Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Dude, have you heard our new intro music? I have heard it. It is so energetic and so fun. It slaps as the young ones say it does slap. It is rock. I feel like this is what our podcast does for people rocks their world. It rocks. It rocks. I like it. It's fun. I'll just full disclosure. I chose it. I didn't ask you. No, I did ask you actually, as you get back, I did bring it up to your attention. I said, did you like this song? And now we use it all the time. So hopefully you guys enjoy that. We don't have outro music yet. I was thinking about what I might add there. And I was thinking maybe something light and poppy fits your personality a little bit. Totally fits my personality. Yeah. But I hope you guys like that music. Hopefully it's not too loud. I put it really low, so basically you can barely hear it. But hopefully it's a, it's an addition and not a subtraction. Marilyn Manson was a bold choice, but it's not Marilyn Manson. His music is much heavier, much darker than that. I just knew that he was like the devil incarnate when I was growing up. I was not supposed to interact with Marilyn Manson. There was a lot of rumors going around about his. Yeah. And it was, the rumors alone weren't enough to be like, you know what, not going to go in that part of the neighborhood. Yeah. Pass. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah, it's Saturday. We are in between men's Bible study, women's Bible study. We don't have anything going on today, but we do have Easter season coming up and just about a month out a little bit more than a month out now from from Easter month in a week to be precise. And this is a perfect season to be. And so we're going to be talking about how to get into work, inviting people to church and getting people invites to our extravaganza. In fact if you're with us tomorrow morning at church, that's going to be some of the direct application from the sermon is going to be talking about getting invites out there. Our evangelism team met recently. We're going to have some some neighborhood blitzes going on. I think we've got three or four days that we're planning to get out and cover a lot of different homes in the community. I can't remember exactly how many they've got mapped, but they've got maps and they've got strategies and they're ready to do this. And so we're. We're going to be doing that starting in April. We've got our our compass camp out coming up in April too. So if you're aware of that and haven't registered for that yet, we would love for you to do that. I think it's only five bucks a family, which is a great deal to to show up or maybe it's five bucks a person. I can't remember either way. Great deal to show up and spend time with your compass family over in Irwin is Irwin park. I think it's Irwin park. Erwindale is the location not erwindale, that's not a thing. Yeah. But that's over in McKinney, so that, that'll be a great time too. There's just a lot going on here. Extravaganza Easter Services. We've got a Good Friday service, we've got a normal Easter service. And then before we know it, VBS is coming up around the corner. Registration for, that's gonna be opening up soon. There's just a ton going on, which is something that we're thankful for. We talked yesterday about the fact that we wanna do more, not slowing down. Yeah. We're ratcheting this thing up, saying, Hey let's go full speed ahead. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Let's jump in. Let's talk about our passage is 11, 12, and 13 for today, Deuteronomy 13 chapter 11, a longer chapter, but it really boils down to dealing with the land that the Lord, your God has given you. That refrain shows up time and time again. So not only is it referencing the land, but it's specific how many times he talks about the land and then says, which the Lord, your God has given you or some variation of that. And it's a reminder of what we talked about yesterday, that God is the provider of this, but it's also hearkening back and pointing back to the Abrahamic covenant saying this is part of the Abrahamic covenant blessing. The part of the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. And so the land is the repeated focus of Moses's words. Throughout chapter 11, there's reminders about the blessings that will come from obedience and the curses, which will flow from rebellion. And as you're reading, there'll be some familiar sections of this specifically, if you'll note versus 18 through 21, you've got a lot of the Shema or the Deuteronomy six passage repeated here. And it's almost word for word. In fact. Part of it is here where he's encouraging them to remember the words of the covenant, to teach them to their children, to write them on the doorpost of their house, to talk about them throughout their day, to be saturated with the word of God, the Torah, so that the nation of Israel and the future generations would know them and walk in obedience while they're in the land. Otherwise the land would. Vomit them out would spit them out. They would forfeit the Abrahamic covenant blessing of the land there. Yeah. I think this is a really good reminder that scripture is best served from the heart. We should put it in our heart and we should seek to let it flow from our heart. This is a good reminder that memorization, I, it's a, it's an often overlooked discipline and we talk about it from time to time, but man, this is just such a good thing. God constantly says this to them. Put this, I like the way he says it here. You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul. In other words, I don't want it just to be superficially stuck up in there. I want it to have deep penetrating influence on the way that you live your life. And that's why he says Hey, bind it on your hand and put it between your eyes and put it everywhere. The reason that he wants you to do that is not because they possess some kind of mystical magical power on your wall or on some decor, but because they're going to be reminders for you to meditate upon the word. And when we get to Psalm chapter one, that'll be a good reminder as well. But think about Psalm 119 verses 11. I have stored up your words in my heart that I may not sin against you. I don't want to sin against you. And the corollary to that is I have to have a lot of God's word in my heart so that they don't do that. Christian please store up the word of God in your heart. You will never regret spending time doing that. Maybe this is the season for you to start picking this up today. Yeah. We kicked around the idea at just a tease, something to the church out there of of doing, secrets are being told of doing like a year long kind of format. Community group competition. Point system where petition community groups are battling it out for supremacy of the best community group in the church. Yep Yeah, we should talk about this Maybe what we should do is throw some scripture memory in there They're coming for sure that memorizes the most scripture is gonna get more points added to it. But just get creative even parents with your kids if you guys set a family goal to memorize this passage or this portion of scripture and then celebrate When you do it, go out and get Brahms ice cream. Brahms is super cheap and really good ice cream too. So that's why I throw that out there. It's cheap. Yes. It's great ice cream too. It's really cheap for sure. Don't go do that. Whatever. Go to Hutchins then. Pastor Rob's family will go to Hutchins. They'll take your family to Hutchins too. Is that right? No, but do something to celebrate or as a community group, pick a passage, memorize it together as a community group, and then celebrate together and invite us to come enjoy the food when you do celebrate but make this fun and hold a reward system where there's positive connections with doing this. And that's a great way for your kids. That is not just, Hey, do this because you're supposed to do it. That's one of the reasons why like adventure club or a wanna there's rewards associated with that. It's because this is a good thing to teach them that there's a reward for committing yourself to memorize scripture beyond just going there's eternal reward. Yeah. But read the book of Proverbs. How much of it is talking about, man, there's blessings in this present life, right? To keeping the word of God and obeying the word of God for sure. Yeah. So it's good. It's good to treasure it up. Get creative. Allow your creativeness to come out, your creativeness, creativity to come out as you're thinking through these things. Like maybe each kid, you put a tattoo on them with just a part of the verse so that you'll always remember it when you see them or name them a part of a verse and have a lot of them. Name one of them. Shema. If you've got two kids. Jesus wept. There you go. Which one gets to be Jesus? I don't know. We should pull out some Puritan names for their encouragement and edification. Yes Some of the best Puritan names you've ever heard like prudence is one of them. Yes Some of these guys though, they had such long names I was thinking, how did people really say their whole name before they, did they get nicknamed? You keep talking, I'm gonna pull up a couple for their edification. And maybe that's where pronouns first started to happen. They're like we could say the whole name or we could just call him. That's probably just say, Hey, you sir. Prudence, good fellow, obedience, is furiously typing away, trying to come up with some puritan names here. You've got it. I see it. I see the look in your eye. This is okay. So there's a boy named humiliation. Okay. That one's a good one. If you're looking for a new name, here we go. Oh boy. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. Dan sell Dow Fibo, Mark Anthony gallery Caesar. What does that mean? That was his name. Here's another one. Praise God. Praise dash God. That was his name. Okay. His full name was praise dash God. Last name barebone. So praise God barebone. What's your name? One of your kids? Praise God. I don't think God burner. I don't think I would. Here's another one. If I guess this is a bare bones brother, this one is fear. God, fear dash God. Praise God and fear God. Every time you call them, I love that. Praise God. Are you celebrating the Lord? Are you calling me? Which one is it? I don't know. But what if they're doing something wrong? It's praise God, you're in trouble. Job rates. Oh, Joe breaked out of the ashes. That's a name. That's a first. That's a name. Here's another one. It has descendants. Wrestling. Fight the good fight of faith. Fight the good fight of faith. Now we're just literally just taking the good fight of faith. Kim. I see it. I feel it. Kim. Kim. Hey, Abram and Lillian. We're not calling you out except we've got a name. I added the last name. Oh there's another one. Fly dash fornication. So I'm guessing flee from fornication, but that's your name. That's your first name. That is the worst. That's a, that's it. Here's another one. Let me do just a couple more. What God will. There's another one for you. Joy and sorrow. Experience. Oh, here's another one. Abuse. Not. Ooh, this one might be my favorite. Die. Die. Die. That's my favorite. I like that one. Die. There's so many more, but anyway, there you go. Ideas for your future namings. It's not totally out of keeping with the pattern of the scriptures. Look at low on my people and not my people, my sorrow and yeah, all of it. Yeah. So it's just done in our language to your point. Maybe we ought to bring this back. You guys need to get pregnant. And use one of these names to help get the domino kicked off. I don't know. English just seems a little bit verbose for that. Like low on me versus not my people. Yeah. Son of my sorrow. Yeah. Anyways. All right. Let's do Deuteronomy chapter 12. This chapter here lays out the plans for a centralized place of worship in the promised land. So no longer would sacrifices and offerings be permitted anywhere, but the Israelites were going to bring their offerings to the Lord at a place he was going to designate for such offerings. So there was going to be a provision for people that couldn't get there. They were going to have their own way of being able to still bring their offerings and sacrifices. By and large, the people were going to be commanded, Hey, come here and worship here. Because this is where the Lord is going to set his place. And it's a precursor to ultimately the Mount of God. This is not going to be Jerusalem when they get into the promised land. Initially, eventually it will be, it's going to be mountain Zion. It's going to be where the temple is going to be, and that's going to. Continue even today. That, that is the place of God. That is God's city. The city of God is still Jerusalem though. His presence is not there. The temple is not there. But again, Christ is coming back and when he comes back, he's coming back there. He's coming back. His feet are going to descend and land on the Mount of Olives and then he's going to walk into the city of Jerusalem there and the millennial kingdom will be in Jerusalem and then the new Jerusalem is going to descend from heaven. This centralized place of worship is something that is. Instituted here, but it's going to continue into the millennial kingdom. And then eventually it's going to be still part of our eternal state too. Chapter 13 then devotion is the word that comes to mind here, and this is the word that sums up this chapter, I think, because in chapter 13, Moses is concerned that the people show devotion to the Lord and not be led astray by false prophets or even by loved ones who may try to entice them to worship idols. And the stakes are high here. If you read the chapter, read the punishments for the false prophet. Read the punishment for the family member or the loved one who tries to entice you away from the Lord that God was serious about their devotion to him. And this is something that carries forward in the new Testament. Jesus is going to say, I didn't come to bring peace, but I came to divide a man against his family and and create that. If you're going to choose your family over God, then that's a problem. God wants your total allegiance and your total devotion. And that is something that we see here in Deuteronomy 13 with the people of Israel. Yeah, that's exactly where I was going to go. Jesus says, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. That kind of language tells us that most Christians do not understand what it means to follow Christ. His language is demanding. And again, we see that even though some people artificially divide the Old Testament God and the New Testament God. We see a very tight unification here. Jesus and the father are on the same page just because he says it differently. On occasion doesn't change the fact that God is very jealous and a good way. We talked about the word jealousy a couple of podcasts ago, but he's rightly jealous for his glory and his honor. And to be a Christian means total full and first allegiance to Jesus. Allah the father. This is what is. The Old Testament says is what the New Testament says here, though. The only difference is the death penalty. Now, my question for you then is why don't Christians put people to death today? Yeah, it's we're in a different society and again, a different situation where we are not a theocracy can contrast it to what some are arguing for here with the return of theonomy, which is the law of God to rule the nation. We are not that we have a nation where we are ruled by men and God has, as we've talked recently, even given us the governing authorities. For our good and not for our harm as Paul talks about in Romans and we are to respect them and even fear the, their judgment and fear their discipline for the government does not bear the sword in vain. So we are not a theocracy, we are not the nation of Israel and that's not what we, what our call is. And at this point in time, we're not under the call to take a false prophet out back and stone them to death. And it, Yeah I'll leave it there before I get myself into any trouble talking about anything more than that. We'll just leave it there. Okay. Can you also clarify then Jesus says something, this is a parallel passage, but in Luke chapter 14, Jesus talks about hating father and mother. He says this, if anyone comes after me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, hate even his own life. He cannot be my disciple. Can you help us understand what he means by that? Put that together with this one here where it talks about not putting any family member above him. Yeah. I think that's the idea here is similar to what we find when Jesus talks about the cost of discipleship. If anyone does not deny himself renounce all that he has and come follow me, he's not worthy of being my disciple. He's not. Literally calling you to divest yourself of every single ounce of your possessions to come follow him. But he's calling you to say, that's your mentality. Your mindset is I'm willing to give anything that I need to give in order to follow Jesus. And so relationally, I think that's what's in view here in Luke's passage is Jesus saying you need to be willing to surrender any relationship that would rival your relationship with me. Anything that would compete with your affections for me, any relationship that you have that you can't legitimately say, I love this person to the glory of God is a relationship that needs to end. And so if there's a competition there between family members and God or your spouse and God, man, you need to even be willing to say, and you've talked about this before. I can't remember who the author is that said, Lord, kill me before I, I, bring shame upon your name, Carson, right? That's, I think, a great expression of what it means to even hate yourself, your own life. For the sake of the glory of God. So our love for him is such that it's so consuming that it makes any other relationship pale in comparison to him. And we're willing to divest ourselves of any other relationship in order to have him. Which in a rightly ordered relationship, if God is first, you will love them well. You'll love other, you'll love your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter really well. If Christ is first place in your life. So we want to be clear that when scripture says this, we're not telling you to hate your spouse in a literal sense. We're not telling you to hate your kids. We're telling you what scripture is telling you, which is that Jesus must be first. The Lord must be first in your life. And if that's happening, you're going to be one of the best. Most loving people that person knows because you'll be loving them the way that God designed you to do. So sacrificially selflessly Consistently all of those things scriptures making a point Jesus must be first and for most Christians We haven't wrestled with that well enough All of us when we become Christians we write the blank check to God and say take it do with it as you will And for some of us, I don't think we honestly think through what that suggests. We're willing to say anything, any place, any time. And that might include even the very painful circumstance of having to say goodbye to a family member because they no longer want anything to do with you because of your love for Christ. Now, let that sit on your chest. That's heavy. Yeah, it is heavy. We're talking about that a little bit tomorrow in church too, with this idea of Jesus says, I've given them your word and the world hates them. And I was thinking about that this week and prepping for this message going, I don't think we've experienced that. I don't think we really know what that means as much here. And you contrast that to what's going on in Syria right now with the Christians that saw Charlie Kirk said that their numbers have dropped by close to well over 700, 000. Thousand Christians since this regime change has taken place there. Wow. That have been slaughtered. And you look at them and you go, okay, they know what it means. I've given them your word and the world has hated them. Yeah. And I think we need the same the, our struggle is, our battle is we need to have that same mentality that they have right now. Waking up, not knowing if the, they're gonna be targeted tomorrow. We need to discipline ourselves and fight for that ality here right now. We need to love Jesus to that much love His word to that level and have be cultivating the heart that's ready should that ever come here, that we would be willing to say. Okay. Yeah. I'll lay down my life. I'll hate my life for the cause of the gospel rather than denying Christ. I'll give up a relationship with somebody who's going to, turn their back on Christ rather than forfeit Christ. Yeah. We've been so blessed to have that totally least recently, but that doesn't mean things can't change pretty quickly. We ought to be ready. And our church has to. Take that seriously. We have to be willing to say, look, I'm going to suffer in little ways now so that I can be more prepared to suffer in greater ways later. Should the Lord require it. And you might be saying, how do we do that? And the answer is John 15, abide in Christ, right? That's going to be, your lifeline is going to be through abiding in Christ, staying connected to him, scripture, prayer, fellowship, time of the word time with other believers championing, promoting, prioritizing. Those things is going to be the best way for you to be ready should that day come. That's right. All right, let's pray. God, make us a church ready. And even though we're not there right now, God, I pray that rather than saying we will praise God for that. Not in the puritanical name way but honestly, in worshiping you, I, rather than having that mentality, God, I pray that we would think to ourselves, man, I want to use this time. I want to steward the freedoms that we have. I wanted to not take these things lightly and to think about those That have not had these same things and would, what would they think to say, man, I wish I had that. I wish I could have what you guys have now to be able to give myself over to the study of the word and prayer and not have to fear with doing that. And we just take it for granted. And so God, we thank you for those blessings. We don't want to feel guilty for having these things, but we do want to take advantage of them and be wise stewards. So make us a faithful church in that regard. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. I was not supposed to interact with Marilyn Manson, but we would love for you to do that.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.