Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello, hello, hello. We're all three back with you for another riveting episode. Hey, we haven't been getting very many questions written into the podcast, so if you have questions out there that, or your pastors at the church have done just such an excellent job of answering all of your questions on all facets of life, bible theology that you have nothing else to offer that's fine too. But I just figured if you do have questions. I'd remind you, you can write 'em into podcast@composix.org. I have several people with questions who wanted me to ask you? I, number one, okay. Why do you hate tacos? What is number two? What's your problem? Number three, will you repent of this? Number four, why do you hate tacos? I didn't say I hate tacos. I said I wasn't a fan of street tacos. They've grown on me a little bit. I still don't ever find myself craving street tacos. So. And there were lots of people in that room that morning, that infamous morning who heard your statements and their hearts broke. Well, you should have seen the letters we got. I know the letters piles threatened to pile leave. The church Kelly's desk was just covered. Yeah, yeah. Well, there were tears, bro. Hey, we had some. Political developments in our state, and I know Pastor Mark, you particularly are, not that we don't care about politics, but I know it's very much been on your radar a lot. And so let's talk a little, the shoe fits a little bit about this guy James Alco, because our people may hear things like, oh, well he's a Presbyterian pastor, he's a Christian, he's a believer. W we would take some issue with that. He's been all over social media lately. He has my ex feeded has been filled with clips and sound bites of him, you know, saying things here and there. Pastor Mark, what are some of your thoughts? How should we think about this? I know on the Republican side, we've got some other things going on too. Now. We've been accused of being a MAGA podcast in the past, and, uh, I, I do want to make it abundantly clear to those listening unapologetically. We, I think all three of us across the board would side. On the right side of the political aisle on things. And that shouldn't be shocking to anyone listening to this. That's who we are. And by the way, this podcast again is really for our church. And I think by and large our church is there as well. So, if you wanna turn us off, you can turn us off. That's fine. But Pastor Mark, I'd love to get some of your thoughts here on what's going on with Tallarico specifically. Yeah. Tall Rico is definitely an interesting figure. I think that he's very deceptive. He's very deceptive. He sounds different than Crockett, who he kind of unseated I think that. Crockett was very vocal, very much an agitator. And I think he is a very different demeanor. And, there's the Texas nice and I think Tele Rico fits that. He also claims to be, well, I guess it's an accurate claim in some sense, but he claims to be a seminarian. He claims a theological grounding. For a lot of what he talks about. And in fact a personal theological grounding. 'cause he says he's gone to seminary, down in Austin, I believe. And so he uses those terminologies, those words, those languages that you and I might use and might be familiar with. The problem is if you listen to him for really even a few moments, you'll be quickly confused by the way in which he applies some of these theological ideas that, that he espouses. Not just confused, but I mean they're just wrong. He clearly is taking, this is a great example of somebody that's reading our present culture into the Bible and using a hermeneutic of. A political movement to try to interpret what Jesus actually was dealing with. Yeah. One of the things I saw him talk about and I don't have a ton of details on this, I just saw a brief clip, but he talked about how Jesus was only ever corrected once by a woman. No man, that's this. Your Venetian woman. Yeah. No man ever corrected. Jesus, but wow, what an amazing thing that Jesus didn't know something and a woman was the one that helped him understand these things. Well, obviously if we understand the divinity of Jesus we'll quickly be I used the word confused, but you're right. We'll immediately be like, oh, that is. Not correct. Right there. There's not a point in time when Jesus is corrected by any woman or any man, in fact, right. Because he is divine. But that language and that way of talking is enticing. Sure. It's especially when you are tired of, and you know, there's. There's definitely things to criticize about Trump, and I think one of those things is the tone and the rhetoric that he uses, right? If you're tired of those things, then you are going to probably likely be ready for something like that, a kinder voice, right? Uh, and so I think. We actually face somewhat of a risk with this election because I think a lot of Texans are gonna go, oh, he sounds like a Christian. Yeah, he, he talks about the Bible and that's, and he's much nicer. He's much nicer than Crockett. He's much nicer than a lot of these people that we've seen. And so I think we're in for a particularly heated race here. It's also interesting on the other side of the aisle Ken Paxton, who didn't quite beat the incumbent, has. Has a number of um, I don't know, personal flaws. Yeah, moral failings. Yeah. And it'll be interesting, and Mueller talked about this on the briefing, so I highly recommend listening to him today if you're interested in this more. But he talked about how it's gonna be an interesting dynamic here in Texas if the Democratic guy seems nice and friendly and wholesome. Oh, undoubtedly. And Ken Paxton is his opponent who has. His share of moral failing. So, yeah. And just for you as a Christian listening to this, if you're thinking, well, he claims to be a Christian, we should identify with this, and who cares about what side of the aisle they're on? He's an advocate for abortion. Mm-hmm. And even argues that the Old Testament law teaches how a woman should go about having an abortion, which is again, an unbelievable twisting and perversion of the scriptures. His comment about the Sian woman, that she's the only one to ever teach Jesus anything, that's a reference to when she came to Jesus and begged him to heal her daughter. And Jesus said, it's not right to give the children's food to the dogs. And she said, yes, but even the dogs eat the crumbs. That's what. Arico is saying she was teaching Jesus something. There. Nothing in the text ever says that rather Jesus commence her faith and then says, go your daughter is healed. Jesus didn't learn anything. He is undermining the deity of Christ by a statement like that. And so, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Not only should he not be anywhere near a political. Lectern, he should be nowhere near pulpit either. This man is dangerous in any way, shape, or form that, that we could communicate. He's a danger, he's a threat. And you're right. He looks clean cut. He looks like somebody that you'd want to hang out with and invite to a ball game, but he is no one that we want anything to do with. Yeah and let me say too you should go and vote. In the general election this fall, these things matter. These elections have consequences immensely, and so you should go and vote and I obviously think there's places where your conscience may, you know if Paxton is the the guy that may be an issue of your conscience. But it's gonna be a challenging thing to pick between him and who you just described, right? Oh, totally. Somebody who is very much against the things that we're against and ultimately the things that God is against. And there's never we talked about this before, there's never a perfect candidate. Never every candidate is gonna be a sinner. So often it really does truly come down to we as Christians voting for the lesser of two evils and that candidate, which aligns most with the principles that we find in the Bible. As explained in the Bible we're gonna have to give an account someday when we stand before the Lord for how we stewarded our citizenship. And that counts for how we cast our votes. Mm-hmm. So we need to be mindful of that. We need to participate, we need to be active in these things. God, a sovereign, he's gonna put in charge who he wants to put in charge, and yet at the same time, he's given us the ability and the right to be able to go and cast a vote. And that matters. And you may think, does it matter here in a state like Texas? It does. And here's evidence of why. If we take. The backseat approach to say, well, my vote doesn't really matter because Texas has always been red. It's not gonna be long before Texas turns purple, and then potentially Texas turns blue. So, we need to be careful and we need to be on guard, not afraid, but we need to use our minds. We need to vote according to the scriptures, and we need to take advantage of the rights that God has given to us as citizens. All right. Well if you don't like political talk, it's your fault 'cause you didn't write any questions into us. So you can write questions podcast@compassantix.org. Well, I like politics so you do. I guess you do. I dunno. You can complain to me. There we go. All right, well, let's jump into our daily Bible reading. Deuteronomy chapters one and two and Mark 11, one through 19. Deuteronomy is obviously brand new book that we're starting here, and we are, this is the last bit of Moses that we're gonna get because this is the last book in the Pentitude, the first five books of the Bible sometimes called the Torah or the. And so Deuteronomy second law, deutero meaning second, namas meaning law. So this is gonna be a lot of going back over stuff that we've read, but in these first two chapters, we're not doing that. We're really continuing on this preparation bent that Moses is on to get the people of Israel ready to enter the promised land. And one of the things that he's going to do, one of the things that I really appreciate that he does here besides in, in chapter one, appointing leaders and making sure things are organized, but beginning in verse one or verse 19 of chapter one Moses is going to. A lot of the history of Israel, he's going to take this generation that is again, the generation about to enter the promised land and remind them this is where we've come from. This is everything God has done. And so as you get ready to enter the promised land, remember these things. Don't forget these things. Remembering history is such an important thing for all of us. Those that forget history as it has been said or doomed to repeat it. And I think Moses is just reminding this generation saying, don't. Don't be foolish like the generations that had come before. But remember what God has done, trust God. And as you prepare to enter the promised land know that he's the same God for you, that he has been throughout this whole time from back in Egypt all the way through. Yeah, I think remembering these things is really important and we need to apply that in our own lives. We need to, when we're facing a challenge, when we're facing something that frightens us, the first thing we need to do. Is, remember how God has been faithful to us? How is he taking care of us In the past, you know, when there was financial scares in the past, he took care of you when there was health scares in the past, he took care of you. But I would even go as far as looking back at Deuteronomy chapter one, you know, when you are facing personal struggles, look back at how the God of Israel. Cared for his people and how he did these things, like bringing them out of Egypt and how he cared for them in the wilderness and on and on and on. So even go as far back as that. Yeah, it's such an important point because we so quickly forget maybe not intentionally, maybe not even. We can still say, oh, I remember what Deutero. One says, but we forget to connect the dots for ourselves. Mm-hmm. And notice how God is constantly, actively working on our behalf. And one of the ways that we do that, thankfully God has encoded this for us, between two covers. We have these nice leather bibles in front of us where you can look back at what God has done. The problem is not that we don't have access, the problem is that we just don't practice that access and recall these things. If we did. We would certainly feel different. Yeah. One of the things that I find particularly encouraging, speaking of that it, given the world stage right now and everything that's happening with geopolitics and Iran and everything else it's tempting for us to say, man, it feels somewhat chaotic. But I want you to look at chapter two verses 20 and 21, because this stood out to me even when I was reading it this time. It said this, it's also counted as a land of em, em formally lived there, meaning giants. That's a reference to these people that were large giants, similar to the Nephilim. But the Ammonites call them this word that I'm not gonna try to butcher on, on, on site here. But the wicked ones is basically what it comes down to. And then verse 21 A people great and many as tall as the chem, but the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites and they dispossess them and settled in their place. Man, we don't. We don't know when that took place, but it says the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites. It that, notice that word ammonites. It's not Israel. It doesn't say the Lord destroyed them before Israel. This is such a reminder to us that God is sovereign over the affairs of the nations. God is orchestrating nation against nation and everything else like that. He is seeing fit to do what he sees, right? And so here. God is fighting on behalf of the Ammonites against the Anakin, and we don't know why. We don't know everything that happened here. We don't have all the details there, but this is another reminder for us that God is intricately involved in the things of this world that can be a comfort to you. As you sit here and you look at everything unfolding in this world going, is anyone really in control right now? The answer is yes. God is abundantly and absolutely in control, and even down to the individual. It's not just that he's corporately in control over nations, sovereign sovereignly overseeing them, but also. Over individual lives. And one that I don't want us to miss before we transition to the next chapter or even to the New Testament here is in Deuteronomy one, verse 39. We are good to remind ourselves here of how God deals with his people. Look at verse 39. It says, as for your little ones who you said would become a prey, and your children who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there to the promised land. And what we see here is that God is making a distinction between those who are old enough to understand and violate his covenants versus those who don't. Well, we don't have an age here. It just says they don't have knowledge of good and evil. Which to me sounds like a pretty young person. It's a young age where your kids can say, yes, this is good, this is bad. Then maybe the moral category of evil and good is probably a little older than that. But I think here we see God does make a distinction. This isn't enough to build a whole theology off of, to say that this is exactly how God deals with people in all places and at all times. But I do see the principle here laid out pretty clearly. The consequences are for those who knew what they were doing as evil. Jonah four 11 is a another verse that supports that idea and it says this, and should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left. And so that would also give evidence to the fact that God is saying that youthfulness that young age where they can't, they don't know right from left. For some of us, you might be sitting there going, wait a minute, which one? You're making the L with your hand. You're going, wait, do I know mine yet? And so we don't, to your point, we can't point to a specific age here, but it does show that God is merciful towards those that may have more of an ignorance and a just ignorance over his ways and who he is than others. Yeah. It's probably less an age for each person, but just a moment in time when you become aware this is not just disobedience to mom and dad. This is an evil act that I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. It's an important thing. We talk about the age of accountability, but it's probably not the most helpful way to talk about that because you can't just say, oh, it's eight. Right. It's not true. Some people take a lot longer to develop and some even because of other reasons outside of themselves right? May not develop until that age, till much later. Sure. There are physical and mental incapacities that make this really hard, and so it's better to think about this in terms of God knows, and there's an age and stage whereby a person becomes accountable before God. It's not that they're not accountable beforehand, it's that God makes a concession to that age and stage whereby he doesn't treat them the same way because he's a good and just God. And may I suggest if you have young kids, not to say you're looking for an age of accountability, but as a way of knowing your kids and as a way of caring for them. Look for when they begin to express grief, that is not directly the result of them getting a consequence or them getting in trouble. Yeah. Look for that in their lives. When do they express grief over these things? That is kind of separate from the sequence of events that have happened, and I do think that's an important developmental point. And I also think that's a, it's their conscience, you know, blossoming or however you wanna put it, right? Mm-hmm. I think that's a helpful thing to be looking for as a parent. Yeah. Yeah. And I know our reform brothers and sisters will say, well, this is why we baptize our babies, because that places them under the protection of the covenant, and that puts them inside God's saving purview until that age where then they're, but they're in the same position that we are. They don't know when that age of accountability quote unquote is, or when that stage is. They're still looking for more of a stage than an age. There and here we see that God's doing this, even with gentile nations. He's not doing this just with those that are part of Israel. He's showing mercy to those young. That are part of pagan nations, even with Nineveh in the mm-hmm. The Book of Jonah. So, to stretch it, to say, well, that's what infant baptism does. It brings the child into the covenant. I know a lot of times I believe there's a passage in First Corinthians, second Corinthians, maybe where they points you to, to compare baptism and circumcision. I I don't see the connection there. I think God is fair and just towards those that don't have that ability to know. And I think we see that testified to here in the Old Testament with Israel, but also with the Ninevites as well. Yeah. And just going back to what we read, right, they have no knowledge of good and evil. Yeah. I think that's helpful. Yeah. All right, let's jump over to New Testament to Mark chapter 11. And we get to deal with the Triumphal entry, triumphal entry, which is a familiar text to us, one that we're tempted to read and just think, okay, we've read this before. We know what happens. We read it in Matthew when we were in Matthew earlier this year. And so we find it again here in Mark's gospel. One of the helpful. Things that Mark points out though is the passage of time. And so if you look on down towards verse 11, he entered Jerusalem. So this is after the entry, this is after the palm branches. This is after the Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus enters Jerusalem and he went into the temple and it says there, when he looked around at everything as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12. I can't remember if it's Matthew's Gospel or perhaps one of the other gospels that don't record this passage of the night between the arrival and the cleansing of the temple. But Jesus is intentional Here. It, we mark records for us and tells us Jesus went into the temple, which is what he's about to go and cleanse, which is the rest of our text here that we're reading today, he enters on. At night after the triumphal entry, and he looks around and he sees the money changers, he sees what's taking place. He understands the scene. Not that he didn't understand the scene as God, but then he goes home and he's gonna come back the next day, and that's when he is gonna cleanse the temple. And so Mark gives us some added detail here that's helpful for us in the timeline of what's taking place during this passion week, from the time that Jesus enters to the time that his crucifixion is gonna take place. I think it's important to see here that you have another sandwiching event that Mark is creating for us. Jesus cursing the fig tree on Monday in verses 12 and through 14, and then that next section in verses 20 through 25, he explains what the lesson is. Well in between those two pieces of bread. You have Jesus cleansing the temple, and so it seems as though Jesus is equating the fig tree with the temple at Jerusalem. Yeah. The temple showcasing little to no fruit and therefore mm-hmm. It is under Jesus' judgment. And so you see a really beautiful, and I think this is partly why he separates this, because he's trying to create some. Clarity about what this fig tree represents? Yeah. I just have to point out, going back a little bit, but I just have to point out that I, I don't think people here are confused about what's happening here. This isn't just some random celebration. This isn't just the people suddenly being like, oh, this guy, this guy is. Worthy of all this celebration and of all this festivities, I think they're very much looking at this in light of what Solomon did as he entered and took his throne in First Kings. And I think they're seeing correlations between these two things. Even the very fact that he's on a donkey. So I just wanna point that out because there was a point in my life where I just thought this. Kind of seemed random. It kind of seemed like the celebration was kind of picked at random. But it very much is not. Yeah. The Old Testament of course, Zacharia too. And Zacharia prophesize and says, behold, your king is coming to you lowly and mounted on a donkey. Jesus in, I think we talked about this back in, in the Matthews account too, Jesus is no longer shying away from his designation as the Messiah. He's stepping into it fully and understands that and what he's doing here is he's signaling, he is the messianic king. And yet in the divine twist that God has, he's not the king that they expect. Mm-hmm. He's not going to be the type of deliverer that they're looking for. At least not yet. He will be, but not yet. And that goes back to again, why he's cleansing the temple. He's saying you guys have missed the point on so much of what's happening here. This is a broken system, and the way it's working is not the way it's intended to work. I'm here to be the fulfillment of all of these things, the fulfillment of the temple, the fulfillment of the sacrifice, everything else. And yet it's gonna look different than what you expect it to look even for the disciples. We know that from Luke's Gospel, not to get too far ahead, but they were crushed after the death of Jesus. They didn't get it. And they didn't understand, and they did eventually, but he's not shying away. He's saying, I'm here. I'm the Messiah. I'm the king. Yes. Cry out Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Compare that to earlier in Mark's the gospel where he had over and over and over and over and over again, said, don't tell anybody what you've seen. Don't tell anybody what's taking place here. Jesus isn't shy away. Now he's here to be that king in that Messiah. All right, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Lord, thanks for the richness and the depth of your word that every time we come to it, we can learn something new about who you are, that we can appreciate something different. Lord, even as we were talking about earlier in this episode, that we can be comforted by going back and remembering who you are and who you were with Israel as the same God that you are today. Even though you operate differently through the, our relationship with you and the church, you are still by character and who you are the same God, and we can trust you in the same way. So, uh, pray that you would. Make our faith robust in you that we wouldn't be paralyzed with anxiety about anything, be it elections or the war going on or anything else, but that we would trust in who you are, in your goodness and your character, and seek to be faithful to you through it all. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We'll keep reading those bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye bye-bye. See ya.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. We’re grateful you chose to spend time with us today. This podcast is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in North Texas. You can learn more about our church at compassntx.org. If this podcast has been helpful, we’d appreciate it if you’d consider leaving a review, rating the show, or sharing it with someone else. We hope you’ll join us again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.