Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. And if I don't see you, good night. Thanks. Truman show. Oh yeah, that's where it's from, isn't it? It is from the Truman Show. Yeah. Yeah. What'd you think about that? That TV show? Or is It's not a TV show. It's a movie. Yeah, it's a movie. What'd you think about that? I, man I thought it was fascinating and still even when you watch it back and you know the end, it's still fascinating 'cause you're realizing, man, everybody's playing along with this guy's delusion. And some people believe that's. What we exist in, that we exist in a simulation, that we exist in this whole thing that's not real. I've heard that before. And we perceive it as real, but no one else around us does. Now, not that everybody around us is an actor, but nobody's real. And that's some of the people have embraced that worldview. That's a dumb one. It is. It's gonna call it the way I see it. I don't think that has any credence. Whatsoever. No, but people talk about it a lot because they talk about the glitches. Have you heard oh, look at this. There I found a glitch in the matrix. Or a glitch in reality. And they'll show something with a person walks by and then 10 seconds later somebody walks by that looks exactly like that person. And so it's oh yes, there's a cloned to NPC. That's walking around, right? Yeah. N pc, non playable character. So it's a video game term. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. I'm with you though. But the movie I found fascinating in the freedom of getting out, out of that contained space. Now, I think that message can be helpful and that message can also prove problematic to. I in the sense that you need to break free of all societal constraints and you need to create your own reality and recognize that you've been compressed and you've been constrained and you've been, fed lives your whole life, making you believe that it's reality. Somebody could look at that and take that into growing up in a Christian household and be like it's the same thing. I'm just in the Truman show because I've, I don't have a literal studio that I've been raised in, but I might as well have because of my family and everything. Yeah it's a dangerous idea. Because it does cause you to, if you take it for anything more than just a movie, and for most people it's no more than that. But if you take the ideology and say everything I see is just a simulation. Nothing here is real. This is all just my perception, and we're all gonna eventually perish into the everlasting nothingness nihilism, basically. I, it's, I don't know. I find that so unappealing. And I know for some people it's, oh, this is so freeing and it's so liberating to realize that basically everything is meaningless and pointless. I don't find that liberating and freeing at all. I find that terrifying, and I think the majority of people are with you in that. And that's one of the reasons why we have as many religions as we have. Because once you reject the existence of God, all you're left with that makes sense is nihilism. And so then you have to recreate or remanufacture a God of your own choosing that you can create your own systems and regulations and rules about how to live and where to find meaning and where to find purpose. And I think that accounts for so many of the world religions that we see today and why there's always, new. Additions and evolutions of these religions as society continues to progress versus Christianity, going back to saying, okay, we've got. A bedrock, God who is the creator of all things. And he's the definition of what is true and what is real. He is prime reality. And he's the one that gets to define what it looks like to transcend death and overcome that. So I think you're right. I think a lot of people don't like to embrace nihilism, and that's why they chase after anything else. And I think the other religions are appealing because we've got skin in the game. We can say, okay, I feel better about Hinduism, or I feel better about Islam. I have to do something so I have something measurable that I can point to say, this is why I'm okay, because look at my good works. And Christianity says the opposite. It's like you can't work enough to be acceptable to God. Not that we shouldn't do good works, but Right. We don't have skin in the game in that same sense. Sounds like you're getting ready to preach, but you're not in the pulpit this morning. I'm not in the pulpit this morning. Least it's not in our pulpits. Not in ours now. Who gave you the week off? Yeah. Who's responsible for this? Or it's a funny week off because I'm still preaching three times, so Yeah, but you didn't have to write a new sermon though. I didn't. You're right. This is gonna be the second, third, and fourth time that I've preached this sermon. And maybe it'll be better yet. I hope so. That's the idea. You can come back to us next week and you can preach it again and we'll let you know if we think it's better. I don't think that's, anybody would want that. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. No, I was talking with with somebody this morning as we're recording this, and which is saying, the Saturday to Sunday morning is interesting because you preach it on Saturday night and then you've got quite a bit of time. It's before your next time up on Sunday morning, so that's where you're tempted to make tweaks and change things. And sometimes those are good things to, to change and tweak. But then the turnaround from the nine o'clock to the 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, it's so quick. It's yeah, it is. There's no time to that point. Yeah. You just gotta go for it. Just take another swing at it this time. Try to hit it outta the park. Yeah, we do all the time. We're always trying to swing and aim for the fences. Don't always do that. We recognize it, but we are always attempting to get better. Which by the way, which by the way, speaking of. Preaching Okay. And doing it really well. Yeah. I just gotta let you know, I, and probably half the audience who listens to us would know about this. Your wife's a really great preacher, and I, you texted me that the other day and I shared that with her to encourage her. And so I, yes, I agree. She is, dare I say exceptional? I just find her. Okay, so there are several marks. I always have feedback, Amanda, so if you ever want my feedback, if you ever care, I did listen to it. And the reason why I wasn't totally violating your conscience here and your convictions. I know how we feel about that for sure. But Kristen spoke so highly of it. I thought I, let me just give it a listen and see what the ladies heard. And I did it as an overseer and as a pastor. Sure. I felt like I, I put on my pastor hats and I'm just gonna check in and see what these ladies are doing. And I listened and I was at first. I was thinking, okay, PPJ edited this. He clearly did. She's too flawless, she's too smooth, she's too good at what she's doing. So I looked down on your poor bride, assuming that she was deriving some kind of help from ai, and lo and behold, when I looked it up on descrip. Our editing platform. There was no edits to be, had, no edits. I was I was I think my jaw probably fell open at that point. 'cause I was just so impressed at how smooth she was. And not only that, it wasn't just that her delivery was exceptionally good, but the content was really good too. Again, I wasn't listening to be instructed. Sure. I was just listening, but I thought she did such a great job. I, I didn't, haven't listened to Kayla's yet. I feel less invested in Kayla's preaching. But I was very impressed. And so if you haven't listened to the Women's Retreat sermons, they are available on the Women's Ministry podcast. I'm not sure what we call that right now, but it's the women's podcast. It belongs to our church. It has the same blue that we use, so you can't miss it. Highly encourage you to go give that a listen, or you can go to our website, compass tx.org under the ministries tab if you click on women's ministry. It will show those episodes right there as well. You can follow that to the podcast page. Is that a video? No, just audio. Okay. Either way it doesn't link to the podcast page. Go it. However you do it. Go get it. On behalf of my wife, thank you for that feedback. I'm encouraged. God has blessed her greatly and I'm thankful to be married to her. So you go, yeah. I'm just glad that you're not suggesting we become egalitarian and you kicked me out a little bit before I would do no such thing. I I did smile a little bit when I was listening to the podcast 'cause I thought, oh, PPG would not approve of this. Yeah. I think as a pastor you would give me a pass. I do think there's a difference there because as a pastor we do need to know what the content that's being. Given in our various pulpits is. Yeah. And so I do think there's a difference there. There is a difference. I would qualify that a hundred percent. Okay. Let's talk about our DBR today, which is Zav five through nine. Yes. 5, 2, 9. Yes. So I mentioned yesterday, I dunno what that was. The AI will cut that out twice. We will cut it out. We're not as good as Amanda. I mentioned yesterday that I, Zacharia is full of visions. And in chapter five, we get two more visions. The first one is of this scroll. This is vision number six. And the scroll is going to be the pronouncement of cursing and judgment on all those who have disobeyed God. So that's what he sees here. He sees this this judgment being laid out through this scroll. It's 20 qubits by 10 qubits. That's Pastor Rod's favorite measurement. He loves the qubit. I'm gonna start using it everywhere. And and this is a list of all those that have disobeyed God. And that's just a reminder. We talked about it briefly a couple weeks ago, I believe now on Sunday morning about, or maybe just this past week about the future judgment that awaits. For the believer, but also the unbeliever. And I think this is obviously dealing with the unbeliever great white throne. There's gonna be books that are opened up with all of the things that were done by the unbelievers written in them, and they'll be judged accordingly. And so here's a reminder that God's judgment is coming against those that disobey him, and he is making record of that. And that is a chilling thing for us to think about. Even as believers, like we talked about the beam C, there's gonna be a sense that we need to. We're gonna potentially suffer loss for the things that we didn't do with eternal value at that moment. The rest of chapter five then is another vision. And this time it's a vision of a woman floating in a basket down this river and the lead cover is lifted from the basket and. The woman is in the basket and the woman represents the sin of the nation of Israel, and he says, this is wickedness. And then the basket is pushed back out into the water and then all of a sudden, two angelic beings, it seems, come and take the basket and carry it away, and they carry it to the land it says of China. Now that is Babylon and that may. It would strike you as odd seeing as how we're post exilic of Babylon's no longer on the scene. So this I think, has to be neo Babylon, which is the future. And I think it's indicating the fact that as Israel was so sinful and rebellious, there will be another nation that is gonna be sinful and rebellious to even greater extent. And that is gonna be the nation of that is led by the antichrist in the future, Neo Babylon. That is is being depicted here at the end of chapter five. What would you say to people who suggest that the Bible is misogynistic by making wickedness a woman in a basket instead of a man? We see it in Revelation too, right? That the great harlett that's riding the beast there in Revelation. I would say when we look at scripture, I don't think God pulls punches when it comes to men and the sin of men. Men either, definitely not I don't think that if you want to just highlight this and rip it out of its context and say, look, God is misogynistic and so are Christians, and so are Jews, because look at this, then you're not considering the fullness of scripture. And so this is one example, but there are plenty of other examples where God has come after men and held men accountable, and in fact, even the leadership capacity of men and saying, you're gonna be held to an even greater higher, in higher standard because you are man. In this context. And yeah, I would say I think that's a narrow-minded focus of pulling one passage out or two passage out and saying, look at these, this is evidence. Yeah. And it's not an exclusive way that God refers to evil. King Nebuchadnezzar's statute was a male statute. Presumably. Or an novelis. I guess there's also that in any case it might be as simple as this. We don't typically think this way 'cause we're English speakers, but most other languages have gendered. Nouns and gendered language, generally speaking. So a table La Mesa is a feminine gender, but that doesn't mean the table is a woman. So it might just be as simple as the word wickedness being a feminine word, and therefore God uses a feminine symbol to picture that word itself. So maybe it's not that complicated. Or maybe it is just the fact that God intends to utilize this kind of image because there's a. There's a certain sensuality that comes with the allure of wickedness. And so maybe God is saying of the two genders the woman tends to be the more sensual, more seductive kind. And so I'm gonna utilize that stereotype, or at least that that commonality to say she's more like this than like that. So I don't think God's being unfair here or unkind toward women. It's just utilizing it as a symbol to depict judgment. Yeah. Yeah. And it is, by the way, and you were making this point, but just to be clear, it is a feminine noun. Wickedness is in Hebrew. And so that would make sense in that in that connection there as well. Alright, chapter six, we get into some more visions here, and this next one up is a vision of four chariots. You've got more horses, red horses, black horses, white horses, dappled horses. Again, these are very similar to what takes place in Revelation chapter six. In fact, I think they're the same description of colors that we see there in Revelation chapter six. And this. In this vision is God's judgment on the nations. And so these chariots are going to go out and they are going to judge the surrounding nations, judge, those that are opposing the kingdom, opposing God opposing the Messiah. And and so that is this next vision up here in chapter six. In the rest of this, starting in verse nine, a situation here where there is the Messiah referenced in verse 11. It says, take from the, from them silver and gold to make a crown and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of ak, the high priest. Now you say how is this the Messiah of this is Joshua and it's because of what it represents and say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts. Behold the man whose name is the branch. And you'll notice in the ESV, at least that's capitalized he shall build the temple of the Lord. It's he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear. Honor and shall sit and rule on its throne, and there shall be a priest on his throne. So what's going on here is, again, like we talked about, I think yesterday, the combination of the priest and king role, and that's what's being depicted here. So Joshua is the high priest, and yet he's gonna receive a crown. The high priest never would've received a crown in the ancient. Context of the old covenant, because that wasn't his role. The high priest was to serve in the temple and the king was to sit on the throne. Here in the future temple, in the millennial kingdom, there's gonna be a priest king, and that is gonna be the Messiah, the branch. And it's also worth note here that he's gonna be the one that's gonna build this temple. He's gonna be the one that's going to make sure that it's construction is done, is the Messiah here. And so he will build that and that will be the temple that is standing during the millennial kingdom. And that will reign for that, that thousand years that Christ is here on earth. In addition to being the priest king, does Jesus fulfill any other roles that we ought to be aware of? He also is the prophet, priest and king. Oh, so he is the one that is, and we've seen that already in Christ as during his earthly ministry, he served as prophet. He served as the one that was saying, Hey, here's what's gonna come down the road. Be on the watch when you see these things happening. The women need to run for the hills. The you need to interpret the times and be ready for that. So he's already been the prophet. He will, and he already is functionally right now the high priest. That's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about, that he's the one interceding on our behalf. He's the great high priest and he will be the king. And so in a. In a sense he's the king right now. Yes. But when he will be here on earth reigning, that's when he will be the ultimate fulfillment of the Davidic King, the Davidic Covenant, which goes to show the way the Old Testament is meant to help us understand who Jesus is. All of the things that we're seeing in the Old Testament eventually point to Jesus, and they help us understand a better picture of who Jesus is. So these. Major roles that God assigned to these different people groups. And so it's you, the Levites, you're the priests and you're the support for the temple to the line of David. You're the kings. There's a certain, a class of Levite that would fulfill the priestly role. And all of these roles are summed up in consummated in Christ. That's so cool. He is the prophet, the priest, and the king that perfectly fulfills all of these roles and all for us. This is the God that has lived in your place and died in your place. That gets me excited. This is the guy that, this is not just a guy, this is the Son of God who, for our sake, as Peter says, for our sake, who was crucified, he was raised for our sake. All these things. Such a cool analogy, not an analogy. Such a cool picture of what Jesus has done for us and who he is. Yeah, in chapter seven, then the people ask a question and it's a good question. So we're dealing about five 18 bc. They say, Hey, should we continue to fast like we have been during this fifth month? Because that was the month the temple was destroyed. So they're trying to figure out what is, what does worship look like now on the backside of all of this? Now that we're back, we're rebuilding this temple. Things are looking up. For us at least, that was their presumption and God is gonna say, you know what? No, you can stop fasting, but also you need to know that you were never fasting really, truly for the right reasons, in the right ways. And he's gonna in indict them for going through the motions essentially, and harboring their wickedness and their sinfulness that they still have not repented of. And he's gonna go into a description of those things beginning there in verse nine. And it's a lot of it having to do with the execution of justice. He says, render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the father fatherless the sojourner. Or the poor. Let none of you devise evil against your brother. And so he's saying in the past, this is what I called your forefathers to, and they refuse to repent. And essentially the message is don't commit the same error that they did. You need to repent because you're falling prey to these same things. Don't ask me about fasting. It's not about the external, it's about the internal. And right now you've got a problem with the internal, and so God is calling them to obedience on that front. Yeah. One of the dangers for us as we look at something like this is to say, yeah, those guys were bad about that. But Jesus calls people out in the New Testament too, for having a profession of faith, but not the heart behind it. And so what we see here is that piety is more important than posture. What you do is important, but it's not as important as the heart behind it. And so yet again, we see that God is not interested in our religious activity. He's interested in our heart. That's always been what it's been about. Yeah, chapter eight the page turns to a positive vision of the future millennial kingdom in the time of prosperity. And it, it is introduced with the Lord saying that he's jealous for Zion with great jealousy. And he repeats it. It says, I'm jealous for her with great wrath. And so this is God saying talking about how he's gonna restore the fortunes of the people. And so there are six initially here, at least there are six times. In chapter eight that it's introduced, thus says the Lord. And so if you notice that in your Bibles you'll see each of those statements introduces a different statement about what he's gonna do on behalf of the people for the future millennial kingdom and for the prosperity and the peace of Jerusalem. So six times there that he is mentioning thus says the Lord. Verse eight, for example, he says, I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be my people. I will be their God in faithfulness and righteousness that refrain, they shall be my people and I will be their God as repeated many times in the Old Testament. And it will finally come to fruition in part in the millennial kingdom. But. But ultimately in that eternal state, and that's Revelation 21. He says that will be the time when he is wiping white tear for their eyes, that we will be with him as his people, and he will be with us as our God. You have a seventh statement in verse 14. And a, just a reminder of the promise of God being sure. He says, as I purpose to bring disaster to you, when your father provoked me to wrath and I did not relent, says the Lord. So again, I've purposed in these days to bring good, so there God's saying you've experienced the consequences for your sin. I told you what would come and it did. No, for sure then that I'm telling you, good things are gonna come and you can trust that they will because I'm the same God. Faithful to my promises. So then he calls them to action in obedience there in the rest of chapter eight, including going from fasting to feasting and and looking forward to being in the millennial kingdom when that day comes. All right, chapter nine chapter nine gets back into a a. Poetic approach. And you'll notice that even just as the text looks differently here versus the prose that has come before that and here in chapter nine, we get prophecies against the the nation's judgment that's coming on the nations. It seems that this is a judgment that's going to be executed not in the millennial kingdom, but more near term. In under the rule and reign of Alexander the Great and some of the judgment that he's gonna bring, the destruction that he's gonna bring to these regions. And we say that because of the regions that are in view. And that was part of the expansion of Greece and the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great. He did go after Tyre. He did go after Seiden. Remember Ty and Sein were originally part of God's plan for destruction outta Nebuchadnezzar, but they resisted. And so now later on, Alexander the Great in the Grecian Empire is gonna come and take them out. But. Instead for Jerusalem. Now we shift forward to the coming future Messiah again, and that's going to be through the arrival of Jesus Christ. And this is the triumphal entry passage. This is the one that's associated with Jesus coming in mounted on a donkey. And what I'm reminded of every time I read the rest of chapter nine is. The humility to remember the reaction of the people when Jesus died on the cross. It's understandable when you look at a passage like Zacharia chapter nine, and when you look at the rest of the things after he's gonna show up riding on this donkey and lowly and humble, because after that, it's all about a victorious king. It's all about the conquering. It's all about the victory. And yes, that's gonna happen. That's gonna be what's gonna take place during the millennial kingdom. But it wasn't what took place during the initial appearance of Christ, and that's one of the reasons why his disciples were so confused too. The reason the crowds are shouting Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord is because they know Zechariah nine. They know the rest of Zacharia nine too. And so they're sitting there thinking to themselves, this is it. He's come as the conquering king, not realizing, even as Peter said, that first he has to suffer before. Entering into his subsequent glories. And so Zechariah chapter nine is looking forward to the deliverance when God is gonna come and save his people. It's just they thought their salvation needed to be more of a political and militaristic salvation, when really what they needed was deliverance from their sins. And so the victory being wanted is first coming, is still a victory. It's in fact a greater victory 'cause the victory that we needed most as far as our eternal standing with the Lord. But it's not the same victory that we see depicted in the rest of Zechariah Chapter nine. So Zachary, chapter nine, you're saying is likely speaking primarily to the conquering that Alexander the Graves affected the first part. Yes. The first part, which is why verse 13 says, I'll stir up your son's o Zion against your son's o Greece. Greece is in view. Likely, and that's why God is saying, look, you're gonna get, you're gonna get back what you've given, what he did with Babylon and Assyria. I'm gonna pay you back for what you've done. Is that what we're trying to say here? And the fact that you offered it in that way says that there's possibility that we're wrong here. We think it's about Alexander the Great in Greece. If it's not about that, is there some other way to un understand chapter nine, besides well and there I would say again the future, the opponents of Israel. And that's what's so difficult with Old Testament prophecy, especially in. In times prophecies you're dealing with, okay, is this dealing with near term fulfillment or is this dealing with long term fulfillment? So this could be that Greece is representing future enemies of Israel. That is gonna be part of the conquering kingdom of Jesus when he returns. Right on. Alright, hopefully you're tracking with us. We've got one more Dan Zacharia, then we've got Esther coming up after that. And then we're not far away from the New Testament, so lemme pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God, help us understand your word. Feel that keenly, especially when we come up against texts that we're less familiar with. Help us to do our best to track with what you have written and what your prophets have said, and to understand what it means for us today. Lord, give us the wisdom to be able to do that as well. And we thank you that we have the fullness of your word from beginning to end, from Genesis through Revelation. I pray that we would not think less of one. Part of it because it, it's harder or more confusing, but that we would understand that all of it is part of your inspired word. All of it is part of you revealing who you are and what your plan is for your creation. So help us to study it, and to study it well, and to know and understand as much as we can. We're praying in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep you in your Bibles tuning against Tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye everybody. Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said