Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's up folks? It is Wednesday. In fact, as you were just telling me Pastor Rada, it is Ash Wednesday today. That's right. Everybody named Ashley gets a shout out. So we have a one Ashley that I know of in our church at least. That's right. So what's up, Ashley? Yeah. Hi. Here's your official. There's your shout out. No. You may see some people walking around maybe at your office or you go to your local Starbucks or whatever and they're gonna have some dirt on their foreheads. Don't wipe it off for them. It's on purpose and it usually is a sign that they have observed some sort of liturgical service surrounding Ash Wednesday pass ride. Can you give us some insight into what Ash Wednesday is all about? I'm not entirely sure. I know that traditionally they put the ashes on the forehead as a symbolic start of the occasion of the 40 days leading up to. Easter. So this next 40 day segment is typically called Lent Ash. Wednesday is what kicks it off, and in this timeframe there's usually some fasting from some, a food, a drink. Some people use it as a way to mitigate a bad behavior. They don't drink alcohol for 40 days. There's something like that, but I'm not entirely sure what the significance of the ashes are. Do you know anything about that? From what I understand that the ashes when they're put on the forehead, they're supposed to be put on the forehead in the shape of a cross. Right? And that is meant to signify both repentance and belonging to Christ. In fact, you may know some of your friends or relatives who are part of the Catholic church, or maybe you have come outta the Catholic church and you used to make the shape of the cross before getting up and coming forward to receive mass or communion, even in the Episcopal church, sometimes people will do that, and I think there's a. Connection here in that, the reason people would do that is it was a sign that the cross was to go before them. And it was similar of the idea. I believe it was St. Patrick who was the one that was saying the cross before me. The cross behind me. The cross above me. The cross below me. Indeed. It was so that idea that, that the cross is always meant to be in front of us. We were to. To keep our minds there and be reminded of the sacrifice of Christ. And I believe that's the point of Ash Wednesday as well, is it's meant to remind people of that. But it also marks the beginning of the Lenon season, which I think we talked about recently on the podcast, which marks 40 days of a fast. That again, if you're part of one of the more liturgical churches, and when we say liturgical churches, what we mean by that is the churches like the Catholic Church, the Episcopalian church, some Methodist churches I believe would participate in this. Presbyterian churches you may participate in something called Lent, and that's where typically you give something out for Lent. Sometimes you'll find people that give up coffee for Lent, or you'll find somebody that gives up watching TV for Lent, or you'll find somebody that gives up exercising. For Lent, but it's meant to be something that costs you. and like any fast, anytime that you're tempted to go back to that it's an opportunity to remember something or to pray, or in this case, to remember the cross. Remember the death of Jesus. So it's a way to prepare one's soul, one's spirit, one's heart for remembering the death of Christ during the Easter season, and that kicks off today. So why don't you do this? Yeah. So there's nothing sinful about it. In fact, I think that was the question that we asked the other day, is there anything sinful about Lance or Ash Wednesday? And the answer is no. It's also not anything that's specifically prescribed in scripture. So it's something that is part of church tradition. And so a lot of these churches, like the Episcopal Church, the Catholic Church, and others, like I mentioned before, it's been part of the tradition. It's been part of what the church has done for a long time. And so it's continued. Even today, it's not a. Biblical prescription though. So when we talk about what defines a church or what defines a Christian, we have to be careful not to add to what the scriptures talk about. That doesn't mean that you can't do more as a Christian than somebody else does, but if we're gonna come back and say, what does a church have to do? Or what does a Christian have to do? We need to make sure that we're saying a Christian needs to do what the Bible says a Christian needs to do. And this would be an instance where this is an option. You're free in Christ to do this if you so choose. But this isn't a prerequisite that is implied. That is applied across the board to all churches and all believers. Well, let's get into our daily Bible reading for today. We are in Leviticus 26 and 27, and then Mark chapter two, Leviticus 26 and 27. So Leviticus 26 is a chapter about the blessings for obeying the Mosaic covenant in the. Curses for disobeying the mosaic covenant. And one of the things that stood out to me this time around was down in verse nine, he is talking about the blessings at this point, by the way, the cursings get way more ink than the blessings do, but under the blessings, he says, down in here, verse nine, if you obey me, he says, I will turn to you. And make you fruitful and multiply you, that those are conditions of the Abrahamic covenant. So we're talking primarily about the mosaic covenant, but here God is gonna reference back the mosaic covenant, the offspring part of the mosaic covenant. I will make you fruitful and multiply you. And then he says this, I will confirm my covenant with you. So this seems to imply that there is some sort of connection or relationship between the Mosaic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant that the way that Israel pursued their faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant was gonna have a bearing on the Abrahamic covenant. The caveat I would say is that this is not a bearing that would undo the promises of the Mosaic covenant, but it could delay their fulfillment. And that's ultimately what we see. And that's why still today we are awaiting, in Israel, still awaiting the full fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, which is again, is land seed and blessing. They didn't. Follow through. They didn't obey the way that they were called to hear, but there's a relationship between how they treat the mosaic covenant and God's faithfulness in the Abrahamic covenant. Right. And one of the things that you'll notice here is that part of the reason for the covenant in the first place is because God. Desires to commune with his people. Verse 12, part of the benefit or the blessing that they would enjoy is communion with God. He says in verse 12, and I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people. This is the constant refrain that you'll read throughout the Old Testament, and you'll also read in the New Testament when God finally does dwell among his people. In Revelation chapter 21, this is the end of human history. God himself will be with them as their God, and he will dwell among them and they will be his people. Well, here, God promises to do exactly that with the people of Israel. If they would obey his covenants, if they would keep the covenant stipulations and regulations, of course they failed in this. And so because of their failure, this is what necessitated Jesus to come and be the one who would deliver them and secure them. Connect them to a covenant where they could not lose any part of it. And they do that through Jesus' sacrifice. Again, the majority of this chapter is gonna be on the discipline that would come for their disobedience, and that is the rest of chapter 26. And in there, there's a couple things to note. Number one is when you look at verse 17, when he's talking about the consequences, when he says, I will set my face against you. I mentioned this the other day or a couple weeks ago in my preaching, that this represented the whole person of God. The face was where you saw how a person is feeling. And we would know that today, see somebody's. Facial expressions. And that gives a general understanding of how they're doing internally as well. So when he says, I will set my face against you, this is God saying, I'm going to be against you. My whole person is going to be against you, and the discipline is going to be doled out to them. Notice in verse 18, here, sevenfold for their sins. And then we find it again in verse 21, sevenfold for your sins down in verse 28, sevenfold four your sins. That doesn't mean that they're gonna get seven spankings or seven lashings or seven rounds. This is a number of completion. God is saying, I'm gonna discipline. You to the fullest extent for your sinfulness and for your disobedience. But unless we think, man, this is harsh. And why is there so much ink spilled on discipline? Look at verse 23. It says, if by this discipline you are not turned to me, this is important for us to understand because God's discipline. Then is the same as it is now, and that is God's discipline is meant to lead us to repentance. It's meant to cause the person being disciplined, or the nation in this instance, being disciplined to stop and say, what I'm doing is wrong. I need to repent, and I need to turn from my sin, and I need to pursue instead what God wants me to pursue. So God's gonna discipline to the fullest extent, and yet he's doing it for the good of his people. You wanna chat about verse 29 where he says, one of the consequences of your sinful rejection of me is that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and shall eat the flesh of your daughters. You want me to, to talk about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're we're all disgusted by that. Absolutely. We should be. And in fact, I wrote next to that verse in my bible, horrific because it is, in our eyes, this is abominable and it's the gravity of the weight of our sin and the consequences of our sins, such that we would look at something like this and think, why would God lead them to this point? And the answer is because of their rebellion against him. This is the natural fruit of what they were doing against God. And so they were bringing so something even as horrific as this upon themselves. And this is their depravity as as God is really turning them over to themselves in some ways. a la, Romans chapter one. So what we would say then, when we look at a verse like this, God is not forcing them to do this, right? This is not God saying, this is a good idea. We want you to do this. This is the consequence of their sinful rebellion. And the devastating effects of sin are so profound and so pronounced that they even violate the laws that are written into our nature. It's very unnatural for a woman to abandon her son or a father to abandon his daughter. And yet here God says one of the consequences of living in perpetual rebellion against my rule and my leadership is that you'll do the unthinkable. And even though this is true for them in their time and place, the truth is also that sin can also similarly blind us in deceive us, such that we do things that are unthinkable and this is the power of unchecked sin. Notice he also mentions in verse 34, we talked about the Sabbath year I think a couple episode episodes ago. He says, the land shall enjoy its Sabbath as long as it lies desolate. While you are in your enemy's land, then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbath. Now, this is God forecasting the fact that they're not going to observe the Sabbath year. So for 70 years of captivity, they're going to be there because at least in part of the reason is the land is gonna be enjoying its Sabbath years. All of this though, come down to verse 40 again. If they confess their iniquity in the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery, if their uncircumcised heart is humbled, verse 41, so that they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. And so even as we look at these things and we think, man, this is horrific, this is awful. We need to remember that God is still providing a way for his people to be restored. He's not wiping his hands completely of them. He's going to discipline them, but he's disciplining them for the purpose of bringing them back to himself. Yeah, really important here. First John one, nine is basically what Leviticus 20. Six 40 is saying, right, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. But notice here, he still says in verse 43, but the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its sabbaths. In other words, you can still be forgiven of your sin, but not necessarily removed from the consequences of that sin. And that's a principle that still plays out today. Well, the final chapter of Leviticus, Leviticus, chapter 27, deals with people or things that have been devoted to the Lord. So if somebody makes a vow, somebody swears, I will give this to you, Lord, here's the rules for it. Some of them were gonna be able to be redeemed the person could be redeemed, the animal could be redeemed, the house could be redeemed, the land could be redeemed. But then there is a point at which if somebody is devoted to destruction before the Lord or something is devoted to destruction before the Lord, which means that their life is forfeit because of something that they have done, there's no redemption there. There's no clemency to be offered in situations like that. And so if you look at verse 29, no one devoted who is devoted for destruction from mankind shall be ransom. He shall surely be put to death. So God is saying if you've done something or something has been some crime has been. Committed. That's worthy of death, then that is what you shall receive. You shall receive the death penalty. But other things saying, I promise this to the Lord. There was an opportunity to redeem that, but you were going to have to pay for it and add a little bit extra on top of that to redeem it. So we just finished the book of Leviticus. Congratulations. This whole book is about how the Levites were to lead and conduct worship services among the people of Israel. So everything that you just read here has to do with their experience of God and their relationship. To him. Hence all the vows. And the sacrifices and the consecration and some of the things. The Day of Atonement that we read, the centerpiece of Leviticus, all of this is how they're supposed to conduct a relationship with God. And notice and recall, there's lots of regulations, lots of stipulations. God is a. Pers God is specific about what he prescribes for his people in terms of how they're to relate to him. Again, some things that are distinct for Israel, but there's also a lot of carryover and God cares about how we approach him. And I think at the very least you have to say, Leviticus teaches me not to come to God, cavalierly or casually. We should come to him with awareness that he is high, he's holy, and he is rightly feared in a Godly way, not in Aile, but in a true godly fear. Let's jump over to Mark chapter two. Mark chapter two. As we get to Mark, remember that mark is a snapshot, just like Matthew is a snapshot. John and, and Luke also different snapshots of the life of Christ. Sometimes people will be after, for example, with Matthew, mark and Luke, specifically a common shared document. A lot of times you'll hear it referred to as q and people will say, well, there's this common document. They're all drawing from it, and that's where there's minor variances, but a lot of these things are the same. Instead, what we're dealing with is three eyewitnesses here with Matthew, mark, and Luke recording a lot of the same events, but just because. They were all recording similar things, doesn't mean they're all giving the same perspectives here. So Mark, chapter two, we open up with the story of the paralytic. Well, this, this we read about in Matthew chapter nine. So that gives you a little bit of an example of Matthew being a little bit more robust in his treatment of the life of Christ, including his birth and everything else. 'cause Matthew's nine chapters in Mark we one chapter in, and here we go with the healing of the paralytic, which by the way is. One of my favorite accounts just because of the fact that Jesus is making one of the clearest statements to his deity that we're gonna find when he looks at this man being lowered through the ceiling and looks at him and says I say to you, get up and walk. Or I say to you, your sins are forgiven. The reaction from the crowd and the Pharisees is correct. Who has the authority to forgive sins, but God. And then Jesus basically steps right into it to say that you may know that I do have that authority. I say to you, get up, take your mat and walk. And so this is Jesus saying, I am who you think I am. Even though he doesn't boldly come out and say, I'm God. So why doesn't he do that? Because I would agree clearly. He's making every effort to say it without just saying it. Is he saying it? Maybe we're just missing it because we're not biblically. Aware enough. What do you think is happening here? I think it's what John talks about so often with Jesus when he says it was not yet his hour. And so when you think about early on in Jesus' ministry and John, when he does the miracle at the wedding and Cana when. Mary first comes to him, he says to her woman, it's not yet my hour. Or when in John, Jesus' brothers wanted him to go up publicly to that feast and make his entrance. He says, it's not yet my time. My time has not yet come. And I think that's what he's doing here. So he's answering it wisely and shrewdly so that those with ears to hear, including his own, own disciples, would be able to affirm some of their suspicions and even some of his, his enemies too. He's still not answering it in such a way that the enemies would immediately have grounds to charge him with blasphemy and. Drag him before because it's not yet his time. What about his use of the son of man? Would you make anything of that? It's, he's not calling himself son of God. Right. But son of man seems like it could be significant. Yeah. Son of man. Going back to, we talked about this recently as well, going back to Daniel chapter seven, Daniel chapter seven being another Messianic passage where the son of man is displayed as coming on the clouds to the ancient of days, and there he receives. Authority. He receives authority and he receives kingdom. So this title, son of Man, had a messianic implications as well. And so Jesus is making enough statements along the way, be it Son of God, son of man, or situations like this, that he is making it clear to those with eyes to see, and ears to hear who he is as he is leading his followers. Amen to that. From here. He goes on and is gonna call Levi. Levi, by the way, is the name Matthew. It's another name for Matthew here. And Matthew is gonna be a tax collector. Jesus is gonna be confronted for hanging out with the sinners and the tax collectors, and he's gonna make that statement again. It's not the healthy that need a physician, but the sick. And he came to call those that knew that they were sick. And again, this is to respond to the Pharisees and that was one of the Pharisees main problems. They were sick, but they didn't know they were sick. They needed the righteousness that he provided, but they didn't think they did because they thought they were righteous enough. And so Jesus is saying, these people know they're not righteous. And so that's why he's spending that time with them because they're receptive to his teaching, because they know they need it. Also, Jesus makes the point that the sick go to a physician. I think it's important to see that Jesus is okay with Christians who and physicians. Yeah. I think that's a common sense thing that we all, I don't, I don't know if we, maybe we do take it for granted, but one of those things that scripture says this is the right thing. In fact, he's telling them like, if you're physically sick, you go to this physicians that work with your body. You're spiritually sick. You need a divine physician to work on your soul. Yeah. In the next two sections here in chapter two, Jesus is going to make a point about what he's doing there and who he is, because initially he's gonna be asked some questions about why his disciples aren't fasting or washing their hands. And Jesus is gonna say, here, Hey, look, this is not the time for them to do that because the bridegroom is still here. And so it's not time for them to be. Fasting or mourning or going through these things. In other words these are questions about the law. And in the last part of chapter two, he's gonna get questions about the law again, because the disciples were plucking the heads of the grain. Pharisees are gonna say, Hey, they're working on the Sabbath. Jesus is gonna say, again, you're missing the points. And so Jesus is not abrogating this, he's not setting an aside completely. He does say, look, there will be a time to fast again in the future. And he doesn't completely say, Hey, the Sabbath is pointless or meaningless. But he says, you guys are elevating the law above its place. It's not about the jot and tittle and obeying every single part of it for the source of righteousness, just for the sake of obedience. We need to understand what the point is, and especially in this last part with the Sabbath, he's gonna say the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And so you're subjecting people, you're causing people to suffer for your definition of what they should be doing, right, as far as righteousness is concerned. And you're missing the point of the law completely. This is. Interesting as well, because you have to think about the fact that the Sabbath, even though it was inflexible and that it was part of the 10 Commandments, it was also flexible for certain groups of people. The Levites routinely broke the Sabbath, right? Because they had to, that was their job. They were to lead services and to help people with their sacrifices, and so there was always gonna be people that were breaking the law, and I'm doing air quotes here, because they weren't actually breaking the law. God was giving this law to people to say, use your Nain. Mm-hmm. There's times when this doesn't. This should not be applied to be more than what it's supposed to be. And I think it's true that God does expect us to use our noggins when it comes to doing the same with our Bible. There's things that scripture says that we have to be wise enough to know when do we apply this versus apply that. Mm-hmm. For instance, one of the most famous proverbs is do not answer a full answer. A full thank you according to his folly. And then the next verse is, answer a full according to his folly, let's he be wise in his own eyes. Right? So which is it then, right? Do you do both? Do you do one or the other? And of course, the answer is it takes wisdom to know when to do which. And I think the same is true when Jesus instructs us. The law of the Sabbath was not meant to be was not meant to be a mere obligation that you fulfill. But meant to help give you the sufficient rest that you need so that you can serve the Lord with all your heart, soul minus strength. And even that was meant to be a means of worship and rest toward God. So read your Bible wisely. It would be my point. Amen. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. Can I ask you one question here? Yes. If you're a close reader, your Bible, you're gonna ask about a thar. It says here that in verse 26, David went to the House of God and the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and he ate the bread of the presence. Two things there. Number one, David ate the bread of the presence. We just read about this, right? This was for the priests, right? How could David do this, right? And so he was on the run for his life from, from Saul at this point in time. And so he went in and it seems that here, and this is the point that Jesus is making, it was better to preserve the life of David to allow him to eat this food because that was the food that was available, and that was the only food that he had access to, rather than to say, Hey, ceremonial. You're not allowed to eat this bread, and so we're gonna keep it from you and you need to go starve instead. And so there's again, a permission to say there's flexibility here in some of this the situations of, of what it looks like to obey the law in this. And that's, this is fascinating for more than one reason because David deceived him. He did not tell him the truth about what he was doing. And he was running, he was on the run from Saul. He just tells him, look, hey, Saul sent me on a mission. I've got enrolled. Do you have anything? It's so fascinating because Jesus uses David as it seems like a justification to do what he's doing. And he's saying, if you can respect the lesser David. Surely you can respect the greater David and not justify yourselves over and against me. Yeah, I think that's what he's doing here. Also a thar wasn't the guy's name, it was a Alek who was a Thar's son. Any comments about why it says a thar here, why Jesus chose to use a thar versus a Alek? I don't have any comments on that. So, well, here's, here's what I would know. And I think this is probably the best the best answer I could give Jesus is no slouch. He knows his Bible, right? He's quoting the Bible left and right to the devil. We're gonna see that. And so I think what's happening here is that it must be that a Bihar, the high priest had greater prestige. It's like when mm-hmm. You see the Old Testament authors being referred to, and it's like, oh, the author Isaiah says, and it's actually a compilation piece. Mm-hmm. There's more than one. There's more than one prophetic oracle being cited. Mm-hmm. Tradition is that you give the one with the greatest honor, the greatest authority, the title, so to speak. Mm-hmm. It's an honorific way to show respect to a certain person, and the one with the highest ranking, the highest title, he's the one that gets the privilege. And so Isaiah would get that here. I would have to say it's probably something similar. Abiathar is the more well known high priest versus a alek, which is why he's cited here. It's similar. I was, as you were just talking about that we see that a little bit with. Anis and Caiaphas. Yes. In later on in Jesus' life when it's like, okay, which one is the high priest during the crucifixion of Jesus? Well, Caiaphas is, but Anis held a high position because he was Caiaphas father or father-in-law who held father-in-law the position before. I think so. Yeah. So we see that with, with even there later on. Yeah. So prestige. Yep. Which by the way it's another evidence of the honor shame culture that exists within the Eastern mindset. We're westerners, we don't get this, we don't do the same thing. But the honor, shame distinction is a big deal. Yeah. And because they look at the world differently than we do, the honor that they would pay to somebody like a Bihar, they're willing to do, even if it's not technically correct in the strict. Literal sense of the word. It was a alek, not a thar, but a thar gets billing because he's, it's like when you watch a TV show and the show, it always puts the star's name in the big, bold letters and everyone else is a quick, like, three seconds on the scene. Oh, yeah, they were there too. Yeah. They were there. But the real person that's in this thing is, Ben Stale, Stiller. Yes, one of those guests, yes. It's honor, shame, very much an Eastern mindset. So just, he heads up FYI. Well, let's pray and we're done with this episode. God, thanks for a book like Leviticus that we just wrapped up. And thanks for the reminder that we need to be serious about how we approach you. We need to be careful about how we approach you. We need to be holy as you are holy, and we are grateful for that. And so thanks for bringing us through this book, Leviticus. We pray that you'd continue to sustain us as we continue to read through numbers next, and as we continue in the New Testament through Mark here in the gospels, and then get into the epi. We're so grateful to have your word to study. I pray that we would treat it well and with the reverence that we that is worthy. That we should make time to spend time in your word because this is the clearest way that we can hear from you on a regular basis. So we pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep reading those bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then folks. Bye.

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