hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. We're already in, this is, we're in the year now. No longer New Year. This is so good. I can't believe it. It's 2026. It's 2026. I cannot believe it, even though I'm still in 2025 right now. Future me cannot believe it's 2026. That's right. It's one of those weird. Everyone talks about it. All the old people say it. And I hate that I'm joining the chorus, but I'm just gonna say it. Time goes faster as you get out there. Right. And it's weird. It really does. Things don't feel as slow as they used to feel. Yeah. I think the phrase is the days are long, but the years are fast. Yeah. Long and short. Yes. Right. Something like that. Yeah. I am trying so hard to appreciate my life. I'm naturally thinking about the next thing. I'm a planner, I'm a future forecaster, and I so often just lose sight of what's in front of me enjoying the weather. For instance, Christmas weather here was phenomenal. I was so stoked, I was so thankful because it's not expected. I don't expect Texas to have, what was it, 75, 80 degrees on set on. Christmas morning. Yeah, it was amazing. We had the windows open. Here's the thing about Texas weather. You never have the windows open. And we live near a concrete production facility. I don't know what it is. They just see plumes of smoke going into the air with regularity from this factory. There's one near the DNT and then there's another one, Burnco, I think is what they're called. They're right. Over outer loop. They're always sending stuff in the air. So naturally I keep my windows closed on the, for the most part. But Christmas was just so beautiful. We opened the windows and even though people were sick, we still enjoyed our day. It was so sweet, so precious. I don't want the years to go by and me look back and say, I didn't appreciate the things I had. Yeah. I'm ready for the Dallas North Tollway to be done, by the way. Well, I think we're getting close 2028. Yeah. So we're two years out, man. Almost there. Yep. Yep. I'm done. Are you gonna use it the dump trucks and everything else? No, I will. Take longer to go down Preston to save money. You just don't want the construction workers. Right? You think that when the D t's done that construction stops? Well, I just come mean, come on, come on, man. Less, less of it. I don't know. In the gigantic semis with the dump trucks and I don't know the. I think it'll be the cement trucks and everything else. It'll be less concentrated. Yeah. In that one area. But I don't think it's going away for the next 20 years. Maybe not. I don't know the expansion that we're experiencing, unless we stop growing. If we stop growing, then you'll see a lot less of that because it won't invest. Right. But if we continue to grow in this area, which is our whole purpose of being here, then it is. We should expect to see that for the rest of our lives. Yes, we should. Yeah. Hey, couple quick questions. People are asking, everyone's been sending in messages and questions. Can you remind us why this is so critical to the life and health of the Christian? You said this at church on Sunday. The Bible being central to our existence and it's a great investment. I don't feel like that every day, though. When I read, sometimes I read my Bible and things are exciting, and I feel blessed by what I read. There's something in it that says something to my soul, and I'm like, that's exactly what I need to hear. Other days I'm tired and I'm less connected. And what I read feels totally alien to what I'm going through in my life. So remind us, give us a few principles for why we need to do this, even when we don't feel like it, even when it feels like we're just walking in mud. Yeah, so I talked about this a little bit in in my sermon on Sunday, just about the idea of when you go to the gym for the first time in a long time, you can lift your weights and you feel like, man, this feels really good. And you feel like, man I must just be putting on gains like crazy. And then you go home and you look in the mirror and you see the same exact person that you saw before you went to the gym because it takes more than one time. And then you go and if you commit to it, if you look at the person that you are, day one, when you go to the gym versus the person that you are, day 365, after going to the gym every day for a year, you're gonna see the gains. You're gonna see the dramatic change take place at that point, but it's gonna be incremental along the way. And you're gonna have those times when you go to the gym and you're gonna just say, I'd rather be anywhere else but here. I don't want to be here today. I don't wanna do the weights, I don't wanna get on the treadmill. I just, I don't feel like it. My heart's not in it. And yet you're still gonna do it. You're gonna go through it. And even those times that you feel like you're just going through the motions are still contributing. They're compounding. The effect is compounding so that at the end, when you look at who you were, day one versus who you are, day 365, you're gonna see the gains. It's the same thing when it comes to our time in the word of God. If you say, man, I've had two great days. Daily Bible reading, so I should expect to look in the spiritual mirror and see a totally different person than I was at the end of 2025. Well, you're probably gonna be very similar to who you were still at the end of 2025. But over the course of the year, if you keep going, even at those times where you feel like, man, reading the genealogies, going through the book of numbers, I feel like just going through the motions. It's gonna have that compounding effect such that when you look at your spiritual snapshot at the end of 365 days versus your spiritual snapshot at the beginning of the year, you're gonna see the gains. And so keep going, keep pressing on. Even during those times, it feels like, man, this is hard. Or man I feel a little bit bored by what I'm reading right now. Trust that God's spirit is at work in you, and taking in God's word is always gonna have a good effect on your life. How much effort should we expect to exert when we're opening our Bibles? In other words. If I don't feel excited by what I'm reading, it's kind of hitting me. It's dry. I'm not quite sure what to get out of it. And I got limited time. Should I expect to exert a ton of effort when I'm reading? Is it supposed to feel, I guess you talked about it like a gym, should, everything that I'm doing in the Bible feel like work to a certain extent, yes. But like this, proverb chapter two, which is what I preached on this past Sunday. It begins this way. He says, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, if you make your I attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. Call out for insight. Raise your voice for understanding. And then he says, if you seek it like silver and searkh for it like hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord. If you think about somebody who's out. Mining for things, looking for gold, looking for silver, looking for riches there's work involved in that. Mm-hmm. It's not an easy process. That's right. And yet it's worth it. And so the work becomes part of the joy of the process because of the excitement of, what am I gonna find today when I'm painting for gold, when I'm digging? And looking for the aura that's so precious. What am I gonna discover? What's gonna be there? And unlike the gold miner, you can be guaranteed that you will find something if you've got the spirit in you and you're gonna pray and you're gonna go after it and you're gonna do some heavy lifting. You're gonna find something that you can take away from your time in the word each and every day. That's at least some small nugget that you can walk away with going, okay, this is something that I can be encouraged with today. Super helpful. Okay, one final question then. I don't wanna become a Pharisee. I knew they knew their Bibles really well, and I'm concerned that when I do this every day, even though I'm not feeling it, that I'm subtly crafting my heart into a thea mode. In other words, I would be really good at knowing my Bible, but not really good at seeing what it points to and being obedient to it. Yeah. And that's where, again, not to continually go back to my last Sunday sermon, but Proverbs, we need to link it. Proverbs two, one through 11. Jerry Bridges said of this passage, he said, this passage makes it abundantly clear that God's word is meant to produce transformation in the heart of the person that reads it. He talks about it leading to the fear of the Lord here, the fear of the Lord. Is gonna be realized in a life of obedience to him. To avoid being pharisaical. I think we need to remember why we're reading God's word, which was my second point this last Sunday, that God's word is meant to create in us a fear of him that is gonna produce a life of obedience to him. And there's good to be found in that. There's reward to come for us if we live a life of the fear of the Lord, which is a life of obedience to him. Well, that's really encouraging. Why don't we start practicing what you just preached and jump into Genesis. Yeah. What are we in Genesis six through seven? Six through eight. Six through eight. That's right. Not six seven. Not six seven, but six eight. Six through eight. There's not a, there's not a saying for that one yet. There's not yet. At least maybe we're gonna start it. I hate Genesis six. Remember coming off of Genesis chapter five, all the different generations we see death compounding, and then it ends in Genesis chapter five with Noah and his progeny here. We'll get to them in a little bit here, but Genesis six is going to establish why the flood, which is coming, is going to have to come. And that is that the situation on earth had gone from bad to worse, to worse to worse. So to Worsest it's just wickedness. Everywhere. In fact, it says in verse five, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intention of the thoughts of his hearts was continually on evil. And it says, even the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth and it grieved him to his heart. So this is not God saying, oh man, I made a mistake, but this is God giving us a picture of the sorrow that He had. Over the wickedness of mankind on earth. That this is Moses writing in such a way that we would be able to understand some emotive capacity in a God who is who transcends our own human emotions here. And this is meant to cause us to understand just how serious the situation was here. So much so that God in the rest of chapter six, is going to announce and proclaim to Noah, Hey, a flood is coming and he's gonna tell Noah, you need to prepare this boat. And then we know the story in chapter seven, chapter eight the flood does come. And God is gonna preserve this family in order to ultimately preserve creation through the flood waters that are gonna come upon the earth. Okay. Thank you for that. And we're gonna back up and we're gonna just scoot this truck on. Back to verse one, which you conveniently did not talk about. We would like to know with definitive clarity, who the Nephilim are and who the sons of God are and what they're doing with the daughters of men. Here's the thing, I used to think the nephilim were the offspring of this union, of the sons of God and the daughters of men. Okay? But it clearly says in verse four, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days. Okay? So they were already there. The Nephilim were a race it appears of giants, of super humans. They were still human beings, but they were a massive race. We've seen examples of this or we will see examples of this later on. When you look at somebody like Goliath you look at these massive figures and the Nephilim were an offspring, a group of people genetically that were massive individuals it seems, and they were known to be mighty warriors as well. And so they were. Famous for this power. They're there during this time as well, but the sons of God, the best understanding I have is that these are fallen angels. These are angelic beings, demons that inhabited human bodies and came to cohabitate with. Daughters of men the human women and that they were confronted by God, they're gonna be punished. We just read recently, I think it's second Peter, talks about them being confined to chains of darkness and utter gloom. Mm-hmm. Jude talks about this as well. I think that's these sons of God, these angelic beings that are coming and cohabitating and going into the daughters of man. Okay. That's weird. It's horribly weird. And horrible on top of that, to borrow the words you just sent here. Okay. I so many questions that we have about this. Mm-hmm. Okay. I thought the Bible said that angels are neither married nor given in a marriage. And that's probably one of the most common proof texts against the interpretation that these are angels interacting in a physical way with humans. aNd that's where I would say, I think it's possession of human bodies. I think it's possession of fallen men, which goes to some of the wickedness that has taken place on the earth here, that these were wicked. Men that had given themselves over to being utilized and being possessed by demonic beings that use them for these purposes. So weird. Okay. Can this still take place? The reason why I would say no is only because of the dramatic punishment that we read about in second Peter and Jude, that these angels, these specific angels were thrown into this pit and confined to chains, and it seems that they're not free to roam the earth anymore. That they're not free to, to perpetuate these things anymore. That would seem to imply to me that this was a one-time thing and that this is not a common practice going on anymore. That this was like the pinnacle of fallen demonic activity that God said this is not gonna happen anymore. And so he's reserved them for an ultimate punishment that's yet to be dealt. That's inference from what I know of the rest of the passage and the rest of the text. Yeah. But that would be my conclusion. Okay. And you would say that the nephilim are a separate people to those who are the offspring of these two? It's my best read done on verse four, that they were already on the earth in those days when the sons of God came into the daughters of man. So it can't be that it's the offspring of them. Yeah, I guess the reading is, at least in the ESV is ambiguous. I'll have to take a look at that. But I've understood traditionally, most people see the Nephilim as the product or the result of these Yeah. Two different things. MacArthur and his one volume commentary agrees with that read that they're not the product, that they were there presently on the earth when this took place. Okay. Yeah, I don't know how some of the other translations render it, but I've heard it too. And that's why growing up, I had always heard. Yeah. The nephilim are the offspring of these sinful, fallen beings. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We could belabor this and I don't want to, I just wanted to clarify what you were saying. Alright. So we now need to go into the flood and I guess you can probably cover this in chapter seven and eight 'cause we need to talk about this. But we do have questions. Yes. Oh, there are questions. Yes, but I do have answers too. You have answers. I have answers, yeah. You have questions and have answers. So my take on this is I hold to the traditional view that this is a universal flood. I know there are opposing views to that. There are some that suggest that it was more local. But my position on it is a, I do believe that this is a universal flood because I believe that the problem of corruption was a universal problem. I don't believe that it was. Located only in the general region around where Noah was. I think this is an indictment against all of God's creation, all against all of humanity. And when we look at his plan for the creation mandate and some of the language repeated after Noah and his family leave the ark, it seems to be, this is a recapitulation of the creation narrative where Noah's being told, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. And so my position is that I do believe that this is a universal flood that is being described in chapter seven and eight. And God preserves Noah. And his family through the flood. What is interesting is if someone were to ask you, how long was Noah on the ark, you would say 40 days and 40 nights. Most people would, but it actually appears say that he was on the ark for about eight months when all was said, done. Close to a year maybe even some change. There's different calculations, but yeah. Yeah. That's a long time. Yeah. So the 40 days and 40 nights was how long it rained, but not how long the flood waters persisted on the earth. Yeah. The ESV study Bible and the. If I could read my writing here, there are two sources that suggest as long as 370 days on the ark after the accounting of the flood, and then the subduing of the flood as the earth took time to return back to normal. Yeah. Okay. So the scriptures say that everything on the earth shall die. And chapter seven we see some of the important features here. God's the one who shut him in. That's really important. Really cool God. God is the one who shut Noah and his family in there. Yep. Lots of people thought Noah was losing it and you'd have to understand where they're coming from because they hadn't had rain before the Earth to that point was producing moisture via the canopy, whatever. That was kind of a greenhouse situation. And so rain wasn't a thing for them. It wasn't until God told Noah, Hey, build this ark, here's what's gonna happen, that things began to materialize in this particular way. And so now another thing that stands out to me here in, in addition to the fact that God closed him in, and this is chapter eight. Well, we'll come back to this in a second here, but they were on the ark for a whole week before it started raining. Did you catch that? They were there for a whole seven days. This was a dramatic display of Noah's faithfulness. Verse 10, verse 10. After seven days after seven days, the waters of the flood came upon the earth. It was after, so there's seven days where he's waiting, just hoping, okay, I guess I'm waiting on God. Yeah. Noah is a man of faith and that's why he. He's considered a man of faith and this is why God preserves him. It is his faith that God honors and esteems. And of course the ark itself is a picture that would eventually point to Christ. All who are in Christ are saved from the flood waters of God's wrath and no one else outside of that, which is why we are exclusive when it comes to the gospel call. We believe that the gospel alone through Christ alone is the only way for someone to be right, because we have pictures and evidence of it everywhere beforehand. Okay. Here's my question and I think I have an answer, but let me just ask this question. Okay. For those who believe that the flood was a local flood, they have their reasons. Uh, Coal rats, all the earth mm-hmm. Is used in a lot of different ways in the Old Testament, and they'll say that sometimes it's used in ways that are non universal. Right. But to your point, is it possible that the earth at the time of Noah and Genesis chapter seven was Pangaea because then you could say, yeah, it's a local flood, but it has universal effect on everybody who's in that area. Because Mo, if most of the earth is water, would it really make all the difference then? Yeah. There's a genealogy coming up, I believe that's gonna talk about when the earth was divided. And there's a question, I believe it's, yeah. In chapter 10. Yeah. There's a question right before the Tower of Babel, right? Whether this was Pania or the Tower of Babel, I think it's probably Tower of Babel. Yeah. Same. It's possible. It's possible. It could have been panga at this time. Yeah. Because we never read about that in the scriptures, right? Scripture doesn't tell us, Hey, there was a panga and then the continental drift and all those things. What would you even say about? Is that legit? It's not anti-biblical to suggest that that could have happened. That there was a large singular continent that threw something as catastrophic, like a global flood would break off the continents and cause drift and now you see it today. If you see them on a map, they kind of fit. Right. I never thought about that prospect and that to me would make a lot more sense if God would say all the earth. He could mean that because all the physical land that was there was right there. Was there. Right. And he could cover the whole thing. Right. I haven't thought about that before. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I don't think I've considered that either, but it's possible for sure. Alright, thank you. Yeah. We rest our case. Alright. Should we jump over to the New Testament? Yeah, man, we're just having so much fun in Genesis. Okay. Genesis, so good. Keep reading, keep reading Genesis. Alright, Matthew, chapter three in our New Testament. Jesus has been born, he went to Egypt. Now he is back from Egypt and is settled there in the region of Nazareth. Now in chapter three, we are going to get into the earthly ministry of Jesus. So we're fast forwarding way far. Now we're fast forwarding almost 30 years depending on when he started his earthly ministry. But he's gonna have a forerunner before him. And that is John the Baptist. So John the Baptist is introduced here in chapter three, and he's gonna be coming with a message. Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven. And is at hand. This is the one who's gonna fulfill Isaiah's prophecy. That there would be one who is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths. This is John. And John is a bold character. John is a faithful man, a bold character to you. You preached on John recently in our men's Bible study just about how's a beast. John is a man of resolve and he's not afraid to. Take on the spiritual leaders of the day and even to call 'em to bear fruit and keeping with repentance and not to presume to say, well, we've got Abraham and this is a challenge to us to remember. God doesn't have any spiritual grandchildren. So if you are of the lineage of a family who's been faithful to the Lord, you were raised in the church. Your parents were raised in the church and everything else. Make sure your faith is your own and that there's evidence of that because it's not about your pedigree. And so we don't trace our. Tribal lineage the way that the Jewish people used to and say, well, we're good because we are part of the tribes of Israel, but we can trace our lineage through a godly family and say, well, I'm okay because I had godly parents and godly grandparents. It's not necessarily true. You've gotta have your relationship with Jesus. And so John is calling out the Pharisees saying, you're trusting in the wrong thing. You're trusting in your pedigree. Your pedigree is nothing. You need to repent and bear fruit in keeping with repentance for the kingdom of heaven. Is at hand, and John is setting up the arrival of Jesus, who does come on the scene in the rest of chapter three and is baptized by John in a, an interesting scene where he is doing this to identify with those that he came to save, not because he had any sin, but because he came to identify himself with the people that did have sin that he came to save. John's a fiery preacher. And this, even though I think most of our common sensibilities would not be excited about a preacher like John, if we were had the opportunity to listen to someone like him for example, someone like a Paul washer, perhaps that's not often a popular style of preaching. Yeah. And I think because there's a lot of reasons, but John, he shows that God uses people like this. Yeah. Certainly this is not the exclusive diet of God's people, but. There's a place for something like this, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna call the preacher on the corner and say, you shouldn't do this. This is rubbing people the wrong way. I remember seeing a video, in fact, of a preacher who is on the corner, and one of the thinking about whether or not I wanna say this now, a celebrity in our culture, in our area challenges him and says, do you think that this is doing any good? You calling people. They're going to hell, they're gonna be judged by God. And the street preacher says, I'm just doing what scripture, calls us to do and I'm being faithful to present the gospel. And so this person was vehement in their opposition to this street preacher to say, look, this is unhelpful. You're turning people off to Christianity, you're turning people away. This is not the right way to do things. John shows us at the very minimum that there are times when this is appropriate and right. And good. Yeah. Not saying every time, just saying that God shows us through John. There is a time. Okay. What would you say to that person? The celebrity who was saying, this is the wrong way to do things. You need to be more accommodating to our culture. Let me try again. He didn't say that. He said something to the effect of, look, if you wanna be effective, you have to be winsome. And this is the opposite of Winsome. You're universally calling people to repentance. You have no relationship. They don't know you. You're rubbing people the wrong way. You're yelling from this thing, you know, he's on a soapbox or whatever else. So he's making points that we would say, okay, that's a. Fair point, but is that enough to tell someone, Hey, don't street preach because this is gonna rub people the wrong way. I think we have to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. I think we have to be adaptable and flexible and if we find ourselves in a situation where we are creating more of a conflict where we are. Creating a more of a distraction in a negative sense than we are a positive sense. I think we need to ask ourselves, okay, maybe this isn't the most effective means of trying to reach this group and these people at this time, but I don't think we can paint a broad brush to say it's never effective, or we should never do it, or it's never an okay pursuit or at the earliest sign of opposition we have to bail. I think it's just a matter of, we've gotta examine our hearts and make sure that we're not the angry preacher, we're not the angry prophet standing up on the soapbox. And if. We have an opposition. Maybe it's we're willing to get down and have that. Truth and love conversation with that person. Yeah. And maybe that's what God wants us to do there. But yeah we need to be adaptable and flexible. It's a wise response. Okay. One final comment here on chapter three, and I just wanna point it out to you 'cause it'll be really helpful. As you read chapter four when he says this, verse 17, behold a voice came from heaven and said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And so, God the Father affirms his son Jesus. Which by the way, dad's take a note from. The Heavenly Father affirm your sons. Yeah. Let them know that you care about them and appreciate them and can encourage them. But you notice in chapter four, that's the very thing that the devil's about to attack. So heads up on that. Alright, well let's pray and then we'll be done with this third episode of our year here. Well, we are just in awe of your plan for human history from the universal flood to Jesus being baptized and just wrapping our minds around how we got from one point to the next point. And even that reminder that the ark is the deliverance, the ark is that source of salvation for Noah and his family and that ark is Christ for us who are in Christ. And Peter makes that comment in that equation as well, the or which. The ark, which corresponds to this baptism, which corresponds to this, which is the ark that union with Christ is what saves us, what delivers us from our sin. So we thank you so much that Christ came to be obedient to you. We even see that here in Matthew chapter three, with his submission to being baptized. We're so grateful for Christ obedience, which led him to the cross so that we might be declared righteous in your sight. And we pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, hey, you guys, keep going. You're doing a great job. You've got three in a row. This is a streak. We're going for four tomorrow. Come back tomorrow and tune in for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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