Welcome back to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is Pastor pj and I'm joined with Pastor Rod. Yeah. Do you think they believed us? I think so. I think that was a pretty convincing Pastor PJ and Pastor Rod impression. Yeah, I don't think anybody's doubting that it's truly us, pastor PJ and Pastor Rod. With AI these days, you can do anything you want. Maybe you can make anybody sound however you want. You can manipulate anything, but yeah. All joking aside, this is actually, I am just in case you were fooled. This is actually Pastor Mark and I am joined not by Pastor Rod, but with Director Lewis. Director Lewis. How are you? I am doing great. I'm excited to be on a podcast. So I don't know if you know this, but my mom has been telling me for years that I should start a podcast. That I should be on a podcast. So if you're listening, mom, I hope you're proud of me because I made it, I finally made it onto a podcast. So, hi Mom. I'm sure she's very proud of you. I'm sure she's proud of you as we all are. Alright let's dive in. We're gonna keep things as normal as we can. We're going to continue working through our Daily Bible Reading Plan. And today we are in Genesis 18 and 19. So, in this passage, we pick up in the middle of a narrative sequence of God's promise to Abraham. Very important promise. What is that promise? Just give us the highlights. Yeah. Abraham Promise comes down to three things, land, offspring, and blessing. Those are the three components that really you see pop up all over the place in Genesis. We know that Genesis 12, 15 and 17 are kind of the highlights of that. So land, offspring and blessing, those are the three things you wanna look for when you think of the promise to Abraham. That's right. And here in verse. One of 18, we see an appearance of the Lord and he's coming to Abraham. But he comes in a crazy way and there's some debate about exactly what's going on here. But in verse 18, it says, the Lord appeared to him, to Abraham as he sat at the door of his tent. And then in verse two, it says there were three men standing in front of him. Who are these three men? Well, not to just immediately disagree with Pastor PJ and Pastor Rod, who I Great. Start. Great start to the podcast, pastor Mark, who I believe they both think this is a Christoph. Well, to be specific, a Christoph and two angels, meaning. A pre-incarnate appearance of Christ alongside two angels. But I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna actually contend that these three men, these three angels are representatives of God. And in fact, they carry some of the glory of God. They carry his words, which is why they're able to say, the Lord says, Yahweh says but I'm not convinced. That these three men are, or they're certainly not all the Trinity, and I'm not convinced that one of them stands alone as a Christophany type. What do you think, Lewis, what's your conviction on this particular passage? Honestly, my biggest question about the verse you just read is how do a, how does a tent have a door? 'cause I don't think, in my experience, tents don't have doors. How do you get in a tent? There's a flap, but there's not a door. Like is Abraham like bringing, this is like a Harry Potter tent with like hinges. Anyway, that was my biggest question from verse one, but I'm glad that's your takeaway. If you're here for the important stuff like Pastor Mark is how big of a deal do you think that is? Whether this is a pre incarnate Christ or not? I don't think it's a huge deal. I think it's interesting and I think it's important that we understand some of these aspects of the Bible, or at least seek to understand them. I'm not sure that many of these things will fully understand this side of eternity, but I think it's worth investigating. I think it's worth investigating and I think to understand some of these things wrongly does put us in peril. So just for example, if you looked at this and said these three men were the Trinity. Mm-hmm. Meaning the Father, son, and the Holy Spirit, I think. I think that's actually gonna cause some hermeneutical, some the way you read the Bible, some problems with that. So I think some of these things are, making sure that we steer away from the problem, steer away from the issues, and maybe we don't quite land on exactly the exact right thing of what's going on. And I think that's okay. And I think that's why Pastor PJ and Pastor Rod, at least last year on the podcast, I went back and checked that's why they can land on this and say one of these three. Is a Christophany and the other two are angels. Whereas I'm gonna say no, maybe not, but we could steer away from some of the issues that might arise. And that is indeed important. So what, you didn't answer the question though. What, where I was hoping you would've notice that. Where are you gonna land on this? I I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna agree with my pastor on this. That's my take. I don't really have a strong opinion either way. I think there's good evidence for both sides. If you would say, this isn't Jesus, this is just an angel. I think the strongest evidence is that Jesus is never called an angel. He's never a messenger. He's always God. Whereas the strongest evidence for saying this is. In fact the Lord and not just an angel would be other appearances of angels like in Revelation. When an angel appears, John worships the angel, and then the angel says, Hey, stop. Get up, stop worshiping me. And that doesn't happen here. Abraham bows down to the earth in verse two, and. The angel doesn't say, get up. He lets him do that. Right. So those are kind of the, the two to me, most compelling pieces of evidence for either side. Yeah. And I have to concede that is the weak point on my position. So what do these angels bring? What does what do these three men bring? They bring a reiteration of the promise. They bring a reiteration of the promise and a little bit more specificity. So in verse 10. It says, the Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife shall have a son. Now here's something really interesting is that Sarah hears this. And she laughs. She laughs when she hears this promise and in verse 12, she says to herself, she says, after I'm worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? So shall I have this baby that is promised to me. I think it's interesting because in yesterday's Bible reading in verse 17 of chapter 17. Abraham also laughs. It says, then Abraham, and this is verse 17. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself. Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old, shall share, shall share shall shall Sarah tongue twister Sarah and her seashell, who is 90 years old, bear a child. Now they both laugh, but in Romans, what does Romans say about Abraham? Romans gives a really positive impression of Abraham. Romans four. Abraham is a rock star. He trusts God, he believes in him. He counted his righteousness. And so it's surprising to see Abraham and Sarah react the same way. Now, do you think that reaction maybe can be interpreted differently? I think it can. I think it can. And I think what you see here is one Abraham falls on his face, right? He falls on his face before the Lord. And yes, he does laugh, but I think you see a heart posture that's different than Sarah, right? Sarah says to herself right in quiet. And I think the way the author is presenting this she's doing it in a kind of almost spiteful way. Abraham falls on his face, and then when Abraham gets his response, he immediately gets up and does what God instructs him to do. What does Sarah do? She laughs and then when she's confronted about that laughter, she denies it. Mm-hmm. And she says, I did not laugh. So I think you see a contrast in heart posture and Romans four doesn't address. Sarah necessarily, but I think you can see you can see the doubt in Abraham that is quickly turned into faith through this narrative. And you don't necessarily see that with Sarah. And I think we have to respond in the same way. Sometimes we're gonna hear promises from the Lord that shock us. Mm-hmm. That, that make us go what are you talking about? The question is, how do you then respond to it? Do you respond to it in faith and trust, or do you respond to it with a haughty arrogant, maybe even bitter heart like you see Sarah do here. We do see Sarah though, definitely redeem herself in a lot of ways throughout the rest of. This book. So, we don't wanna just be like, Abraham good, Sarah, bad that right? Yes, that's right. The Charact characters in the Bible. There's only one of them who's good. Right. And that's God. Mm-hmm. That's right. And the rest are usually a mixed bag. Even, the heroes like Abraham and Moses and David. They're not Jesus. They're not the real hero of the story. And so it is I think always encouraging for me when I read passages like this, where you see who we would. Look to, in the New Testament, they describe Sarah as a woman of faith. She's a strong believer That's right. And she has moments of weakness, moments of sin and unbelief. And so that's always encouraging for me to see these characters that are praised by the Lord in his word. I. To see them for who they really are. They're just regular people who trust God. But ultimately the reason they trust God is because they're sinners. That's right. And God ultimately forgives sinners. Mm-hmm. Right. He forgives those who have faith. The faith of Abraham and that faith is the faith that Sarah has. And it's the faith that, in fact, in a slightly different way, but it's the same essence, that same faith is what you and I can have which is the means by which we can be saved from sin from. From our distrust, from our lack of faith in the promises of God. Definitely. Okay, so then there's this interesting section about. A conversation that God has with Abraham, and he begins to discuss with him the destruction of Sodom. It's amazing here that we can even see a conversation like this between God and a mere human. Mm-hmm. Abraham certainly is an important human, but he's still a mere human. And it speaks to God's kindness to. Abraham and to us as well, right? To reveal to us that he yes, is an immutable God, an unchanging God, but he's also communicating here his grace and his willingness to show mercy on even as the passage concludes there's 10 that are found righteous. And he says he's not going to destroy the city even on the account of just those 10, which is where we get into. Chapter 19, and in chapter 19 we get to see the full effects of sin, the full depravity of humans. And I'm always reminded in Genesis 19 of Romans one, you just. Get to see how the total depravity of man comes out in these really nasty, nasty ways. Definitely. And there's obviously parallels between Romans one and the sins that Sodom is committing. But before we get into chapter 19, I do have a question about chapter 18. Something that I think a lot of people reading would. Maybe come into their minds too is, is God changing his mind here and how, what does it have to do with his sovereignty and his immutability? Things like that. We know that God plans things that God isn't impacted. Like he's not reacting to things that we do. In the sense of we're not gonna change God's mind. So is Abraham doing that? Is maybe, is our theology wrong? How would you answer that kind of question? Yeah. I think it's important to recognize that God is immutable, which is to say that he's unchanging if God changes. Then he can't actually love us, right? If God changes, then his promises can change. It's an important distinction that I think is really hard for us as humans to understand, because we are mutable, we do change. And so this aspect of God being immutable is in many ways. Kind of beyond our ability to grasp. And so what I think you see going on here is God being kind to us. Theologians will often refer to this sort of thing, and I'm not sure it's politically correct anymore, but the term is, or the way of describing it, is that God is lisping to us. That he is helping us understand something about him in a way that we can understand. God is not changing. He's not changing his mind. His decisions are not dependent on Abraham, but through this narrative account, he's helping us understand his mercy, his willingness to save. Sinners, right? He's willing to do these things and he's demonstrating that through this. So there's more to be said, it's a complex theological topic, but I do think we have to hold that God is an unchanging God and that Abraham here is not changing God. But at the same time the way that we see this is that God is changing his mind. That he is going from one opinion to another, and that's God's way of helping us understand attributes of who he is. Yeah, definitely. I had a professor in my undergrad actually illustrate this with a quiz that he had on our syllabus. He had this quiz planned and he changed his mind, in the second month of the semester. Hey, I'm actually gonna take the quiz out. And his point was he planned to take the quiz out. The whole time he was already planning on changing his mind about the quiz. And so the way he illustrated to us, he was sovereignly planning to change his mind, to avert his judgment on us and to demonstrate what this might look like exactly. So that's how he illustrated it. And I found that really helpful of he's planning to change his mind. He's planning, okay, this is what I'm gonna have this conversation with Abraham. And Abraham is going to intercede in some sense for the people of Sodom. And then God is going to choose to relent. And we see this with Moses and the people of Israel. And you could even say, we see this with. Us Right. Our verdict is changed from guilty to righteous. That's right. That's right. Alright, back to 19. And I did have another question before chapter 19 is, sorry Pastor Mark. That's why I'm here. I'm here to ask questions and draw out all the wisdom that God has given you. That's my goal here. So, would you read this passage with your kids? That's a, I think a lot of families, a lot of parents might have this question. They're reading the Bible together. Let's say you're committed to reading God's word as a family in the New year, 2026, and then you get two passages like this. What do you do? Do you read it? Do you stop? How do you handle this? Well, let me go to chapter 19 because Okay. it's even more poignant in chapter 19, right? Mm-hmm. Where we see some of these. Heinous things. Yeah. Happen. Let me just give us a little bit of overview. I know I trust that you read this already, but in chapter 19, we're gonna actually see the destruction of Sodom, but we're also gonna see the salvation of lot through the judgment of Sodom. So, two, two of the angels go to Sodom and they are tasked with. Effectively saving a lot, and this is where you get to some of these things that are, I don't know, unpleasant, heinous, disgusting, and all of the above. I will refrain from making them super clear here on the podcast, but the Bible is really clear about these things. Mm-hmm. The Bible does not. Hide from these things. Mm-hmm. It is very clear about this and it is clear in other places as well. Even we reference Romans chapter one, right? Yeah. Romans chapter one is clear about some of the sins and some of the acts that are sinful. So should you read this with your kids? I'm gonna answer yes and with an abstract, I'm gonna answer a yes. I believe the Bible is for all. I believe that scripture is intended for all. You see that, and Timothy, you may, it's very clear that scripture is breathed out by God and it is profitable for all, without exception. There's not a caveat there that says that it's only for adults or only people who are 16 or older. Mm-hmm. I also think we live in an age where things are pretty sanitized, and I think if you were a child living even a hundred years ago, but certainly 500 years ago or a thousand years ago, you're gonna be exposed to a lot more of these things at a younger age. I'm not making an argument that you should be exposed to those things, but I do think we should be exposed to the Bible. And the Bible makes it very clear how deadly sin is. And. I think that it's appropriate to read some of these stories to your kids. Now, there's a caveat, which I think you as a parent need to make a judgment call about the extent of the explanations that you give to your kids on some of these things. You know your kids well, you know what they need to know. And, you ought to know if you don't. And I know most of you do. You know, what your kids need to know. So when it comes to some of these particulars about what is exactly going on I think you can become more and more specific with your kids as they mature, as they grow older, and as they have questions. And I think that's a helpful way of saying like, what questions are your kids asking? Mm-hmm. Are they asking about particular words? Are they asking about particular acts? And I think you need to do your best to give your kids honest answers realistic answers, truthful answers when they have those questions. But I can tell you, my 4-year-old son is not asking, all these very specific questions about these things, and I can still teach him from a story like this. Now, I understand there's gonna be some parents who think that this would not be appropriate, and I'm gonna trust your judgment as a parent in this particular area. I think you need to know your kids, and you need to make sure that they're hearing the gospel. There's gonna be some disagreement on how to approach these things within the church, and we need to have charity and love towards each other in such disagreements that, that we might have. But that's my opinion on the matter. Yeah, I think that's great. Like the, every, even in your own family, every kid might be different. Some kids might have questions at different ages, and some kids might have different friends who expose them to different things. And there's so many. Situations as I had a friend who used to say situations are situational. And so, the important thing is that you're not hiding the essentials from them. That's right. That's right. And you can see the essentials even in this story here. And one of them, as we wrap up Genesis 19, is how amazing it is that God saves. Really just one righteous person, right? Law doesn't want to go and the angel has to rip him out of the city of Sodom. And Yahweh saves whether the saved desire, salvation or not sometimes. And you can see that very much evident here. You can also see how Yahweh is willing to save even just one from this city. Lot's wife. It initially looks like maybe it's four, but lot's wife looks back, turns into salt. And then at the very end of chapter 19 we see some of the more heinous acts that are committed by lots daughters. And yeah, so God is a God of salvation. Let's turn to Matthew seven. Matthew, excuse me. Matthew six. Matthew six. And we are, where, where are we in Matthew six Lewis, Matthew six. The Sermon on the Mount. We're right in the middle of it. Yep. And Matthew six it's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. There's so much good stuff here. So we're actually probably gonna go for another two hours on this podcast just to cover all of it. Alright, well let's cover at least some of it and maybe not in two hours. Okay. Four hours. Let's work through it. So the first section. Is titled With the Inspired Heading, right? Inspired Heading, giving to the Needy. So I actually took the headings out of my logos, like layout. There's no headings. And then in my personal reading I read a Bible with no headings. So that tells you, I think, what I think about the headings. Well, nonetheless, the very beginning of chapter six is indeed about giving to the needy. But it's more than that, right? We see that Jesus' command to us is that we are it's a, it's matter of the heart. The command is that we are to have a heart that is not about practicing our righteousness before others to be seen by them. Right? I think it's easy as Christians to look at the performative things because that's easier. It's easy to see what we're doing on the outside. Mm-hmm. It's easy to see what others are doing on the outside, but what we see throughout the Sermon on the Mount, and again here, is that God is calling us to a heart attitude. So when we give to the needy, we are to do it with a heart attitude that is seeking to please the Lord and not to be seen by others. Right. Verse four says, and your father who sees you in secret will reward you. Definitely. And that refrain is repeated with prayer and with fasting as well. And I think certain on the mount is so crucial to understanding the right, just how we do good works as Christians. Mm-hmm. It's all about the heart like you were saying. I think something that's really encouraged me from these passages is the idea of I think of God's justice most of the time in a legal sense of he's going to punish the wicked people. But you can also think of God's justice as he's gonna reward all the good things that his people do. That's right. Even if no one else in the world sees him. Right. Even if no one sees the way you pray for your family members, even if no one sees how patient you are, even if no one knows the things that you gave up on to, worship God or to love that person. God sees those things and he's ready. And that same with this idea of prayer, right. God is, he's ready to meet these people in prayer. That's right. Yeah. And I think one of the astounding things to me about the Lord's Prayer as we get into this next section is that it's really short. It blows my mind that the instructions from God on how we are to pray. It can be done in a handful of seconds. Now, I'm not denying that we are to also pray without ceasing. Mm-hmm. But I think we can get so caught up with the Christianese. Mm-hmm. And the words that we're supposed to say when we're praying and the phrases that we're supposed to. Pile up, right? Yeah. That we can confuse what prayer is supposed to be. And again, it's a heart attitude, right? It is. It is a heart attitude of actually wanting to talk to God, actually wanting to make requests of him actually seeing him as God and talking to him like he's actually gone. And we can get in the community group and be so. Quick to want to sound nice, wanna sound pleasing, want to use the right phrases because other people are listening to us when we pray and suddenly we're not actually praying at all. Mm-hmm. Suddenly we're just doing as the Gentiles do right. And heaping up empty phrases. And we don't wanna be found guilty of any such thing. Yeah. And for a deeper dive into the Lord's Prayer, in the partners chapter on prayer, there's a really great breakdown step by step of each phrase that kind of pulls out the principles behind the model prayer, really for disciples of Jesus. Lewis, do you fast? Do I fast every night? I fast every night, and then I break my fast every morning. See, you can't answer that. 'cause if you do. Then you won't be doing it in secret anymore. Mm-hmm. 'cause it'll be on a podcast and then I see what you were trying to do. Will you were trying to stick in my heaven. Reward you? Yeah. Wow. I can't believe you did that. But that idea, right. When you fast, it doesn't say, if, it doesn't say if you're a varsity Christian and those people fast is, the expectation is too fast, fast to lose weight, right fast for health. That's, that's what he's talking about. That's, that's not what Jesus has. Jesus doesn't have the Daniel plan in mind here, or Ezekiel bread or any of the other health hacks that people came up with from the Bible. Fasting is always related to prayer, right? Yes. And like that's what I think the connection here is, is that fasting. Is a way for you to focus on prayer. It gives your body a natural way to remind you to pray, and it also reminds you that you need God more than you need food. That's kind the idea behind fasting. And so as far as how you should fast or when you should fast, right? I had one professor, he said that if you didn't pray when you fasted, all you did was just get hungry. You didn't fast. And so I think connecting fasting to prayer is always. Really important. Yeah. And if you want a resource on that, I would recommend the chapter in Donald Whitney's book, spiritual Disciplines on Fasting. I think that's a particularly helpful place to go to learn more about that. And I would also recommend and commend to you the other chapters in that book, specifically on prayer as well. That works well in conjunction as to Lewis's point. Alright. We're edging towards 30 minutes, which is beyond what we were told to do. So let's wrap this up with one of your favorite passages. How can you concisely wrap up into a few sentences, these amazing final verses of chapter six of Matthew? Yeah, I love these two paragraphs right here. I think the most. Important thing is that we're therefore right there at verse 25, the very beginning of verse 25. You see the therefore, and the connecting words in the Bible are so important, right? Mm-hmm. Words like sense or because, or therefore, or as a result or anything like that. And so I think the point here of 19 to 24 is about your focus, your treasure. And I think what Jesus is saying is that your treasure is your heart a magnet for your heart. Mm-hmm. Your treasure will attract your heart. But. Also your treasure becomes your master. That's why he adds that in verse 24 there, when he talks about you can't serve two masters. So he's really pointing out that you're mastered by your treasure. You serve your treasure, your heart is always going to be drawn towards your treasure. And your treasure is determined by your focus. That's what the I is all about. The I is about what you focus. And so what he's saying is he's connecting all these concepts. Treasure, focus, master. He's saying they're all the same, and that's where your heart's gonna go. Therefore, don't be anxious because your anxiety is also determined by your focus. Because think about the commands he gives. He says, look at the birds. He says, consider the lily. Those are attention verbs. Look at this. Think about this. And he tells you, take your attention off your anxieties and put your attention onto the Lord and that will cause you to seek verse 33, first, the Kingdom of God, which then you will treasure the Lord and he'll be your master, and that's where your heart will go. So that's kind of the theme that runs through these two paragraphs. Well, like it or not, we'll be back again tomorrow. But let me commend to you what Lewis is saying, right? If today, and hopefully it's the morning if you are facing anxiety, do his Verse 33 says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and. That way. You don't have to be anxious about what tomorrow brings. What a good, good thing that is. What a blessing that is from God in the Christian life. Alright, we will see you tomorrow. Let me pray for us as we close, and we are excited for a couple more days with you here on the Daily Bible Pro Podcast. Lord, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you. That your word has so much truth in it that it is truth, that we can turn to it, that we can hope in it. And ultimately that's not hope or trust in those words, but it's trust in you. It's a heart that is eager to be obedient to you. And we're thankful for your word. We're thankful for our church, and we're thankful for today's daily Bible reading. Jesus' name I pray. Amen. See you later.

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