hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. Hello. We are we are in the thick now of March Madness. So I know as you are both avid, in fact, I would say rabid college basketball fans who you, who do you have? Did you fill out a bracket? I tried last year. I see. We have this thing where I try to make our staff a fun environment. I know it's hard to believe that, because it's not all the time, but occasionally I'm like, you know what? It would be fun for our staff is to fill out brackets. And I don't think I Lewis picked one based on which mascot would win a fight, and I think I may have gotten one other bracket turned in. Nobody else wanted to do it. So this year, no, that was last year. Oh. So I didn't know that you had to turn it in like right away. I didn't realize it was happening like that day. You have to turn it in before it starts. Well, I didn't know when it was starting. He just gave us, the XI in, filled us in in March. In March. I didn't know. I didn't know. Well, what time of March? No one says it's like March 1st through the 30th. I didn't know that. So there was a lot of assumptions happening. Welfare, you gave it to me like on February 29th or whatever, and then. March was the next day anyways. Do you care about it, pastor Mark? I don't even know. Do you care about March Madness College of Basketball? No. Nothing. Nothing. No, nothing. Is there a sport that you mildly track? I follow baseball. Okay. Mildly. Yes. And we are actually watching Formula One. Oh, okay. On Apple tv? Yeah. Yeah. So, we're watching the Formula One series season, whatever you wanna call it. Did you see the movie that was released? No, I didn't. We probably should. I don't know if it's good actually. So maybe I shouldn't say, probably should. I don't know anything about it. So it was by the same people that did Top Gun Maverick, which is, no, it was one of my favorite movies of all time. That's what you named your dog, top Gun. Actually, Maverick is his name after Maverick from Top Gun. Yes, gunner. So it has a ice man. It has a similar feel and by and large, I'm trying to think back. I don't believe that there's anything questionable except for maybe a little bit of language in it, but there's nothing immoral, no immorality being glorified or anything else like that. So that's rare these days. I would commend it to you. It's a good movie. Maybe we'll watch it. In fact, I believe it's on Apple tv, so you can watch it without even paying anything extra. Hey, look at that. Yep. So F1. Okay. Pastor, is there any, I think I know the answer to this question, but are there any sports that you mildly take an interest in? I will watch the Super Bowl. Yeah, I will too. I will watch maybe Game seven of the World Series. Okay. If I'm not doing something else. Yeah. And I think that about, I'll watch Yeah. If I'm at someone's house, if I'm at Pastor Mark's house and he's watching F1, I'll sit down and watch it with him. Sure. I was at the Ace's house one time and we were watching soccer and I don't know anything about it, so I'm just watching it, trying to enjoy it, so I could be a casual watcher of anything trying to enjoy soccer, if that makes sense. Yeah. That was Jacob played when he was younger and it was just as boring to me then, man. I liked watching him run around the field, but it had no interest. I want to like it. In fact, it's part of being a man. You get a man card, I think. Sure. That says, once you start, you go to the barbershop or you're just, talking around the fire pit, you start talking sports, now you're in a conversation. Yep. And then you're connecting and you're laughing and you're throwing shade at people. I can't do that. And I've tried a little bit. I'm like, I'm such a poser. I don't know anything about this. Sorry guys. I'm just gonna bow outta here and then, humbly bow my head and just walk away and shame. There was just recently the World Baseball Classic, which was televised and it was on and Venezuela ended up beating United States in the championship match in the World Base Baseball Classic, the championship game. Ironic. It was a good game. And yet at the same, yes, it is ironic. But it was kind one of those that you were like, as a fan of the United States, you're like, oh man, that, that stinks. Although today I saw, somebody had a video inside the Venezuelan locker room before the game, and one of their players prayed. One of the most theologically, like it. It could have been our pastoral prayer on a Sunday morning, minus the fact that he was praying about baseball at the same time too. Wow. But it was like. It was nails, it was doctrinally sound. Now it was in Spanish and they were translating it, so subtitles. But I was listening to this thing going, okay, this is like, I'm impressed. And so I just was encouraged that there was somebody on that team who's actually an MLB player as well, who was taking the lead to circle his team up before the game and pray a prayer that was all about exalting Christ and glorifying God. And, walking in, kindness and love and demonstrating and being ambassadors for Christ while they're out on the field. It was really cool to see that. That is really cool. Yeah. I didn't know there were Christians in sports. A few. Just kidding. A few. Just kidding. I know Tim Tebow. Well, Tim and Azaria, who shows up at church. That's true. With us, I got, we got friends. Yeah, we do friends in high places. Yeah. Well, hey, let's jump into our Bible reading for today. We're starting a brand new book. So we get into the book of Joshua, the first of 12. What we call historical books in the Old Testament. So, the name gives it away, but we've come out of the law, which is the Torah. And so now we're transitioning into a new section of the Old Testament. These are gonna be the historical books. These are gonna give a record of the history of Israel by and large. And then we'll get into some of the wisdom literature later on. Then. Now, obviously you've got the prophets, the major prophets, and the minor prophets towards the end here. But this this book, most likely written by Joshua, though the authors never named, and Joshua's a unique guy. He went from. Slavery in Egypt all the way through the conquest of the promised Land. And there's not many, in fact, I think just Joshua and maybe Caleb, who could lay claim to having that that distinguishing feature to be able to have been in Egypt and witnessed the Exodus and then be taken all the way through the full conquest of the Promised Land. Kinda unique as we, we think about this, but the first three chapters here are Joshua really establishing, being established by the Lord in chapter one. The Lord is gonna commission him and tell him three times over, be strong and courageous for what he's about to do and what he was going to need to do. And he's gonna need a lot of bravado here. I think a lot of times we think God is driving the people out before. The Israelites, and that's true, but they were still gonna have to fight the battles. They were still gonna have to go in and go to war against some pretty imposing peoples at this time. So Joshua's commissioned and encouraged be strong and courageous these three times over here in chapter one. And then we'll get into more in chapter two and chapter three as far as what he does in the initial stages here. But anything on this opening here with the commissioning of Joshua. I think it's important to see here that God recognizes Joshua's state. It's so fascinating to me that Joshua's someone that we would consider to be a man's man. He's strong, he's mighty, he's bold, he's courageous, and yet God has to tell him over and over again, be very strong and courageous, which suggests to me that maybe Joshua isn't all that self-assertive or all that confident in his ability to lead, especially when you're thinking about him taking. Over the job that Moses has just left behind. it's like being John MacArthur's understudy. Nobody wants that job. Nobody wants to show up and be like, oh, I'll do John MacArthur's job now. I'll sure I'll fill the pulpit. And I can imagine Joshua feeling just like that. Only far more because there's only one Moses and the only person who's ever gonna be. What am I trying to say? Who's ever gonna be compared to Moses? The next one in the line is Jo is not Joshua is Elijah. And then you've got Jesus, Jesus, who is also called Moses. And of course you have all three in the Promised Land when Jesus is transformed. But here I see Joshua stepping into a difficult role. He's weak and faltering perhaps. And so God tells Joshua, look, I'm gonna be with you. I won't leave you or forsake you. And this is true for us in Hebrews 13, five. Now the author of Hebrews quotes this very verse, Joshua one, five, and he talks to Christians and says, this is for you. I'll never leave you or forsake you, so therefore you don't have to worry about your money. You don't have to worry about what you're gonna do, trust that God is with you. And so I take Joshua one five at his word and I say, this is my verse two. Yeah. How about verse 17, when the people say to Joshua, just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you, you say, oh, great. No guys, I meant you guys got such a good track record. That is, I'm gonna be able to count on that for sure. Definitely. That's right. I was like, your friend. It's like, I'll be there on Saturday with my truck to help you move. And he's that one guy that's the flakies of all of them, right? Yeah. It's, it doesn't go very far. It's like, let's aim higher, let's aim higher. Well, chapter two, he sends out some more spies. Last time we sent out spies, things didn't go really well. And this time spies are going to do better and they're gonna get to Jericho. Specifically. They're gonna be given shelter by a key figure, and this is Rahab. Now, Rahab is a key figure, not just because of what she does here, in that she hides the spies and she also gives them a. Alibi as the people come looking for the spies and she says, well, they've already left and you need to pursue over there. And then she helps them escape later on. But Rahab is significant because she's gonna show up in the line of Christ. And so when we look at the genealogy of Jesus and Luke's gospel, Luke chapter three, or Matthew chapter one, I think Luke chapter three specifically lists Rahab amongst the lineage of Jesus. And so Rahab is a significant character and used by God in the lineage of the future Messiah, which goes to show that Rahab not only. Hid the spies and provided shelter to them. But when they find her, she is a woman of ill repute, let's just put it that way. But it appears that after. The Israelites conquered Jericho that she ends up finding and marrying an Israelite man of the tribe of Judah to be brought into the lineage that would eventually pro produce the line of Christ. So rahab's a redemption story even though we don't get the full redemption story laid out for us in scripture. It's amazing that almost the first narrative account of the people going into the land is an exception to God's instruction that they need to wipe out. Everybody. Yep. But I think it's there to demonstrate that God has a heart behind that instruction that isn't just sort of black and white as we might understand it. Well, I would say it's probably not as, it's not as though it's a gray issue or a gray area, but rather God is concerned with the heart of the people who are in the land. Right. Why is he sending the people of Israel into the land to destroy them? It's because they are wicked and because they're unrighteous. But we actually find this one person and her family, Rahab, who is the opposite of that, right? And is willing when she hears of God's people approaching to join God's people. And so what we see here is the mercy of God carried out by the mercy of Joshua and the people demonstrating what God really cares about. Talk to us then both of you, if you will, about Rahab's deception and God's commendation of Rahab in Hebrews chapter 11. Everybody remembers this one. We talk about this every year, but such a good thing for us to recall and talk through. There's a weak or tender conscience person who says, how can God commend her? And Hebrews 11, this is clearly wrong. You're not supposed to deceive. This is bearing false witness, is it not? Talk us through how you theologically handle that. Yeah, I think, our sending pastor used to talk about the wartime rules, the rules of war, and that there are oftentimes in, in situations like that, exceptions to the black and white rules of what is right and what is wrong. We often think of, was it Cory 10, boom. Or Ann Frank? I always get them confused. Yes. Thank you. Awesome. Which you guys too. Who hid the Jews? 10. Boom. It was 10. Boom. Yes, Anna Frank was the one who was hiding. She was hiding. Her and her family were hiding. But Cory 10, boom. The one that, which is why I hesitated. 'cause I was like, where are we going with Yeah. Which one? Yeah, which one are we talking about? She was the one hiding the Jews and the Nazis came and knocked on our door and said, are you hiding Jews? And she said, no. And none of us are sitting there saying, you're sinning and you're guilty before God because you lied to the Nazis. And the reason being is because the lie was in the service of what we would call the greater good. Now, I say that cautiously because that could be taken and somebody could really run with that and use that to, to commit sin blatantly and boldly and somehow twisted to, to show, well, this is for the greater good. But it's really in these situations, this is clear. The lives of the spies are on the line, and Rahab knows that God is the true God, and she knows that it's wrong to turn these spies over because he's the God of justice. He's the God that is the God of creation. So she's gonna side with him over the world. And so she lies, she deceives, she. In order to serve the greater good of the deliverance of the spies. Yeah. My view on this is formed by a professor at Southern Seminary named dr. Moler. Well, no, not in this case. Dr. Hamilton. Oh, and the way he talks about this is that he says there is the seed of the woman from Genesis, and there's the seed of the serpent. And the seed of the serpent is. An adversary to God and to God's people specifically. And there is times and places where the seed of the serpent, as it were, rears its head in really pronounced ways. One of those might be. Exodus chapter, well, the first couple chapters of Exodus, but where the midwives, I guess it's the very first chapter of Exodus where the midwives are told by Pharaoh to kill all the newborn babies. And what do the midwives do? They say, we're not gonna do that. And in fact, they deceive. The Egyptians and they say, actually, the situation is this and that and the other thing, not really what's going on. And again, I think you see here, Rahab is addressing the enemies of God and they are not as, and this is what, this is, the way Jim Hamilton will define it. They are not deserving of the truth in this particular instance. And so the modern day equivalence. To this would be if you are a missionary going into a foreign land, right into a nation that is, is against missionaries, and you would not be allowed to be there if you were a missionary, right? He says. There's no problem morally going into that place and saying, oh, I'm actually here to open a business, or I'm here to vacation, or I'm here for this or that, or the other thing. When you really aren't there for that, you're there for the purpose of spreading the gospel. And so I think, through the narrative account here. You don't see Rahab condemned. You don't see her explicitly condemned, and you don't see her implicitly condemned. In fact, you see the opposite. I think you see her implicitly rewarded and honored. And then in Hebrews chapter 11, you see her explicitly commanded. Called out and commanded. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so both of you offered helpful ways to frame this. There's the greater good and there's the, they don't deserve the truth argument. Both of those are helpful. And you even helpfully brought up this idea of being a modern day missionary. Is there any context wherein you would say, in our average everyday lives here in North Texas or elsewhere in the world where you would say, oh, this is necessary for me to do I am also exempted by these same ideas, greater good, or someone not deserving the truth? Like if your wife comes down and says, Hey, does this make me look fat? Yeah. Or your husband says, does this make me look strong for the ladies listening? I don't think in our common situation, common, average American situation, that there is precedent for these sort of things. There might be, there might be. I'm not saying that there's nothing, but I don't think that there's something in the daily life of the people of our church here that would require us to be dishonest in such a way. Hmm. Yeah, I would probably agree without being able to think through every scenario, I'm just running through my mind. Right? Yes. Maybe, maybe in the workplace somebody might run into a scenario in which this might come to bear, but let me give you one, just to throw it out there to give you some FOD or to work with here. Let's just call it a physical abuse situation. Okay. To get outta that situation. Maybe there's deception that's needed. I'm going to my mom's, but realistically, I'm actually taking the kids. We're gonna go to my dad's and we're gonna be there for an extended period of time. Yeah, that's a deception. That's a lie. Is that something that God can commend in the, in a similar way that he would commend? Rahab. Yeah. It's a horrible situation, but it's a good example. Yeah I could get behind that and say that's serving the greater good of protecting the wife, protecting the kids, I think. But you even bringing that up shows that this is going to be an extraordinary circumstances. This isn't something that's commonplace. Right. This is something that's gonna be out of what we would expect in everyday normal life. Yeah. And the other example I think that's like similar to that is, let's say the government. Comes to my door and says, we're gonna take your kids because you're teaching them truths about God. They're probably not gonna say it that way, but let's say that's the reason they come to my door where are your kids? We're gonna take them from you. I'm gonna say, I don't know. They're not here. What are you talking about? Right. I would be willing to do that, and I think it would not go against my conscience, and I don't think it would be immoral for me to do that if I were. Protecting my kids in such a way. Yeah. Yeah. Again, an extreme example. Yeah. Kind of not something again, in the day-to-day life of our church. Yeah. Thankfully, not something that we're encountering, but that would be an example that I could, that I think would fall in this category. If I could add one, one quick thing as we wrap up this chapter here is that Hebrews chapter 11, verse 31, says, by Faith Rahab, the prostitute did not perish with those who are disobedient because should given a friendly welcome to the spies. You'll notice that what it positively identifies is what she does as an act of faith. It doesn't address what she does that we're discussing, which is she deceives those who are trying to capture the spies. We would see them as a singular event, but scripture is isolating that say like, here's how her faith was operational. Mm-hmm. And that's what scripture commence. Mm-hmm. Not saying that there's never a time to do this, I suppose there are but I just want you to see here, scripture is highlighting her faith, and that's where our hearts should be when even when we're making decisions like this. All of these have to be acts of faith and not merely acts of fear and self-defense. I know it's hard to differentiate those things, especially in the moment of crisis, but I just wanna point out the faith is what's highlighted here in commanded. It's a great point. One chapter three, which is the last chapter of our Old Testament reading. Joshuas gets everybody ready for the crossing of the the Jordan River here. I almost said the Red Sea. And there's some parallels here, and I think we're intended to see that there's a callback here to what happens at the Red Sea. But Joshua gets them ready and orders them to consecrate themselves again. That is a word that means to make themselves wholly, to set themselves. Part this was gonna be a holy event, not just a historical event. And I think that's significant here. Joshua wants the people to be crossing over as the people of God, not just as the people that are going to be ushered forward or led by God. They're his people. And so there's the consequ and there's the worship. Element of this as well, which we're gonna see even in tomorrow's reading. But in the rest of this, they're not gonna simply cross at a low point and they're not gonna cross at low tide. God is going to do a miracle. This is a God thing. One the waters of the Jordan River are gonna be piled up for miles back and the people are gonna cross on dry land. And that's where I think you get the call back to the Red Sea because it was said there that the people of Israel, Israel crossed on dry land when they crossed through the Red Sea there. So, there's the illusion. I think there's the. Concept there of this is the cult, the fulfillment of the exodus. They started by crossing through the Red Sea into the wilderness of Sinai, and then they were finally ushered into the promised Land as they crossed through another body of water this time again on dry land. One exceptional difference in chapter three here is that the men the tribal leaders had to get their feet wet before the water ceased. Yeah, that's a great point. In verse 13, it says, and when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth shall rest in the waters of the Jordan. Then the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing. So they had to exercise a great deal of faith before the God acted upon the miracle. That's really cool. I think that shows us that our God does appreciate when we step out in faith, we, in fact, we use that terminology, we use that vernacular stepping out in faith. I wonder if it maybe comes from places like this. I've always wondered, do their wet feet dry out as the water recedes? Wondering. That's pretty silly, but I've always wondered that there's dry ground, but they do, they still have, wet, hamms sloshing across wet hys and SLT shoes. I think it would be funny though. Yeah, I'd enjoy that. That's a, that, see, that's a mark of pride. Not sinful pride. We talked about that, but that's a mark of pride because you could say, I did this as an act of faith and the Lord, look, look what the Lord is doing. Mm-hmm. I would want my wet feet and my wet. Gown to be there unless the water receded from your feet and whatever clothing you were wearing as it receded, that would be pretty cool. Yeah. Well, let's get over to our New Testament reading, Luke 1 57 through 80, and here we get the rest of the story of the birth of John the Baptist. We've taken this interlude from the time that. Zechariah was promised, Hey, your wife is gonna have a baby, and you're gonna name his name John. And remember, Zacharia's been mute this whole time. He's not been able to talk. And the birth happens and the people go to say, well, we're gonna name him Zechariah after his father. This was something that was common. During this time. We've talked a lot about the honor, shame culture. That would've been a way to honor the father by naming the son after the father. And yet Zechariah makes his gestures known to the people to say, no, we're not gonna do this. I wonder if Zechariah could have saved himself some trouble by. Talking to his wife by drawing and writing some things earlier to say, Hey, by the way, his name's not gonna be zacharia. It's gonna be something else. But he motions and says, no, we're gonna call his name John. And the name John actually means God is gracious or graced by God. But God is gracious. I think that's significant here. I think John the Baptist says the forerunner of the ultimate. Display of the grace of God. I think there's significance in the name John. It's not just that, well, he wasn't gonna be called Zechariah because we wanted some different name. The name conveys something about God. And I think there's a significance in the fact that this is the name that says God is gracious and he's gonna be the forerunner of the ultimate display of God's grace. It's such a common name. John, it's in many of our languages in different variations. Juan is one, Yan is another. We don't use many yans here in the states. Ian. Ian, yeah. There's all these variations of John. But I find it fascinating that in verse 61, they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name. Yeah. It was such an uncommon name at the time. And now we see the effects of what the gospel has done throughout all these different generations. Where now John is a name of honor and distinction. It's a very common name. It's so common. It's a generic name. It's used for a generic person. Oh. This is, John Doe. Yeah. It's so fascinating because it was at one point in time, not that until God steps on the scene and transforms a relatively unknown name into the, a name that's almost as common as Muhammad Pastor PJ is your John named after John the Baptist. He's not actually. 'cause JON, not JOHN. He's named after Jonathan of the Old Testament. It's his full legal name. Jonathan. Jonathan. Sometimes we call him Joe Nathan. Joe Nathan. So why do people separate it at John, but not. Nathan, I've never heard of Nathan, whose full name was Jonathan. Oh, that's a good point. Because, yeah. 'cause Nathan is the gift of God, I think is what that refers to from the Hebrew. Yeah. Yeah. We should try to do some different nicknames. We should based on different parts of the name that people don't use. Well, if you see my Jonathan, you call him Joe Nathan, he'll stop and he'll turn around and be like, what? Yeah. So common name, uncommon. See because of a, but because of a extraordinary God, we now have a name that is all over the place in every and every, and maybe that ought to remind you of Luke chapter one. Yeah. Yeah. His prophecy that Zucker goes on to give is significant as well. God opens his mouth and the first thing he does is he, he prophesies about John the Baptist, but also about Christ. And I think sometimes in the New Testament, early on in the gospels, we can lose sight of the gospel itself, the good news of salvation by faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. And yet we see this here in Zechariah's prophecy in verse. 77. Well back up to verse 76. John is in view here. Ze, I was talking about his son here. You child will be called the prophet of the most high for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. And then he says this, to give the knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. So there we see that the knowledge of salvation even early on is. Involves the forgiveness of sins. It's not strictly the com concept of the Jewish kingdom being established or the coming of the Messiah being the king of the Jews. It's the need for the sin to be atoned for. And we see that even in John the Baptist when he comes onto the scene and begins baptizing people and calling them to repent for the forgiveness of their sins as well. So the gospels here, even in the early stages with this prophecy about John the Baptist. Okay. On that. That's a strange phrasing. And so I would love for you to at least help us to put this into the common vernacular because we would understand if it said to give the knowledge of salvation to his people for the forgiveness of their sins, but the preposition is in, and which I'm guessing, is that Epsilon knew n in the forgiveness. How does that make a difference? Are we to understand this differently than the normal understanding for the forgiveness of their sins? If it is epsilon new, then it could be translated also as by, so it could be a. A preposition of agency there, the knowledge of salvation, not salvation by the forgiveness of sins or in the, it could be communicating that in the the context there. So you're right. It's not the way that we would translate it in English, but I think it may be connecting that idea, that salvation and the forgiveness of sins, those two things are inseparable. You can't have one without the other. Okay. All right. Well, let's pray and we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God thanks for reward and for our time in it today. We are grateful for the gospel and the salvation that we have because of the forgiveness of sins that we have in Christ. And so we pray that as we continue to read your word, we do so as those that are our, you've been able to understand it because of your spirit dwelling within us. That is a result of us being placed into Christ by salvation. And so God, we are so thankful that this is not just a textbook for us to study, but a book that transforms our lives. And I pray that it would do that, and it would do that in the lives of our church as well. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, hey, tomorrow is Saturday, so join us tomorrow. Also join us at Men's Bible study tomorrow. We'd like that. Keep her in your Bibles for another day. If you're a man you want, yeah, if you're a man, that was the clarification notion. Ladies, you cannot come. Yes, please don't come. Ladies, don't come. Ladies don't be men's Bible study. That's right. Tomorrow. Respect the genders, but all of you, keep your Bibles Tune again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye bye Bye.

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