Hey everybody. Welcome back to Tuesday in another edition of The Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. We're glad that you made it to Tuesday. I know it's been a slow start to the week for some of us maybe, but hey, you're here and we are back with you with yet another question 'cause you guys keep sending it in. So, good job. We've got a question this time on the relationship between conviction. In condemnation. So it's a great question. It's perceptive question, and the questioner says this, how do you know if the feelings you are feeling are condemnation or conviction? And if they are condemnation, how do you move past the feeling knowing that we shouldn't feel condemned as Christians since our sin was paid for at the cross? Again, great question. I think one that all of us have wrestled with at one point in time or another, Romans eight, one does say there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. And yet one of the. Ministries of the spirit and the life of believers as Jesus talks about even in John 14, 15, 16, is that the spirit is there to convict us about things that are good and right and true. So I think the answer to this comes. Back to two figures. And again I'm borrowing this, I've referenced this sermon before, but Bobby Blakey preached a sermon called Everybody Feels Bad about Jesus. And I think we see the differentiation between conviction and condemnation in the life of two figures. And those two figures are Judas and Peter. Judas and Peter both did what was wrong. To differing degrees. Granted Peter denied Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus into the hands of the Pharisees and the scribes. But at one point in time, both of them felt shame over what they had done. Both of them felt the guilt over what they had done. One of them was realized through condemnation. The other was realized through conviction. Condemnation showed up with Judas in the fact that Judas went and ended up taking his own life in full out despair. He didn't demonstrate. Two Corinthians seven. That godly grief that leads to repentance, that godly grief that takes action against that, which leads to conviction or leads to guilt. That godly grief that seeks to separate ourselves from sin and shame and to clear our conscience from that by not doing it anymore. That's not what Judas did. Judas gave way to despair and took his life. You look at Peter, Peter felt bad. Peter wept. Bitterly over denying Jesus. And we understand that and knew that what he had done was wrong and knew that what he was had done was bad and he felt the guilt, he felt the shame over it. But that produced a conviction. And then in John 21, we see Peter restored by Jesus. And then we do see in the rest of Peter's life, this second Corinthians seven, setting himself to save rather than ever deny my Lord and Savior again. I'm gonna do everything I can to identify with him. I'm gonna identify with him publicly. I'm gonna even give my life for him. So I think. In those two characters, we see a little bit of a difference between condemnation and conviction. For us today, conviction should lead to a godly change. It should lead to repentance. It should lead us to say, I'm going to, whatever's convicting me I'm going to address that thing in my life, rather than send us into a spiral of despair that looks inward and kind of get so introspective that we just sit there in a pool of feeling like, I'm not worthy enough, I'm not good enough, and we don't move forward in the life change that should follow with the conviction. Yeah. To summarize that I'd say it this way. Conviction. Well, the difference between conviction and condemnation is best seen in its effect, how it results in something and where condemnation leads to shame and despair. Conviction leads to repentance and faith, and that's really when you're gonna know what you're dealing with. If you constantly are spiraling in shame, you will probably. Well, no, this is not of the Lord. This is me piling guilt and self-flagellation upon myself to atone for my sin in some way, shape, or form. And that's an ungodly response. And I think all of us know what this is like. We've all felt this before where it feels better to us to. Punish ourselves for our sin. There's something perverse that we enjoy about that makes us feel like we're paying for the sin, but that's not the way God wants us to react. The right response is not to punish ourselves for our sin. That's what condemnation is. The right response is to turn to Christ in repentant faith and say, Lord, thank you that you have. Forgiven me. And consequently, I'm not going to try to punish myself to pay and add more to what Jesus paid on the cross. That would be highly offensive. Instead, I'm gonna trust what your word says, and I'm gonna step forward in faith, dust myself off, and trust that you want me to take steps to grow in my faith, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Second Peter three. That's the job. That's our goal. So that's my short answer. To summarize what you were saying, I think we're on the same page. Yeah, that's great. If you've got further questions or clarifying questions on that, feel free to write 'em in and we'd be happy to address 'em. Well, let's turn to our reading for today, which is Judges three through five, and then we'll be in Luke chapter 7 31 through 50. So judges three, one through six the nations are left behind. It says here, to test Israel. This is a difficult one. It says, these are the nations. The Lord left to test Israel by them, that in all Israel, who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan it goes on. He says It was only an order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those that had not known it before. So. Part of the purpose in some of the nations that are there was to make Israel a warrior nation, that Israel would be a nation that would be able to defend itself because there was some amongst them that had soft hands. They had not built up the calluses because they were not part of the warrior generation. And so God is leaving opportunities for that here amongst them and. Part of the test is also, are they gonna be loyal to him? Are they gonna obey him? Are they gonna do what they should do and drive them out? And Israel is unfortunately going to do the things that are evil in the side of the Lord when we read in verse seven. And so the pattern the. Circular pattern here shows up right now. The rhythm, that's the word I was looking for, because Israel sins, God sends wrath in his wrath at this time, is they're going to go into captivity for eight years. They're gonna be held captive there, then they're gonna cry out for deliverance, and God is gonna show them mercy by raising up a judge for them. And this judge is off Neal. This is the son-in-law of Caleb. So oth Neil is going to be raised up to deliver the people and God is going to, Yahweh is going to use him to do just that, to rescue the people outta the hand of captivity. But one. Thing to note here as you read through is the time markers, because we can read through the book of judges and it just seems like, okay, we're gonna get through the book of judges in like a week, week and a half here in the daily Bible reading, and then we're gonna be done and move on. There's a lot of time going on here, so eight years of captivity. But notice in verse 11, there's 40 years of rest under oth Neil's reign. But then right away we get back to another failure with a hood, the left-handed judge. The people do evil. God delivers them over they're gonna be enslaved for 18 years this time. Then the people are gonna cry out again. Mercy, God's gonna deliver through ah, hood here. You've got Shamgar he's gonna raise up, and then we can get into to Deborah in just a second, but how about chapter three, pastor Out, anything else on, on there? No, I guess chapter three, the only thing I would say is that it's interesting that even though the period of the judges is largely because of Israel's failure, God still utilizes their failure to accomplish his good purposes. That's verse two. It's exactly what you were ta talking about. He'd left them to test Israel and order that they would learn war. So there's multiple things happening here. You'll notice the two wills, the will of Israel was to sin against the Lord and to be. Rebellious against his command, but the will of the Lord was to do good to them. Both of those things are true. At the same time, they committed evil. The Lord committed good. And even though this is not a good time in Israel's history, the Lord's will is still being affected even though they're sinning. Yeah. Well, judges chapter four, by the way, a ehud is just, it's always one of the stories that. Especially young boys, young men, really like the story of Ehud. So you can read that with your family if you'd like to, which maybe not at dinnertime. Judges four. We've got another situation where, once again, the people do evil in the side of Yahweh and eventually this just becomes non surprising to us. It's like, okay, yeah they're gonna do evil here. They're gonna be enslaved to the King of Canaan for 20 years, and then we're gonna have a unique judge arise. And this is Debra. So Deborah, it's described here in verse four for us as a prophetess, the wife of this man Lapidoth was judging Israel at the time. Now there's questions. Why is Deborah in this role? And there's a lot of speculation about that. People look at some of the other men that show up here in this account and it seems that there were quite a lot of weak men that were in, in the surrounding areas. And so perhaps people suggest that Deborah led because there weren't any men that were willing to step up and lead. And so God used Deborah in that unique role to lead the nation of Israel. Either way. Some will argue from Deborah that this is evidence of the fact that we should be okay to have women lead in the church. Women should have roles of leadership in the church. One caution I would give to that, besides the fact that we don't know exactly the context that led to Deborah being a judge, is that this is not the church and Deborah is not serving as a pastor, and there are New Testament commands that do explicitly. Prohibit that as far as women serving in ministry that we need to be careful about and make sure that we're not usurping by appealing back to this Old Testament covenant situation with Debra as a prophetess and as a judge and saying, well, she was a prophetess and a judge, so then we should have women pastors. I don't think those two things are equal, and that's all I wanna say about that. I don't wanna make this whole point about whether or not should have been in the role she is. God used her and used her in a powerful way. And he also used another woman in this account in jail. Jail is going to be the one that's going to kill cera because why? Well, because one of the other men during this time in Barrick was not willing to go to battle unless Debra went with him. Again, Barrick has weak leadership here, and so God is going to deliver Cice a into the hands of jail, and that's how he delivers Israel as well at the same time. In Judges chapter five, we get another song. We've seen quite a few songs so far in our Old Testament reading, and this is another one. And this is going to be a song that's going to sing the praises of of Deborah and jail and the praises of God's deliverance of the nation of Israel from the oppression that they were facing. The victory over the Canaanites is described there in verses 19 through 22. There's also e. Even some curses thrown in here. They curse arose, for example, in verse 23 for not joining in the battle and not helping. Verses 24 through 27, you get the blessings on jail for the ex execution of cice A and then in verses 28 through 30, interestingly enough, the morning of CSRA's family is included in there as well. So, Israel is celebrating again, why the songs? Because the songs were memorable. And so this was a mnemonic device, I think, to cause the people to remember this event so that they would remember how God delivers in the future. Interesting to note here that in this chapter what is missing is Judah and Simeon. I don't know why, I guess they didn't show up. That's my best guess. They weren't part of this whole ordeal, but Judah and Simeon are not mentioned. If you're following me and you're tracking the 12 tribes, they're not listed there. And not my best yet appear to the judges again. And things aren't going right. This is not the way things are supposed to be. Ideally, they're all working together. In fact, this is gonna be a problem later on because they're gonna say, who didn't show up? Okay, you didn't show up. We're gonna, we're gonna get you for that. Because there are certain things that they were to do together. And I do think one of the ways that people look at the peer to the judges is to think of it as regional cycles, as in the different people are experiencing suffering at different periods of time. Versus a universal kind of judger judging. Yeah. Which by the way, do, I don't know if we've defined judge yet. But my point is I think there might be a blend here. I think what might be happening is that there's both regional judges that are arising and there's also national judges, judges who are overseeing the whole of Israel, and some judges who are just seeing a part of Israel. That's my best read, and I can explain that to you later, but a judge is not what you typically think of as a judge. We're not talking about the Supreme Court or the local appellate. We're just talking about someone who leads Israel. In an executive capacity, who has the ability to make plans on their behalf. Now notice, remember Joshua died. So he is not on the scene. No sec. Centralized leadership judges are temporary, centralized leaders. They're not monarchs, they're not kings or queens. They're temporary rulers who lead the people of Israel or a portion of the people of Israel until the next leader arises. Well, let's flip over to our New Testament reading as we're gonna finish up. Luke chapter seven. In our reading today Luke chapter seven. Opens with Jesus visiting one of the Pharisees who actually asked Jesus to come and eat with him. So sometimes it's helpful for us to remember it wasn't always contentious between Jesus and the Pharisees. Here you have one of the Pharisees actually opening up his home and inviting Jesus to come and dine with him. And yet at this dinner, it appears that it was. Somewhat open because this woman is able to gain access to the room there where they are, and she begins to wet the feet of Jesus with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and kiss his feet and anoint them with ointment. Now there's gonna be another anointing that happens later towards the end of Jesus' life. We've talked about that, where the expensive vial of perfume was. Poured out on Jesus' head. This is not one in the same. This is different. And the Pharisee is there, and the Pharisee sees this happening. And the Pharisee, it says there, said to himself, notice that in verse 39, said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would've known who and what sort of woman this is, and who is touching him for she is a sinner. Now, it's likely that that was a euphemism for a woman of ill repute an immoral woman who. Parents, you can catch the drift on that. And so Jesus, in response there and again, this is significant, Jesus said to Simon, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he said go on teacher. And at this point, he doesn't realize that Jesus is about to call him out, but Jesus then gives a story, a parable here. And he tells him a story, a brief one, about a money lender who lent money out and he forgave the debt of two of the people that owed him. One was massively significant and the other one not so much. And he says to him, who will love him more? And the Pharisee answers correctly, the one who has forgiven much. And Jesus said, you're right that the one who has forgiven much loves much. And then he calls him out. He says, I walked into your house, you didn't do any of things. The things that you should have done for me as a guest in your home. And yet this woman, she came in and not only did she do these things to me, but she anoints it. She wet my feet, she washed my feet with her tears and wiped 'em with her hair, not a towel and a wash basin. And she kissed my feet on top of that. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven for. She loved much, but he was forgiven. Little loves little so. This goes back to our conversation from a couple of days ago, I think too on or yesterday on forgiveness of sins. It's not the fact that she loves that's earning or meriting her sins being forgiven, but it's evidencing the fact that her sins had been forgiven by Christ and her gra gratitude and in. Thankfulness for that. Right? I like the way that he puts that in verse 47. Her sins, which are many, he acknowledges that her sins are in fact great. This is not like, Hey, it doesn't matter. We've all stumbled in a lot of ways. Your sin is the same as my sin. It's not like that. He acknowledges and he notices her sins are many, and yet he doesn't pull punches with the acknowledgement of sin or the forgiveness. He says her sins are many. They're forgiven. That's incredible. All the sins that she committed, they're forgiven. And the reason why he knows this, and sometimes we don't know why. Jesus knows what he knows. It could just be his accessing his deity in some way. But here he tells us what, why. He knows what he knows for she loved much. Her love for Christ was all the evidence Jesus needed to declare. She's forgiven and I think it's gonna be the case for all of us. If you think of yourself as a great sinner, you will think of Christ as a great savior. There's no exception to the rule. If you think of yourself as a little sinner, you will think of Christ as a little savior. There's no exception to the rule. I will die on that hill. Our love for Christ is one of the best evidences of our genuine salvation from Christ. If there is a real transformation in the way that you feel about Jesus, that's going to be shown and that will demonstrate the fact that your sins have been forgiven. And one of the best evidence, in fact, I heard RC Sproul say this. I, well, I don't know. He probably said it, and now I think about this. It could have been somebody else, but something to the effect of. When someone was, it was sprawl. I'm thinking about it. It was sprawl. Someone asked him, how do I know that I'm a genuine Christian? And he said, do you love Jesus? Tell me about what you feel about Jesus. And he said, well, you know, he offered the Christian answer and sprawl gave him affirmation. He said, man you can't love Christ apart from his salvation. It's just not gonna happen. And so he was trying to encourage the young man because your love is there and it's real, and it's for the biblical Christ. That's a great. Comforting and assuring state of heart. And I think that's the point for me. She's got great sins, great love little sins, little love, regardless, wherever you find yourself from the spectrum. If you have a love for Christ because of the sins that he saved you from, man, that's a good place to be. That's the only place I wanna be, honestly. He says there at the end in verse 50, he says, go in peace. You. Your faith has saved you. And it is the word soso there. It's the word that we use for salvation. And he's affirming that with her and that's why one of the reasons is that we think that this was likely one of the women that. He's gonna talk about, we'll get there in tomorrow's episode that were some of the women the notable women though the women accompanying Jesus that supported him during his ministry. And so it's possible that this was even Mary Magdalene, although we don't know for sure because she's not given the name here in the text, but your faith has saved you. I believe that she then became one of the band of his followers here. And it certainly would seem that way given what you were just talking about, how much she expresses her devotion, her love for him in this act here. Well, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God, help us to love you that much. Again, as Pastor Rod was just saying, yes, to be mindful of our sin, to be mindful of how much we've been forgiven so that we will love you in response to that Lord. Not to merit it, not to earn it, not to justify it, but simply to respond to it because of the overwhelming nature of our depravity and your kindness, your grace, your mercy to us. So again, we pray that you would make us more like Jesus with each and every passing day as we seek to love Him with all that we are. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep those Bibles y'all, and tune in again tomorrow. Midweek is upon us for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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