Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's up folks? We are back with episode that's somewhat familiar to us. We're covering a book that we've been in a little bit here. At least the first part of it. Yeah. So we don't even need to, we'll do it. We'll skip it. We'll just plug in the sermons that you've had and just let those take over for us. Yeah, yeah. Hey, it's Saturday and if you're listening to this ahead of time, we are gathering up at the church at 10 o'clock to go out and invite more people to come to our Christmas Eve services and our church. And so if you are in the area planning to join us, I know I'll be there with my family. We'll be hitting some of the neighborhoods and handing out invitations there, putting 'em on doors, things like that. Hope, hoping for some good conversations. But if you're available and it's before 10 o'clock and you can make it over to the. Church, we're gonna meet there, and then we're gonna go out to the neighborhoods in the surrounding areas. Ramin heads that up. He does a great job with that. He maps it out, he jumps on Google Maps and kind of outlines different areas and disperses everybody with their invitations and makes sure that everybody's going out at least in pairs, because that's the biblical model. That's Biblical two by two. And we'd love to do that. We wanna get our name out there. We're serious about that, especially with this next year, we're working on some swag to get out to our church. That's right. We are so that you guys can wear our name for free. I believe so, yeah. Wow. We're gonna put bumper stickers on your car, whether you like it or not. That's right. During church, we're gonna randomly select people to wrap. Just gonna say, Hey, your car looks good. We're gonna wrap that car. WRAP, not RAP. I mean, we might do both. Maybe if there's a rap battle, we'll put 'em in Compass swag and send 'em out to compete in the rap battle. Yeah, dude, that would be pretty clutch. Speaking of which, P-town? Throwdown. That's a pickleball tournament. We've got some potential teams to throw out there. We're gonna put them in compass gear and they're gonna socks win the whole thing. Headbands. T-shirts? Yes. Water bottles. Water bottles. Yes. Tattoos? Yes. Glasses on their foreheads. Mouth guards. Yeah. The whole thing. Yeah. Nose. Totally. What do you call those things that, that flare up? Your nose. Nose rings. No. No. Not that. Gauges the things that make your nose open. What are those called? Rewrite your breathe rights. Yes. Branded. Branded eye blacks. There we go. Flipping four 13, we're doing everything. And John three 16 on the other. Yeah. Yeah, we're doing it all. Yeah. No we do want to grow. And hopefully that's not news to you if you're listening to us as you've been with us for a while now. We wanna grow, we want to get bigger. We want to outgrow our current facility. We want to have a situation where we're knocking on doors of churches saying, Hey, we need more space. You guys, you guys should move out and let us have your building. We want to grow. So, we want to unapologetically get our name out as far and wide as we possibly can and invite people to. Church is a big part of that, and you can help us do that by getting to know your neighbors, inviting them, and not giving up on that. When we have events, inviting your kids friends at school or on the sports teams to show up, be a part of it. These are our ways for us to grow. And you think, does the one person that I invite really matter? Absolutely it does, because if you just think about it like a pyramid scheme, if you invite somebody and they invite somebody else and then it just multiplies. That's how churches grow. And also we wanna grow through, of course, people getting saved. And so we hope that you are serious about pursuing people with the gospel and sharing the gospel with people to get them in the doors. Why can't you just be content bro? Because I'm thinking some people might say that. Yeah, no, for sure. Or they might say, pastor bro that doctor, pastor bro. Dr. Pastor bro. Why can't you just be content with what God gives you? Because healthy things grow, right? We know that. So does cancer so does cancer, but a church is a healthy thing, right? A church by definition is not an unhealthy thing. If it's a good church, yes. If it's a good thing. If it's a good church. So as a good church, as a healthy church, we want to grow because that's a sign that we are a healthy church. If you look at the Book of Acts, the Book of Acts, they were growing and they were counting people as they were growing. They were talking about the number of thousands of people they were adding to the church every single day. Sometimes people get uncomfortable because they think that to care about numerical growth is an abdication of caring about faithful preaching and teaching. Yeah, that's a non sequitur. Those two things don't add up together. To care. You can care about both. You can say we're gonna be absolutely faithful to the word of God, expository preaching. We're gonna have our pastor graduate from the Master Seminary, and we're gonna care about the fact that we want to grow. We want to see more souls saved. We wanna see more bodies in the church, and we want to see our church continue to grow numerically. Those two things don't compete with each other. That's true, man. And what a good word. We're not opposed to. Being shrewd and reaching people. We want to reach people. We think that we should grow as large as we can grow because we desire to see people not only walking with Christ for the first time, but also walking with Christ in maturity as they go out throughout their lifetime. Yeah. We want Christ to be glorified in North Texas, and that means that we want to see the word get out there. We want to see the word spread. We wanna see people made right with their Lord. So we'd love for you to do that because it's a biblical mandate. Yep. But before we jump into first Peter, and I know there's a lot to talk about. Yep. Let's return back to Kirk cameron. Kirk. Lots of things were said about him. Yeah. Lots of videos. Lots of response videos. He came out with a video recently that was saying most people didn't even listen to the whole video. They listened to the soundbite and they responded to something they thought I was saying, and I feel attacked, mischaracterized, things like that. and maybe he's right. I didn't hear everybody. I heard a few people, and the people that I had listened to were thoughtful in their response. But you have a response to him. I do. And maybe you can share that with some of us because I think it's different than what I'm hearing. Yeah. So my problem is this, Facebook is such a public forum, and when he took the issue at stake, which was an issue, asking questions about the nature of hell and his follow up. He's even admitted, he said, I haven't landed anywhere. I'm still trying to figure all this stuff out. I felt that it was irresponsible because it took an issue That is a big, big topic, big consideration. Eternality, the eternality of hell or not. And it put it in the public forum and it removed it from the context of the local church for a lot of people. And so a subject that would really be good for people within the church to be able to walk through and wrestle through with their pastors is now all of a sudden being hashed out in the comment section of YouTube. And I don't think that's the wisest approach to it. I think it would've been wiser for him to. Wrestle through this and to work through it on his own. And I know he talked about the question that his son asked him, prompting all of this, rather than going to YouTube to hash this out in the public forum, in the public sphere, I think he would've been better served and better served the church to have hashed this out between himself and his pastors rather than taking it to where he did. And I think, I hope you would agree at this point that it would be a good idea to, before you throw something out there, to see what sticks against the wall, is to make sure that you know what you're talking about. To your point, it is really easy to start a YouTube channel and to put stuff out there and to say, this is what I think about this issue. Or at least as of right now, and maybe not everybody should do that. Right. Even if you could, Kurt Cameron's been in the limelight for a long time, so I don't resent him for that. But when you start bringing up doctrinal positions that are gonna be unique or at least not novel, it's been around for a long time, but novel enough for people to say, ah, you know, is Kirk even a believer anymore? Right. He did bring it upon himself in that regard. So maybe the lesson that we could take away from this is a, there are some questions, well, no question is off limits. Let's just start with that for sure. There is for sure. There is no question off limits for sure. We were okay with you asking questions and that's not the problem. The problem is the venue in which he asks questions. And because he's seen as a spiritual authority, when you put that out there, you create confusion. Right? And that's why James says, not many of you should become teachers for we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. And so it is with Kirk. And I think he felt that because lots of people responded in a very helpful way. They responded and he didn't feel like he was given a fair shake. Right. But I think once you open the door and you say, here's a question mark, people are gonna come in with periods. Well the video thumbnail that he released was, are we Wrong About Hell? Like, that's inviting. Yeah. The sensationalism. Right. It's click baity it's that's the idea. Yeah. When he got the feedback, he was a little disappointed and some of it probably fair people are mean on the internet. Yeah. They don't hold back. So I understand some of his sentiments. Sure. But it does invite a certain kind of response. Right. One thing I forgot to mention that I think is so important. In the equation of eternal conscious versus conditional immortality. Don't assume, and this is huge, don't assume that when someone dies, that they become glorified, that they stop sinning, right? Think about this. There's weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell weeping. We understand there's maybe some kind of remorse, although not repentance. Gnashing of teeth is usually not said in a neutral sense. It means anger. I'm, I'm gnashing my teeth at you. People are angry at God in hell. Yep. Is there anyone on earth who can be angry with God? I don't think so. And not in a sinful way. I think that's evidence that what's happening in hell is not that they're refined because they're repentant, right? And they're coming to someplace where they've worked off all their sins. Just because you're in hell, it doesn't mean that you're glorified in the sense that you. Stop sinning. Right. You continue to s sin in hell. Which in my mind, even if I were to say, oh, it doesn't seem just that in life they suffer for eternity, I could say. Well, they keep on sinning though. Yeah. They're not you and I, they're not Christians and so they continue to sin. Think that's a really big consideration that I haven't heard a lot of people bring up, at least lately in this current debate. But that's important for you to know. Dead people aren't all glorified. They are glorified in a sense. 'cause they continue on forever. Right. They have eternal bodies. They have eternal bodies. Glorified bodies, but glorified. Yes. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. All right, well, let's jump into first Peter. So first Peter written by the Apostle Peter as its namesake. It's written sometime in the sixties ad We're not sure whether this is written during noonan persecution or right before it. But it is written about how Christians will inevitably suffer for their faith. And so Peter's writing to a group of spiritual exiles and literal exiles who have been taken away from Rome driven. Away from Rome, either through the persecution that they were experiencing or because they were political exiles. They were taken and repo resettled in the region of Asian minor. And those are all the lands that he references there at the beginning of the letter there. And so he's writing to them and he's saying to a group that knows suffering, he's writing to encourage them. And he starts out in chapter one to encourage them that your greatest hope, the inheritance that you're looking forward to, has nothing to do with your home. It has nothing to do with the here and now, but it's gonna be all about then and there. It's the resurrection that you have been or that the. The living hope that is yours through the resurrection that is of Jesus Christ from the dead to this inheritance that's being kept in heaven for you. Who by the way, are being guarded by God's power through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So, Peter establishes that and then really turns in the rest of the book to say, so then how should we then live? If that's true, if the future is ours, we're gonna be with Christ. What does life look like right now, especially life as exile, soner aliens in this world? So far, we've gotten through chapter one, chapter two and part of the way through chapter three in our Sunday morning sermons. But pr, anything in those first two and a half chapters there that. Would be helpful to discuss in this format that we couldn't say, there are sermons available online as well. Yeah, that's a great point. We should just put the sermons as you were saying here. No, Remind us then of the flow. it's good because we're diving in and we're looking at the tree bark and studying all the different movements on the bark, but Right. Help us. Feel the flow of one, two, and three. Remind us of what direction Peter's taking this. Yeah, so again, after chapter one and reminding him of the future, his call is, you are to be holy. And that's a main point that he's gonna make through this. And being holy and being part of the living. The spiritual house, chapter two that God is building together of the saints that are coming to Christ here, that's going to draw opposition. So you're gonna run afoul of people, including authorities, which he deals with in chapter two, whether that be governing authorities or servants and masters or even spouses of who may be unbelievers. Your identity as this Christian, you are gonna stick out as a sojo or as an alien, as an exile. And so your call is to. Live in such a way as to please the Lord, to be holy. And that is going to then draw the opposition that's gonna draw suffering. You're going to suffer. And that's really chapter three. The rest of chapter three we haven't gotten to yet. But chapter three and chapter four, he talks a lot about suffering. Why suffering should even be welcomed as a Christian. That is not something to be surprised at, but it is an evidence of our identity as those that follow our savior who suffered first in front of us. And so first Peter. Has a lot to do with life. Is a Christian being difficult? It's not a book that we read and feel the warm fuzzies about going, oh man, being a Christian is so good, is so easy. It's really a book that presents us with some of the card hold fa card hold hard, cold facts about what it looks like to suffer for our faith in Christ. I think one of the things that strikes me about Peter's book is that there is a genuine concern for the outward expression of our faith and how people see it. Yeah. He cares about people seeing our faith for what it is. And so consequently he's like, Hey man, don't use your righteousness or your salvation as a coverup for evil. He even says here, it's similar to what we read yesterday. Keep your conduct among the gentiles. Honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they're gonna see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. In other words, I care deeply about the way that you live out your Christianity, because this is gonna be one of the ways that God vindicates His glory in His honor when he points to you and says, this person that you slandered. Actually was living for me. They did good. And here's the evidence of those things. And so what you have in this book is a clear focus on keep your hope, your living hope future. It is there. And then it's not here and now, but while you're here, make it count. Make sure people see the reason you live is not for you. It's because you've been called, you've been called to live like Christ and therefore you've been called to suffer like Christ. Who left you an example in chapter two, verse 21. Andrus yourself just like Jesus. Verse 23, trust yourself to the Lord and keep doing right no matter what. That's the goal. People are gonna see it. That's the point. God's gonna be glorified. That's what we want. And so all of this about humility and submission is really all part of God's plan to make his. Church as beautiful as she is. And so I'm encouraged by the words that he says, even though they're hard, nobody wants to hear. Submit yourself to this person, submit yourself to that person. And even though you're gonna, suffer, follow Christ. But this is such an encouraging book for those very same reasons. It's gonna be hard, but it's gonna. Good. Yep. Yeah. And he often is casting our attention to the last times ready to be revealed in the last times ready to be brought to you in the last times, even late in the book. And in chapter four, he's saying the same thing In verse 13, he says, rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, like you were just saying, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. And so he's. Causing us in the moment when life is hard as a Christian to say, I need to remember where I'm going. I need to remember the destination. The journey is difficult right now and it hurts and I'd rather it be easier. And yet I know what it's preparing for me, which is similar to what Paul would say. This light, momentary affliction is preparing an eternal weight of glory. And so Peter's encouraging us with those words. Alright, I know we're not there yet, but you gotta give us a taste test. In fact, I want you to give us a Costco sized sampling okay. Of just agree. Okay. Okay, here we go. Talk to us about the latter part of chapter three. What on Earth is happening here? Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. This is verse 18, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Verse 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Because they former did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few that is a persons were brought safely through water baptism, which corresponds to this now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience. And then he goes on and then he says here. The who? Who has gone Jesus, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. Several questions emerge. First, what is Jesus doing in prison? Who is he proclaiming to? When is this taking place? What's that about? How does baptism save you? Even though we say baptism doesn't save you, it says that. It says it does here. And then finally, how is Jesus at God's right hand? If. God doesn't have a right hand. Yeah. God himself is spirit as John four tells us. And yet he's at God's right hand with the angel's, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. So how does this all work? Yeah, so the spirit's in prison there's different views on that. Some have said this is Jesus descending into hell in announcing victory to those in hell. Some creeds say that some creeds do say that. I disagree with that. I believe that this is actually the spirits of the angels who disobeyed left their proper abode and went and. Commingle you talking Genesis six? Yes, Genesis six. Ooh, spicy which is in the days of Noah, which is part of the reason why I believe that Peter transitions to, talking about the days of Noah there, because those angels are taken and confined to chains of gloom and utter darkness. In fact, that's some of the angels that will be released then in the book of Revelation during the time of the tribulation period. And so I believe Christ is declaring victory over those and announcing the victory there. He references then Noah and the arc which transitions to this deliverance this salvation, which is why he says baptism, which corresponds to this, which is Noah. And his family being preserved now saves you. Now, those that believe in what's called baptismal regeneration, which means baptism is necessary for salvation, they would point to this and say, look. Here it is. Baptism saves you, so you have to be baptized to be saved. And I would say yes, except we have to ask which baptism, because here he goes on to say, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Peter is saying, I'm not talking about water baptism. And he says that by saying, not as removal of dirt from the body, but rather as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The way we appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ is through faith in Jesus as our savior, which corresponds with spiritual baptism. So the baptism that he has in view in verse 21 is not water baptism that saves us, but spirit baptism, which saves us, and that takes place at the moment of our conversion when we are baptizo, that is to be placed into, which is what the word means. We are placed into Christ and his righteousness. And so our lives are hidden with Christ. And when we see him, we will be with him. Colossians chapter three there. But back here in Peter he's not saying water baptism saves you. In fact, he says it's not as removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then it says, baptism corresponds to so it's making it a connection. He's saying it's like this. Yeah. You're saved through this. Although it's not the means itself. the water itself is not the vehicle by which you're saved. Okay. Go back real quick to the spirits in prison. Yes. Why does Jesus care about that? So one of the things Jesus is doing when he dies, he ascends to the cross. He physically dies. I guess this is what's taking place in the intervening time between his death and his resurrection. At least that's the prevailing idea. Why did Jesus care? Why is he going and making a point of this and saying to that specific group of spirits and saying, look, I won. Why does that matter to Jesus? It seems to be representative of the opposition of the enemy forces as a whole. This is one of the greatest scenes of wickedness on earth that the world has ever known. This is the moment, this is the predecessor the things that happened right before God decides to destroy the whole earth with water, with the flood, and he is so enraged and in sense that the debauchery that's going on here, and it represents Satan's opposition to God's goodness and God's plan when Satan's demons are leaving his presence to go on earth and interfere with the events of earth. It's as though Jesus is going to that group because he's insane to that group saying to all demonic opposition and Satan himself, you lost, we won. Okay. That's helpful. And then the last thing, God's right hand, God doesn't have hands. Yeah. So the Bible often speaks euphemistically of the Lord. He, that talks about him having eyes. It talks about him anthropologic, anthropomorphism. Yeah. Right. Ascribing human things to God. Right. Wings too. Right. So I guess that would be angelical for whatever that would be called. 'cause God doesn't have wings. His arm talks about his mighty arm. Right. Delivering. So that's what this is again, it's the right hand is the position of honor. So this is similar to Philippians chapter two, where he has exalted Christ and given him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every niched, bow and tongue confess that he's the Lord of the glory of the Father. Okay. Well we have more questions, but you could. Continue on for now. Awesome. Chapter five then is really the last part of this book that he turns to, and he identifies himself as one of the elders there and gives some instructions to elders as to how they should care for and shepherd the flock of God there. Before giving instructions towards humility and then signing off again on the letter as a whole there. Okay. I just wanna point out, we just talked about this notice here that Peter is calling the people that he's writing to. He says to the shepherds, you're to shepherd the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly and not domineering over those. In your charge, but being examples to the flock. So Peter is telling them lead and leading suggests that there's others who are following and subjecting themselves to that leadership. In fact, he says just a few verses later. In fact, verse five, likewise you who are younger be subject to the elders. I don't think he means that he's talking to the youth ministry and saying, Hey the Old people's ministry, submit yourselves to them. I think he's talking about the fact that by and large elders are elderly, generally speaking. Yeah. They're usually older than most people in the congregation. And so he's saying follow them. Give them your respect or deference. And he says, be subject. It's the same word that is used for Submit yourself or subject yourself to human authorities. Romans 13 chapter Romans. 13 verse one and what he says to wives, submit yourselves or subject yourselves. He says, submit, but the word carries a similar tone and authority. So just notice here, God is calling Christians to follow the leadership of their pastors. Now, pastors are given a lot of words here too. There's lots of things here that a pastor needs to heed, and these are things that you should see and the quality of his character. But just see it, it's here. The Bible is clear and rife with some of these admonitions. It's probably helpful for us to point out as well, just the nature of our opposition. We talked about Christ declaring Ultimate victory and that victory is gonna be ours. But in the meantime, verse eight, be sober minded. Be careful. Be watchful. Rather your adversary, the devil, prs around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, resist him from in your faith. So we've talked about this before. It's not that Satan is after you, but his. Demons are active and spiritual warfare is a real thing. We talked about the armor of God recently. There's a lot there but Peter's calling for us to be watchful and mindful of that as well. Alright, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the DBR. God, we thank you so much for the example that we have here in your word of a call to not the example, but the truth, the reality. Just is stark for us to read, to save that we are going to follow the example of Jesus. That means following him in suffering. And I pray that we as a church would be strong in our faith. So to the extent that we would be able to do that without wavering. Even just thinking about the book of Hebrews and the warning passages there, that we would hold fast, that we would not drift, that we would not fail to reach the rest that we're gonna have when we're with you. But in the meantime that would imply that we don't have the rest yet. And so help us to be disciplined, to love you, to pursue you, to be on guard, to watch ourselves, to be sober minded, just like we just talked about as well in one Peter chapter five there. But thanks for your word, Lord. Thank that. Thank you that you did deliver us through Christ and through our union with Him, and we are so grateful for our salvation. Pray that we would live rightly in response to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep new Bibles, y'all, and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See everybody. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast! 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.

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said