul had delivered originally, and he had gone to their rescue right off the bat when he had first become king. And so they go to Betson and they take the bodies down and they bring them back and they give them a burial that. Is fitting with Saul's role as king. Quick note here about the fact that they were burned. This is not a typical way to, to handle dead bodies. The most likely reason why is because their bodies were mangled. They weren't pretty to look at. There's a, as you can imagine, if they're taking the body of Saul and his sons they're gonna, they're gonna parade that. So their bodies are probably not in good shape. That's probably why they burn the bodies to prevent further desecration or shame. But Christians. For the longest time do what they do. In verse 13, they bury people. We, we bury people and there's a really important reason for that. I know a lot of people today will look at cremation as being a viable solution for dealing with the dead body. Can you quickly just say why we think that it's better to bury a body versus cremating? It has to do with what's gonna happen when the Lord returns and the resurrection bodies that we have the bodies that we have, that we sow. Perishable are gonna be raised imperishable. So though they're gonna look different than they do presently, praise God. Our earthly bodies will have something to do with our glorified bodies and we want to honor those earthly bodies even in death, even though it's just the shell, even though the soul doesn't stay with the body, we want to show that they are our. Still the created in the image of God and one day will raise to, to be reunited with the soul in the glorified body. That doesn't mean that somebody who is, has been cremated or the, something that happens in a, an explosion or something like that that they're not gonna have a glorified body. No, they will. We just want to be careful to. To honor the body as much as we possibly can because God's not done with it yet. And and that's important for us to know we're not here to just destroy the earthly shell, because God's gonna take that and transform it into its glorified body, which Paul talks about in one Corinthians 15 as well. So there's great, rich symbolism that's connected to a burial. And I would hope if you're thinking about your family in the future and you're preparing your own grave and you're thinking about buying your plot. Or your little container where you would put your ashes, we would strongly encourage you to consider the rich symbolism of burying your body. Because of how, this is the, this has been the Christian tradition for years now. Even in Christian cemeteries, the feet point East with the expectation that Jesus will show up in the east and you'll just rise straight up, ready to face him as opposed to facing the other direction. Not that he couldn't figure it out. He could turn you the way he wants it to, but. Everything is symbolic and the symbolism is important. We think it's worth if you can make it happen to do that. It's a good thing. It's a great thing even. And just like you get married in front of people you get married with witnesses and there's Christian symbolism all over that you wouldn't say let's just go to the courthouse. It's just as. Honest, and it's true. I guess you could say, let's just go to the courthouse. Let's formalize it with the state. You could do that, but most people understand the significance of the marriage ceremony. And we would say there's just as much significance in the burial ceremony, putting you in the grave and pointing your feet toward the east. If we're able to, at a Christian cemetery and saying, look, your body's gonna be resurrected again. This is the hope of the Christian life. Yeah. In in Israel, on the Mount of Olives, there's a Jewish cemetery and they are all buried with their feet towards the city. And so the Mount of Olives is on the outside of the city, walls there in Jerusalem, but they're all pointed towards the city and and the gate there wherein they, it's prophesied that the Lord will walk into. So that's cool. Zacharia talks about the Lord descending in his feet, landing on the Mount of Olives. And so when that happens, the idea there is the resurrection of the dead there will follow him in the mess, the Messiah into the city. Now the Jews that's cool are Miss. Misunderstood in that today because they missed the first coming of the Messiah. But you think about the Old Testament that was there, they were ready to go in with the Messiah. Given the fact that I do have Jewish blood in me, I'd like to be buried there. So we're all listening. Yeah, I think it's Christine, my love. I wanna be buried there. I think it costs a lot, pastor PJ make it happen. I think it costs a lot of money. I fully expect to go before you do please. Again, these are my dying wishes. I want to be buried at that cemetery. Okay. Thank you. Okay, great. Awesome. Good thing there's not haunting because I don't know if we're gonna be able to make that happen. I would ask the Lord to make a special provision for me to come into this office until you make things right. You ever see that? Was that Kevin Costner ghost? Yeah. It's been a long time. It's been a minute, huh? Yeah, it's an old movie. Anyway. Yeah. Alright, Psalm 18, then as we wrap things up here today you'll notice that this is here because of the title of this. It says, the Psalm of David, servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this P song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul. When is this specifically? We're not sure, I don't think this is the day that he found out that Saul has died. 'cause he's gonna have a different song that he's gonna sing then he's gonna sing a song that honors Saul and honors Jonathan when he finds out about the death of Saul. But I think this is just reflecting back on the fact that the Lord did spare him, that the Lord did. He didn't have to take things into his own hand. He didn't have to kill Saul himself. Even though he was given two opportunities to golden opportunities, he can look back at the Lord and say, okay, God, you were in control. You honored my submission and obedience to you. And he gives this this praise in this psalm. And so it covers the. Things like the first three verses, focusing on the Lord as the refuge for David, the place of safety, the place that he could flee and be safe in the Lord. Verses four through 19, the Lord as the deliverer, he's the one that is gonna bring deliverance, not David, by him, his own hand, but the Lord is gonna do that verses 20 through 30, an expression of just confidence in God. God your way is perfect, is basically what David is saying here. He's his, he's worked things out in accordance with his plan, and his plan is ideal. His plan is perfect. There's no questioning it. And then verses 31 through 45, focused on the victory of God, the victory of the Lord, making sure that everybody, again knows who gets the glory in this. It's not David, it's not anyone else. It's it is the Lord. The Lord is the one who's worked all things together. And then it concludes with a section in verses 46 through 50 of just David praising God. And so Psalm 18 is so rich. So much here. But it's a good reflection back on, on everything from the time that David was anointed to David and Goliath, to his time in Saul's service to then running for his life. And all of that leads to the culmination of him looking back at all of that in Psalm 18 and St. God, you are good for what you've done. Amen. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God, this is Saturday of Holy Week, and we are reminded of the reality of your death still today as the body of our Lord and Savior was still in the tomb today. And it was yet to be resurrected, yet to be raised, and yet it was going to be. And even now as you were proclaiming victory over the spirits imprisoned and we confess that we don't fully understand what that meant or what that looked like, you were proclaiming victory. We do know what that meant in that. The cross was the instrument by which you disarmed the rulers and the authorities of this age. And so we're so thankful for the cross. We're grateful for this time. We can't wait for tomorrow morning to gather with our people, with our church family, and to say he has risen. He's risen indeed as we celebrate the resurrection together. So we look forward to that. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep bring your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for a Resurrection Day Easter momentous edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Woo. Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said