Hey folks. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. It's Tuesday and everybody should be back in the office. Well, your kids are today, Lord willing. Should they, what was happening? Well, where were they? Not? Well, I be traveling, so I'm just saying hopefully everybody's back. Gotcha. Not like everybody. All, all over the place. Everybody as in here. Everybody here in this office? Yeah, our office. Did you wash their feet today? I did not. You did not do that? No. Contrary to all my pleadings. This guy's gonna give us bad ratings again. You're gonna yell at me. You know, in fairness, that'd be the weirdest thing you could possibly do for us. Yes. You could take us to Hutchins for lunch. We'd be stoked about that. Yes. You could buy us all a great coffee mug with your face on it or something like that. That'd be well received. But if you washed our feet, I think. I think we'd all be a bit weirded out by that. Yes. And rightly so. And that's the point of it. But it would be funny. Yeah. So there's that. That's true. Not worth, Hey, the sky is falling. The left, the sky's falling. People are upset about things. Yeah. I've seen on Christian Twitter and a little less so on Facebook, still there. People are concerned about. Muslims. Yeah. Invading the country. There's a Muslim mayor in New York. Mm-hmm. There's also, it seems like, and I'm not sure this is the internet today in 2025, where AI changes everything and makes everything look real and is probably not real. I can't even tell anymore. In fact, this is another whole conversation, but I'm just gonna tag it and go back to my main point. Okay. The tag is, I've been duped by multiple AI posts and thank God for. Christian Twitter telling me, Hey, this post has been tagged as ai, and I'm like, oh, thank God for telling me. Yeah. Because I thought that was real. Yeah, that's getting scary, man. Yeah. I love the internets. I'm a tech, I would call myself a technophile. I love that stuff. And yet if I'm able to be duped. I'm scared. It's terrifying. I'm scared. Yeah, because I feel like I'm pretty discerning for the most part. Alright, that's scary. I'm gonna put that in the side. Let that sit where it is. Okay. Back to my original point. People are scared that the Muslims are invading our country. They're bringing their religion with them. They're clearly electing people in the office. There have been videos, we don't know if they're real or not. But I think they might be where Muslim imams are saying things like, we're gonna be in every home by this particular year and are, we're gonna do it by getting elected and we're gonna get, after we get elected, we're gonna change this teachers and what they're teaching in the classrooms, yada, yada, yada. So sky's falling. Help us navigate this. What do we do with all these things? Yeah. Yeah., is Islam a threat in. One sense, yes. I mean, it is. It's anti-biblical. It's antigo, it's antichrist, and it is a demonic hellbound religion, and it is one that we need to not give any quarter to as far as entertaining any of its teachings or thinking that there's any sort of ecumenicalism that can exist between Christians and Islam. There's not, is the Muslim population going to come and take over our nation, you know that's God's pay grade at this point. I can't tell you one way or another for sure on that. I can tell you things are a little bit different here than they are in some of the other countries that you've seen fall to Islam. In. Part of that is the, our government in our governmental system here now, we did see up in, in New York City, there was a, an Islamic. Democratic socialist that was just elect elected mayor up there. I don't know if that was more about his religion or his politics, but it's shows that Islam can infiltrate our political system. It's happened up in Minnesota as well. Mm-hmm. It's not impossible for it to happen here or other places. And so two things I would say. Number one I think your political leaders are aware of the threat. And I think the, for example, I know that Abbott is working on trying to do some things to limit voting rights and things like that within our state. Abbott is Texas, guys from California, governor of Texas. That's right. God bless Texas. So I think our political leaders, those that see the danger. They see the danger too, just like you do. And so I think that they're working on that level and you can pray for your leaders towards that end. You can pray for your governing authorities that, not just the ones that agree with us, but even the ones that disagree with us, that they would recognize the danger and the threat there, and that they would put pla things in place to, to prevent that from happening. I think the second thing is we do need to trust the Lord. We do need to. Understand that there is no guarantee that we will live with life, liberty, and justice for the rest of our lives here as citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave that's not guaranteed to us. We talked about that on Sunday. The suffering that comes with Christianity, and I mentioned it on Sunday. We can't look at the quantity of suffering we experience and draw qualitative conclusions by that. In other words, suffering is real. No matter if you live in the Middle East and you're fearing for your life or you're living here and you're going through a difficult situation with your marriage, your suffering is valid in both of those situations. And if you're suffering for Jesus, then it counts in both of those situations. But that's not to say that our. Quantity of suffering may not go up within our lifetime or our kids' lifetimes. Mm. And I'm not saying you should feel warm fuzzies about that, but this is where the rubber begins to meet the road for us as Christians, as far as our faith in a sovereign and good God, and our prayer life and our evangelism and our engagement, even in the political spheres that he's given us a stewardship of to say, okay, what do we need to do everything that we can to. Pursue that, which is good and right and true, biblically speaking. Yeah. We only have a short season. We don't know how long that season is, but we have a window of opportunity where things are really good and favorable to our religion, the practice of our religion, talking to people about Christ. And while we have opportunity and time, let us not waste it. Yeah. Let's use it instead of fretting and being afraid and cloistering in our houses, either of worship or our personal houses. Let's get out there. Yeah, let's be about it. And God willing, we can make a dent. While we wait for whatever's next. And that's the thing we just don't know. Right. It's hard for us. I appreciate it. It's, that's God's pay grade. We don't know what's happening next, but we do know he's got it figured out. Our job is to be faithful in the meantime. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's get into God's word together. We're gonna be in John 14, 15, 16 to 17. Is that it? We've got, it's just those four chapters and we'll do our best to kind of progress through in a timely fashion here. But I do wanna say, I think maybe there's a rapture sighting here. I'd love to get your thoughts on it. Wow. Let's see it. John 14. So right off the bat, Jesus is telling his disciples, Hey, don't be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. I see it. He says, I see it. Yeah. In my father's house are many rooms. I'm gonna go prepare a place for you. And if I go, then I'm gonna come back to take you to be where I am. That where I am you may be also. Mm. The word for take you is Ella Rap Twoo. It just getting, it doesn't say that. Yeah. No, but this fits better I think, with our understanding of the rapture of the church than it does with the fact that the next thing on the scene is him coming back here to establish the kingdom here on earth. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. That's a good, that's a great point. Or the great, great, good point. So. Anyways, I accept it. First time that jumped out to me, I'll accept it. So there you go. There's another thing to, to turn to, to fight your, a millennial friends with a millennial, post-millennial yeah, man, John 14 is so rich, so many good things, right? In this context, you've got the exclusivity of Christ statement where he says, I am the way, the truth in the life. No one comes to the father, but through me, we were just talking about Islam. This is one of the reasons why. Islam, Hinduism, all these other religions we're gonna look at and say, those are false religions. Because they're saying the way to God is through somebody other than Jesus. And so the only way, or Jesus plus or Jesus plus, right. The Mormonism Jehovah's Witness. Yeah. Only. Biblical Christianity is the only option there. And that's not a statement of arrogance and pride, that's a statement of truth. It's not arrogant for you to say, Hey, gravity exists, don't jump off the building. That's a matter of truth. And you're warning somebody to say, this is not gonna go well if you reject what's true. And that's what we as Christians are called to do. We're going called to go out and warn people to say, this is what's true. This is what you need to believe. That's right. The rest of John 14 here is a lot of the oneness between the son and the father. Philip is saying, Hey, show us the father. Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, which is always an amazing statement to me because so often we bifurcate those two and so many people want to, they're like, well, you've got the God of the Old Testament, and then you've got Jesus. And Jesus is saying, here we are one in the same. If you see me in my character, my actions, my heart, you've seen that of the Father as well. And so his reminder there to the disciples of that. And then he talks about the giving of the spirit. And so this is such an encouraging thing for us because we understand it now so much better because we're on the backside of the cross. But Jesus is telling his disciples that he is leaving them, and yet he's telling them, Hey, but it's not all bad because I'm also going to leave behind the spirit and that spirit is going to be with you and he's going to be in you, and he's going to help you understand the things that I've been teaching you all along. Really quick there be before he got to the spirit, he said something that I think you would be helpful in describing for people. Sure. He says greater works than these. He will do because I'm going to the father. So this is verse 12. He says, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these he will do. In what sense are the works that disciples after the apostles or maybe the apostles plus Yeah. Did greater works in Jesus? Yeah. I think this is probably quantity more than it is quality. I think this is the expansion of the church. I think this is similar to what Paul says in Colossians when he says, I'm filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. Mm-hmm. There was nothing qualitatively lacking in the afflictions of Christ. But what Paul was completing is the proclamation of the gospel. And that's I think what Jesus has in view here. He may have specifically in view the fact that there are gonna be miraculous signs the disciples are gonna do during the early. Era and expansion to the church. But I think this applies to us today to say we're still doing great works on behalf of Christ and through Christ as we go out and share the gospel and see people saved. Okay, follow up question. Now, this one related to the spirit. Why does Jesus have to leave to send the Spirit? I. Why does Jesus have to leave to send the Spirit? I guess that's the assumption that I'm making. Yeah. When he says, here, I'm gonna leave, but then I'm gonna send the spirit to you. Yeah. My assumption is that he has to leave. Yeah. He has to depart in this way in order to send the spirit. Yeah. After his ascension. Is there a necessity there that we're not seeing? I maybe we, I would go to Hebrew chapter seven where the author says. We are saved to the uttermost because he always lives to make intercession for us. And so part of Christ's ongoing ministry on our behalf is to be at the right hand of the father and to make intercession for us, which is a perpetual thing that he's doing that's part of the. Our being saved presently is the fact that he is there interceding on our behalf, so that we will never sin in such a way that that sin is not covered by his intercession, covered by his blood for us. Mm-hmm. So he's there doing that. In the meantime, here we are and we need. Help while we're here. We need help to be sanctified. We need help to continue to grow, to understand, to have enlightenment of the scriptures and to grow in Christ's likeness. And that's the role of the spirit in our lives. The spirit says here, or that Jesus says about the Spirit in verse 16, that he'll be with us forever. Does the spirits? Residents exist not only through our lives, but after our lives are done. So in, in death and in glorification. Yeah. Does he remain with us for the rest of our eternal existence? That's what's interesting. We're kind of parsing out prepositions here. He does say with not in at that point. You know that, that's a fascinating question this morning or as we record this, so on, on Friday I was going through our bible time with my kids and one of my kids, Luke, he said, dad when we get to heaven is, are we gonna see like, is it God? Are we gonna see somebody like on a throne or what's that gonna be like? And so we talked about the fact God is spirit and we're gonna be aware of the presence of his glory, like in Ezekiel and like in other. Places God with Moses, we're gonna see his glory. And he's not a force, he's a person. So it's gonna be an emotion intellect and will, we're gonna have an interaction with him personally in heaven. But the only one we're gonna be able to visibly see in heaven is gonna be Jesus the Son, the God the Son, God incarnate in the flesh in his glorified state. There the Holy Spirit is another mystery for me in heaven. He's gonna be there. Clearly he's part of the Godhead, but whether that will be in us with us. Maybe that's on the new earth because we're gonna be dwelling across the face of the new Earth. Maybe that's how the presence of God remains with us, even when we're not there in the new Jerusalem, where spatially Jesus will be there. The spirit's gonna be with us in us at that time. I could definitely see that. That's interesting. Yeah. If we keep this pace, we're not gonna finish for like 45 minutes. So could you please just stop slowing down. John chapter 15. We get into the root of the fruit, if you will. This is where the pro produce of sanctification comes from. It comes from a relationship with Jesus, and that's what's key. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. And if we abide in the vine that's where we will bear fruit. And so that's we even talked about it on Sunday. Peter said that he died on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. James talks about the relationship of faith and work. And says, look, if you say I've got faith, but you have no works, he says, I'm gonna show you my faith by my works. And that's really what this is talking about, that saving relationship with Jesus abiding in Christ and how do we know we're abiding in him? It's almost circular reasoning here in a sense, but we know we're abiding in him when we keep his commandments. And that's that evidence of it. And so this is so important for us to remember. We've gotta have an ongoing, cultivated relationship with the Lord. That's one of the reasons why we are so high on you. Not just high on we, we are adamant that you have to be in the word of God. We would say that's non-negotiable. And we do believe that the program and plan that we're doing right now, this chronological plan is good for you. And we would invite you to say, if you don't have a plan that you're doing right now, join us. And that's something that if it's, Hey, I don't have a plan, then I would say, you should be with us. Join us. Join in with us. Read this with us, participate with us. I know I'm preaching to the choir here because you're listening to the podcast, but at the same time, we need a daily cultivation of our relationship with God. And John 15 is such a good reminder of that. Why, because the rest of John 15, he says, the world's gonna oppose you. The world's gonna hate you again. We talked about that on Sunday. And identifying with Christ means suffering. That's going to bring opposition. And so we have to have this secure connection to Christ. And then he goes on in, in chapter 16 to talk more about the Holy Spirit and the fact that's gonna be part of the way that God protects us through that. He makes an interesting comment, though. He does say here, and we talked about it a little bit, that it's better. For him to depart, to go be with the Lord, then for him to stay. Because if he goes, then the Holy Spirit comes. And I can't remember the pastor that first said it, but it's the statement, it's better to have the spirit inside you than Jesus beside you. Which is fascinating. And I think it's because of the different roles that they have within the Godhead. The role of Jesus is different than the role of the Spirit. The role of the Spirit is there for our instruction edification. Conviction, enlightenment. The role of the son is therefore the atoning death, his ascension, his intercession at the right hand of the father for us as well. So, different roles in each, incredibly valuable, each super important in the redemptive history and redemptive process of us but unique at the same time. What's so interesting is that probably most Christians would, if given a choice, choose to have Jesus. It's tempting. Yeah. If I could take Jesus with me, sit in my car and come to work with me and sit next to me and have a question, instead of gonna GPT, I could just go to Jesus GOD and say, what do you think? Lord? That's good. And yet the Lord saw fit to give us his spirit. Yeah. Instead he said, this is better. Yeah. This is from the words of God. So I think we're compelled to say, we probably don't value the spirit enough if we're saying I'd rather have Jesus with me, but God is saying this is better for you. And so I think we ought to celebrate the fact that we have the Spirit with us. Everywhere. All the time. He leads us, he guides us, and he does that most often through his word. Yep. One of the interesting things he says of the spirit though that is probably worth note here in verse 13, he says, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truthful. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me for, he will take what is mind and declare it to you. All the father has his mind. Therefore, I said he will take what his mind declare to you. I think this is him talking about the role of the Spirit with the disciples specifically and the rest of the completion of the Canon Church Age the unique apostolic ministry that they were to have and the role the spirit was gonna play for them specifically. Because the spirit is not giving us any additional revelation beyond what we already have. He's helping us to understand it. To know it. And in that sense, he is taking what is his and revealing it to us, but is not new revelation that we're getting anymore at this point. One quick note here. As I read in verse 12 I noticed that Jesus says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them. Now, this gave me pause because I think there's oftentimes when I'm interacting with people, either counselee or even my own kids, where I'm just thinking I'm not telling you half of what you need to know. Because in part you just, you're just not ready to hear it yet. And I think it would do us a lot of help if we keep this in mind as we're interacting with our friends, our family, our loved ones, whoever. There are times when we can't tell them everything that we know and think about a subject because you're just not ready for it. God does it with us. He doesn't reveal all of our sin at once, unless he crush us. He gives us a little bit at a time. So keep that in mind as you're talking with anybody. Yeah. Which is, I think, fits with what I was just saying too, because the things that he has to say are things that Paul's gonna write in Ephesians, in Philippians and Galatians and so forth and so on. So, and Hebrews with Melek, right? Imagine Jesus dumping melek on Peter at that moment. Their minds has been blown. Our minds are blown with Mok still. Anyways, he goes on to, to talk more about his impending departure. You're not gonna see me. I'm leaving a little while. I'm not gonna be here, but then you're gonna see me again. There's an interplay with the resurrection here. That's also, I think, alluding to a. The ascension and then his ultimate return. There's a lot of this going on here, but then the ultimate message in the end of chapter 16 is you're gonna have opposition here, but take heart because I've overcome the world. I win in the end. And that's such an encouragement to them. And and they didn't understand these things at this point because they didn't yet know what was in front of him, but John did. As John's writing this. And he's writing it in this way. Zooming us in here, I think to give us such an encouraging reminder that when we go through the suffering, like we were talking about at the beginning of this episode, Jesus wins in the end. John 17. The high priestly prayer from here Jesus. This is another prayer that, that Jesus prays, I don't think for his own sake, but for the sake of the disciples, because he allows them to eavesdrop on his conversation with the Father here. And he's gonna pray before going to the cross, and he's gonna pray for them. He's gonna pray for their faith. He's gonna pray for their preservation, that God will protect them. That God would keep them from the evil one. He's. Gonna pray, God, I, they're gonna stay in the world and I want them there. He's saying, I'm not asking you that you take them outta the world because there's a mission for them that they're gonna be doing but that you would keep them from the evil one. He's gonna pray not only for the disciples, but he's also gonna pray for us. When he says in verse 20, I don't only ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their words. So he's praying for us, for you and me right now in this high priestly prayer. And Jesus is saying that he's praying that they would be sanctified and ultimately that sanctification comes as he says. In the truth of God's word, your word is truth. And so just a sweet moment with Jesus and the disciples prior to the cross where he's praying for them and what a humbling thing that would've been for them on the backside of the cross to be like, man, some of his last moments of speaking to us, were, pray for us. Yeah. And if you wanna know somebody. Listen to their prayer life and you really get a chance to hear and feel their theology and understand how their mind processes through a whole variety of things. And so what's really cool here is that he allows the disciples to listen in. Yeah. To him commuting with his father. Yeah. This is sacred territory. Really cool that you get to. Sneak peek what Jesus is saying. And this thing is so rich. There's so many things that he hits on his pre-existence where he alludes to the fact that he had glory with the father beforehand. Yeah. And he's gonna go back to it's like what is happening? And you're hearing and you're able to listen in on something that is like mind bogglingly huge. And so I would encourage you if you have time to, to linger over chapter 17 in particular. This is a really rich passage because of all the things that Jesus is speaking about, not the least of which are unity. Our protection, all the things that you talked about. But there's so much because this is Jesus prayer life on display for us. And I love it. It's, there's so many cool things here. And he had a decent theology. It was okay. A couple things I might say, you know what, this could be improved. I might say it this way, Lord, if I had my say, I would be the guy. I put my foot in my mouth so many times. Oh yeah. But I would have so many questions. Yeah. I can't wait for heaven. 'cause I have a long list of questions that I can't wait to have resolved. Yeah. And. Yeah. And we'll spend eternity learning even more than that too. Do you think in heaven I do. We're going to be regularly interacting with Jesus. Like do is there gonna be Yeah, I, because he's gonna, I'm sure he is gonna have a long line. Totally. I know he's omnipotent and omnipresent in some sense, but he's restricted by his body. He's chosen to restrict himself in that way. So how does that, how does it work? I'd like for you to explain that. How are we interacting with Jesus in heaven, in the intermediate state and in the new Jerusalem and new have the new Earth? If you could just tell us how that works, that would be great. Well, we will but look at that. Oh man. Look at that. We're outta time. We'll have to hit that on a future episode. All right. Tomorrow's episode. I'll let you start with that. It's the future one. It's open. Tomorrow's in the future's. Open ended. It's open ended. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. Well, maybe someone will send it into the DBR. Question. Yeah, the podcast at compass ntx org. Yeah, you can ask Pastor PJ that same question and have answer free or Pastor Rod that, that question too. Well we both get the email, but you're the one that's really appointed me. Actually, you know what better idea, so I know you've got a class coming up on Tuesday and so do Pastor Mark is gonna be in, so if you wanna send it to Pastor Mark, I think we can both agree pastors, PJ and Mark, we'd both be happy to receive your emails. Anyways. Let's pray again. We are so, to say grateful seems so trivial, but we. There's no better word. We are overwhelmed, thankful, humbled at the thought that you would not only die for us, but also provide the spirit for us to take up residence in us. That you would have the third member of the Godhead dwell within us. Lord, what an amazing reality that is. And one that we don't often think about enough. And how much do we leave on the table when we could do so much more if we really were truly tapped into what the Spirit is doing, abiding in Christ, even as John has said in John chapter 15. So, Lord, help us to grow more in the sensitivity to the spirit. And to be empowered more to serve by the Spirit Lord and that we would just continually be in awe of the goodness that we find in Christ, in our salvation, in the kindness that You ha have provided a way for us to have a relationship with you. It's amazing. And so God helps us to trust you. Even as we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast. This world is changing before our eyes rapidly. Help us to trust you, the one that is unchanging with our future, the future of our children, the future of our church, the future of our leaders, of our nation, of our state God. Help us to trust you, and I pray that we would in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep reading Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. We'll see you then. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! 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. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said