Everybody welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Welcome back. Hola. Guess who's who? Could you guys tell? Can you tell the difference between our voices now? You've said I know more Spanish than you do probably. I'm okay with that. I'm only slightly embarrassed every time I have to acknowledge that in front of my Hispanic brethren and Citrin. Hey, we don't always call everybody out, but. I was remiss to not mention my son's birthday. Oh, speaking of Mexicans, he's not. He's not one. Yeah. Surprise. Josh, you're adopted. My oldest turned 17 yesterday, which is way older to find out. Wow. Just crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how fast time goes and. Have him one more year with him before he is an adult and outta the house and, yep. Oh, is he, are you kicking him out at 18? At 18 the day of? Yeah. Make this your notice. Joshua. Joshua, you've got a year long notice that's more generous than any landlord, but man, it's crazy. And I know Pastor Rod, you feel this as well as your son is up there as in the same age range and it just goes by fast. We're sitting here with Pastor Mark who's still raising little ones. He's barely 16. Yeah. But it's not gonna be long before he's sitting here saying the same things and it is just blink of an eye. So I'm proud of him. Immensely proud of you, Joshua, as you're listening to this. I'm thankful for the young man that God is making you to be. And I'm excited to see what he does with your life. That's right. Go Josh. But hey, we've got another question. Yes. Or some insights. Sure. Some, some feedback perhaps. We have someone writing a few thoughts that, and I'll try to summarize 'cause there's a lot here. Okay. Cora's Rebellion Give, give a response to this. They suggest that instead of the little ones who died. Because of what their dad did. It would be better to say that they died by the sins of the father rather than for the sins of their fathers. Similar to a drunk driver killing his family by driving off of a cliff. React to that. Yeah, I understand the difference. And yet at the same time, if we understand God's sovereignty, I think it might be kicking the can down the road a little. It because whether they are dying for or by, I think God is the one that is sovereignly executing. The little ones along with the fathers there. They're ultimately dying as a result of the sins of the father there, the sin of Cora in that from our perspective as we look at it, not having all of the wisdom to be able to know exactly what's going on there. So I, I get it. I do understand the distinction. They're not being executed as far as the legal system of justice. But from the point of view of us serving a sovereign God who ordains all things and actually with Cora, I would argue they are being executed in God's courtroom. 'cause he's the one that opens up the ground beneath them and swallows them alive in that. So, man I'm not making this a, a more palatable impression of what takes place there, but I think that goes back to what we talked about last week. Pastor Adam, when you were saying at the end of the day, God is sovereign. Mm-hmm. And it's ours to submit ourselves to him, even in those moments that we can't understand. In fact, we're gonna get there not too long from now. Deuteronomy chapter 29, 29, the secret things belong to God. I think there's measures of the secrecy of his justice that we have to say. You are just, at the end of the day, you are good. And I have to let that hold true in my perception of what you do. It has to submit itself to the indicatives of who you've revealed yourself to be. And that is that you are just, you are good, you are holy, you are love, and these are the things that you do. And I have to trust that in your sovereign purview of how you work them out. You are still all of those things, even through all of these, the, these situations that we may not fully understand. Yeah, I guess I, I find it more comforting. This is odd 'cause I'm slicing and dicing here. I'd be more comfortable with. The idea that that's the father who drives them off of the cliff. Where in, in Cora's rebellion, it was God who acted directly to do the thing, which I think in some ways is better. Again, God has the prerogative to do what he sees fit, but I also wonder if how I read it is the right way, because again, Cora's family shows up later. Cora's sons, his descendants show up as musicians. So I wonder if E either A, there's another Cora family and that's possible, or B some of Cora's descendants were not actually taken out and some of the little ones were spared. Now, for what reason? Why, when, who we, I don't know. And I don't even know. Again, it could, the Sons of Cora could be a different Cora. Either that or Psalm 42, 45, 46, which are by the sons of Cora are his descendants, and some were spared and God just doesn't tell us. On what basis that happened, so I'm not sure they're both messy. I don't like either one of them, but again, we come back to, I know God is good. I trust him implicitly, and I have every reason to trust him even when he does things that in my mind, right here, right now, don't make sense. Yeah, we will get there eventually. But there's the scene, or maybe we already did the scene where the Israelite city is to be, is called to be true to like the Canaanite city. You and I were talking about that this past weekend. Right? If there was a city there to make a diligent search. Right. And if that search revealed that they were. Pagan people, right? They were doing bad things. They were called to render that city destruct. Right? Or destruct. Destroyed rather. Right in that diligence search, I think it leaves room for people to be found who are saying, Hey, we're not following the wickedness and evil that you're seeing in the city here. Yeah. We don't want to be like them, and they could be rescued out of that. Such that those that are left behind are really truly only the ones that are fully embracing and fully saying, we're rejecting God because we love Baal. We're rejecting God because we love the ushering. So I think there are occasions where we can, there's some white space between the lines where we're not privy to everything going on in all of these different scenes. Right. We'll cover part two of that email on the next podcast. Sounds good. All. Sounds good. Well, let's jump into our DBR for today. We are gonna be in Deuteronomy chapter 17, I believe through 19, if I'm not mistaken there. Deuteronomy 17 through 19. In Deuteronomy chapter 17, we again are continuing to prepare for the entrance to the promised land. And so in chapter 17, we're covering issues of justice from what to do with someone caught. Breaking God's covenant to win, to take a matter to the priest for judgment. Then the chapter is going to progress with God's instructions for the future kings who would reign in Israel. So again, we have that another one of those situations where God commands you shouldn't have other kings, don't make yourself kings like the nations, and yet he's allowing for the fact that there are going to be kings in the future. And so he is giving instructions for those future kings who would reign in Israel. He's instructing them not to amass horses. Solomon's not gonna do well on that, not to amass wives. Solomon's not gonna do well on that either. At the same time to make a personal copy of the law that they would read in order to learn and fear to fear the Lord and obey him. So the leader was to be a man who was leading the nation and following God, and that was to be something that, that the word of God was gonna play a strong role in. He needed to be well acquainted with the law of God if he was gonna set the tone for leading the people in the worship of God. Chapter 18 then opens with some instructions for the Levites, and then moves on to forbidding the practice of the abominations of the people who were in the land. And finally ends with a messianic promise about the coming of the prophet. Who would be like Moses? No, Deuteronomy 18, 18. And the similarities with Jesus' own testimony in John. And so we find that this is going to be a mess and a prophecy looking forward to another prophet that would arise like. Moses. And so Moses is nearing the end of his life and he's a type, and the anti type is going to be Jesus. Jesus is gonna be the better prophet. We talk about that sometimes. He's priest, prophet, and king. Jesus is gonna be the better one and he's gonna be the better Moses, even the writer of Hebrews talks about that as well. So, Deuteronomy 18 is forward, forward-looking, looking at Moses currently, but also looking to the future one that's gonna be even better than him. I forgot to say something on chapter 17. Oh, okay. Can I go back just a quick second here? Chapter 17, the first seven verses here we find again God's commitment and his care that his people remain pure. And so he says, look if you find someone in the camp who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord and transgressing his covenant and is gone and served other gods and worshiped them, the sun or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden. And it's told to you when you hear of it, then you're to inquire diligently Here we again, we have a very similar situation. We read about this a few days ago in chapter 13 verses 12 through 18. The same concept here is being applied. And then he also says here in verse six, on the evidence of two witnesses or of three, the one who. Is to die, shall be put to death. And so again, you see a multiplicity of people. It can't just be on the account of one person, there has to be multiple, and then to finish it off, those who testify against him. And I think this would be really helpful for us to keep today. They're the ones who have to be the first ones to lay the hand. You're, if you're gonna say they're guilty, you need to be the one to throw the first stone, as Jesus would later say that they should not do. When it comes to condemning the guilty. And here he says, so you shall purge the evil from your midst. And this goes to one Corinthians chapter five, where Paul says something very similar. He's citing Deuteronomy 17, I believe in order to show how the church is to handle sin the same way we condemn sin, we purge it from us, we want nothing to do with it. And this goes back to something that we were talking about recently, I think in the sermon that we're not. Permitting worldliness really sin. We don't want sin in the camp, and worldliness really just gives kind of the camel under the tent nose. Wait, how does that work? The nose in the camel noses the camel under the tent. That's what I was trying to say. Yeah. We don't want any camels or sin in our church, so please. That camel on frontier, that camel's not allowed and sin. That guy's gone, man. Is he? He's gone. What? Yeah. They sold that property and now it's like being bulldozed and everything. Oh, no. Yeah, the Campbell's not there anymore. I had not seen that. It's a true story. To, if you drive by and look over to the left, you see, I didn't need to say hello or anything. No. Moss camels. Oh, did not know. I am so honestly disappointed by of that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to break that to you in such a harsh fashion. Oh, so do you do this with your children? If they come tell on one of their siblings, do you say, okay, you have to lay the first shat? Yeah. I make the, here take the Shabb bet. You're gonna hold the Shabb bet with me. That that'll, that'll make a book. Parenting book. I learned a long time ago, and I buy it wholeheartedly. I know. We're different on this. I think that an external instrument used to discipline your kids is helpful because then they're never going to flinch at your hand. I never want that to happen where I'm picking up my hand and hug 'em and like, oh, you know, one of those things, the external instrument allows it to be exported to something besides my hand. I'm with you. I think an external instrument is helpful. Yeah. And it's also quite honestly a little more painful than my hand. Yeah, it is. It's, yeah. How does that relate to this though? Here, I got a connection. Oh. We should all be people who desire that sin is purged from our midst, whether that's our home or whether that's our church. And there's the Shabbat in your family is a tool that God has given you to help with that process as he has set you as parents in the household. That's a great connection, pastor Mark. Well done. I award you 10 points. Oh, great. I was hoping for 12, but 12 and a half then. Oh, asking you shall receive, well, chapter 19, which is do you have anything on 18 before I go to 19? Maybe when you go to 19, I'll think about 18. See, chapter 19, we got laws concerning the manslayer in the cities of refuge. So somebody accidentally takes the life of another person and God is gonna provide a place for them to. Flee so that they're not immediately executed by the avenger, by the kinsman not the kinsman redeemer, the kinsman killer, the kinsman anti redeemer, the kinsman avenger here. And so this is gonna happen in any society. There are accidental deaths. And this is where God is saying we need to make sure that this is justice is done in the right way. And so he is gonna provide these cities, they're Levitical cities. And there are meant to be a place where justice could be insured, that it's gonna happen the right way. You didn't want somebody who accidentally committed a crime, genuinely accidentally took somebody's life to have their life taken in a life for life situation here. But it's interesting that if they leave the city, then there's no protection for them anymore. Right? They're exposed and so they have to stay there. Otherwise they're exposed to justice. And then we've got some things on moving boundaries. So don't move your fence line with your neighbor 'cause That's right. That's verboten here. Don't do that. And then the final section deals is more with bearing false witnesses, which is why they needed two to three witnesses for Jesus until Jesus admitted. You say that I am, and you will see the son of man coming on the, the clouds with power. And they said, okay, there's the blasphemy. We've all heard it. We're all the witnesses. So now he can go and die. But that was the burn the saddle for the Pharisees until Jesus made that statement. There's times and places where we should look at the Old Testament. And apply some of the things that are Oh, described in it Oh. Into our modern society. And one of the places I think we've done that well in the United States is by making a distinction between murder and manslaughter. Oh. So you get a whole different set of charges for murder, which is. With intention, right? You're killing with intention. Whereas manslaughter in the United States is a charge that you'll receive. It's a really graphic word too, think about, but you would think it's the other way around almost. 'cause manslaughter seems like a worse word than it does than murder. But murder sounds more ominous, but manslaughter even just being an accident. Right. You're negligent when you're driving your car. Yeah. But the court's job. To try to determine the criminal's heart, right? Did they intend to do that or not? Yeah. And the corresponding sentencing is appropriate. So there's a place where I think we, we take a biblical principle from the Old Testament and we apply it in a modern situation that I think is wise. And here's something we don't apply very well twice in this chapter. Moses writes, your eye shall not pity him when there's someone caught who's guilty. He says, look, you're gonna be tempted to have a bleeding heart for this murderer. Don't do it. He says, I don't want you to feel feelings of sympathy for the man slayer, the one who deliberately in cold blood does this atrocious thing. Yeah. And says, don't pity them. That's, that's hard for me to wrap my head around, but it's again, it's the right response. Mm-hmm. We talk about God's justice, and yet this is a hint into God's justice. God doesn't pity taking this guy out. He deserves that. That's what his sin has warranted. On the other hand, it says God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. God's not celebrating, but he's also not pitying him. There is a healthy, mature response on our parts to say when justice is done, there is a good sense of, I'm not gonna pity, I'm not gonna feel bad about this. This is a right thing. Now I'm not gonna have a party. But I'm not going to pity. Yeah. What? Let me just contend that there is even a part of our system that is designed to counteract that, which is the jury selection process. Alright, that's a good point. I mean, that's intentionally designed to identify people who might be biased. Right? Who might be, it's true. People who are ping in the wrong way. Right. But you're exactly right in verse 21, chapter 19. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot. For foot. Yep. Well, let's flip over to our New Testament reading. Mark chapter 14, mark chapter 14. Mark's gospel is only 16 chapters, so we are coming to the end of it. Hence, we are coming to the end of Jesus' life. In fact chapter 14 verses one through 25 is our reading is gonna take us all the way through the upper room here right before Jesus foretells Peter's denials. But this is a scene. We've talked about some of these things before Matthew, where Jesus is gonna be anointed at Bethany again. This is when he's at the house of Simon. The leper and he's gonna be anointed with this very costly ointment here, which would've been over a year's wages. And the disciples are incensed by this. And this seems to be the straw that breaks the camel's back for Judas. 'cause Judas goes out to betray Jesus at this point. This is the apostasy of Judas. And then we see the past ever seen where Jesus is instituting the Lord's supper here, but also. Identifying Judas to be his betrayer. And we were talking about it in a different context, but somebody brought up the thought did Jesus love Judas? And so that might be something worth kicking around for us for. Did he like Judas? Did he, did he love? Did he like him? Did both. I think one of the things that I find fascinating about Judas is the gospel writers, they always identify him as Judas the betrayer. Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus. So you almost pick up in them this idea of. Mean, we're not gonna drop what this guy did, and they call him out for stealing and rightly so. Yeah. Well they do. They do that as well. He's short. But I know, I know. For example, sandals are always dirty in John's gospel. Even early on in Jesus' ministry, John's saying this, is Judas the one who betrayed Judas? Yes. And so this is not something that is, is lost on them, but the idea of Christ's love for Judas, the one who is gonna betray him. I've heard a lot of people make a big point of the fact that in the last supper here, he gives him the chosen morsel. He gives him the morsel that was reserved for the man of honor at this meal. And some of it have preached, even to say this is one last opportunity for Judas to repent from what he was doing. And yet we know the book of Acts that he was turned over according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. There was never a circumstance in which Judas was not gonna do what Judas was gonna do. And he's the son of perdition. So is I know that, that. We understand the common grace of God's love for all people. But Judas, does he find himself to be an exception to this, or do you think that Jesus truly loved Judas throughout his entire three years of ministry with him? I'll go on a limb here and I'll say that I think Jesus love, or at least his offer of love, was genuine. And I think even as a fallen man who was called the center perdition, who had a dark path to walk and that sounds like he's, it's. Removing guilt from him. It's not, he chose the path he did in full will. His heart, soul, and mind were complicit in the desire and in the action of Christ betrayal. However I do think Jesus' love for his disciples was legitimate and it's what makes it all the more all the more egregious because of Jesus' love. And Jesus washed all of their feet on the night that he was betrayed. He didn't only. Wash 11 of them. And I think that those sincere gestures of love for Judas are there. Now, how I square that with God's sovereign intentions and how he orchestrates all of humanity I don't know, and I don't pretend to know, but I do think that it was a sincere gesture of Christ's love throughout his three years of ministry with him. I'm gonna not answer the question, but I am gonna suggest smart that Judas actions, and I doubt anyone would disagree with this, was a demonstration of how much he hated God, right? I think that's a, maybe the most clear picture of that. So I do think that there is a contrast intentionally in the life of Judas that we're supposed to see as we read the gospels of. The hate of Judas contrasted with what I do think is the love of Christ, the love of Jesus. And even think of John three 16 and the following passages, right? And then even there in that passage, right? It says, for everyone who does wicked things, hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed. But I, I don't think that excludes. The fact that Jesus loved him in certainly a universal sense. But I think to answer the question, I think I'm gonna say he probably did love him in a specific sense because of that contrast that we see love described in throughout other places in the Bible, right? But not salvific love, not salvific love. There, there has to be a carve out in our minds for how we think about God's love. There's different manifestations of it, and it's effective for those who are called and at the end of his life. All of that changes right into eternity. There's a very different situation for Judas. I'll say this. I think Judas thought he was being a good Jew when he betrayed Jesus. I think Judas thought he was loving God by betraying Jesus. I think when Jesus failed to be the Messiah that Judas wanted him to be, that's why Judas decided, I'm done with you. You're not the guy. You're just like every other failed Messiah that's ever showed up, including all the ones from the 400 years of silence. I was bamboozled. I was fooled. I'm gonna go to the Pharisees because I don't think you're him. So I think Judas thought. I'm serving God. I'm loving God by doing this, but at the same time was playing right into the hands of the enemy as the enemy was. After the death of Christ. So you think he's one of those guys who shows up and says, Lord, Lord, did I not prophesy in your name? I don't know about that because I think he realizes his error afterwards, but his error doesn't lead him to repentance. Yeah, his error leads him to something else that I don't think Mark describes, but we'll find out in the other gospels. Alright, let's pray in then we'll be done with this episode. God, we thank you for your word and we pray that you would keep us from having any heart of apostasy like there was in Judas. I'm reminded of the pastor who once said, Judas listened to every one of Jesus's sermons, Jesus's sermons, and still betrayed the son of man. And so God, I pray that you would keep us from walking away from you, that we would heed the words of Hebrews, that we would hold fast, that we would. Whole faceted the faith of our confession, that we would keep our eyes fixed on Christ and that we would not waver or drift. And so I pray that you'd keep us as a church faithful to you. In Jesus' name, amen. Keep reading those bibles, y'all, and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye-bye. See ya. Bye bye.

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